Why California's Lost Highway is Now Underwater

in most cases when a dam is built the vast area flooded with water is stripped Barren of any signs of human life homes are demolished roads are ripped up and graves are exhumed but in the case of one California Dam these measures were not fully embraced and Relics from another time appear when the water level Falls a lost section of Highway 99 which was last traversed by the Model T almost a hundred years ago reveals its Eerie Road surface a metal Trestle Bridge crowns above the water line and almost seems as if it were built yesterday and perhaps most unusual are the submerged tunnels including Central Pacific railroads tunnel number six which becomes passable by boat when the water levels are at their lowest so how did this unusual spectacle come to be and what other Secrets remain underwater join me to find out because today we discover what's below Shasta Lake I'm your host Ryan sokash and you're watching it's history [Music] there was a time when California looked different from today in fact had European settlers not engineered the environment it wouldn't be possible to sustain such a massive population before the arrival of European settlers and the establishment of our known recorded history of this region thousands of years were characterized by the presence and activities of the indigenous people who lived in the area long before modern civilization this was the traditional territory of several Native American tribes these tribes had distinct cultures languages and Lifestyles and their ancestors inhabited the area for Millennia during pre-history indigenous people relied on Hunting Fishing Gathering and some limited agriculture to sustain their communities they used the Region's natural resources including plants animals and waterways to meet their needs for food clothing shelter and tools archaeological evidence found in this area such as artifacts and ancient settlements provides an interesting insight to the ways of these lost people that being said when European settlers arrived the natives faced a relatively immediate loss of land and culture disruption followed by a population decline due to the spread of diseases and resource competition the Region's population was growing stably but once the Gold Rush happened California's population surged and the state realized it would face a resource scarcity of its own potable water you see in the early days Rivers streams Lakes Springs and even primitive desalination methods were sufficient to keep the people alive however as cities formed a far more extensive water supply was required and the only possible solution was the construction of dams to build the water reservoirs needed to keep the population sustained in fact these Solutions were already tested at a much smaller scale to support the Region's mining as far back as the 18th century one early water reservoir of node in California is the mother ditch which is one of the oldest Water Works in the Los Angeles area it was built in the late 18th century to supply water for irrigation and domestic use to the growing population Center of Los Angeles the mother ditch was a simple open-air Canal that brought water from the Los Angeles River to the early settlement another early water reservoir is the Old Mission Dam built in 1804 by Native American laborers under the direction of Spanish missionaries the dam is located near San Diego and was constructed to create a water supply for the San Diego Mission however in the late 19th and early 20th centuries larger scale reservoirs were built as a part of the water management and infrastructure projects of the time such as the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the California state Water Project these later projects led to the construction of significant reservoirs like the San Luis reservoir Folsom Lake and Shasta Lake these larger reservoirs became critical components of California's water supply and management system serving multiple purposes including water storage flood control and hydroelectric power generation these reservoirs were necessary but they came at a rather extreme price the demolition of communities and the devastation of infrastructure you see the idea of constructing a large Dam on the Sacramento River to control flooding and store water for irrigation and power generation was proposed as early as the 1930s after several years of planning and feasibility studies the project gained momentum even if there was the expected pushback from the communities that would be submerged as a result for example Kenneth was a company Town built by the Kenneth copper Corporation to support its mining operations it was located on the north side of the Sacramento River near the future site of Shasta Dam when the reservoir filled kennet was submerged beneath the Waters of Shasta Lake Baird was another small community on the Sacramento River's North side near Kennett the dams construction also impacted it and it was eventually underwater as well Keswick was a mining town near the Confluence of the Sacramento River and the Kenswick Reservoir which was later incorporated into Shasta Lake kenzwick was gradually abandoned as the dams construction progressed and the remaining structures were eventually submerged Summit City was a mining town near the McLeod River a major tributary of the Sacramento River the city was abandoned during the early stage of the Dam's construction and naturally its remains have also been lost under this Eerie Lake old Shasta a town known as Shasta City was once a bustling Gold Rush era Town located near the present-day Shasta dam site the city was an important commercial and Cultural Center in the mid-19th century however by the time the dam was built old Shasta had already declined in population and importance some of its historic buildings and structures remain today but Shasta Lake in inundated portions of the Town anyhow once the U.S Congress authorized the Central Valley Project in 1935 funding and work would almost immediately be delayed due to the later onset of World War II even so the construction of Shasta Dam officially began in 1938 with work continuing throughout the war at a somewhat limited capacity then after the end of World War II construction efforts were accelerated to meet California's growing water demands an ocean vastly supported by the post-war economic boom at the time of its construction Shasta dam was the second largest concrete dam in the United States surpassed only by Hoover Dam Shasta Lake with a maximum capacity of over 4.5 million acre feet of water remains an essential component of California's water supply and Water Management infrastructure the Dam's construction and the formation of Shasta Lake have played a critical role in supporting agriculture providing flood control and supplying hydroelectric power to the region however since the war effort put a strain on available Manpower the area of the lake was not sufficiently cleared of existing structures meaning that unlike most Reservoir Lakes Shasta beholds many Treasures under its water and when the water level Falls they reappear believe it or not one of the Lake's makeshift boat launches is a disregarded portion of California route 99 because this section of the road is a decline it makes the perfect boat launch regardless of the water levels to the people who built it this would have been an unimaginable sight as before the road Californians relied on a series of narrow winding country roads unsuitable to the increasing traffic and growing Transportation needs of the region hence any Innovation was treasured the precursor to sr99 was initially designated as a part of Route 4 in 1909. lrn 4 was one of the original state highways and it connected Los Angeles to Sacramento running through the Central Valley the route was mostly unaffected by the Dam's construction but from reading the highway went through the small town of mountain gate before plunging into what is now Shasta Lake in drought years many of the old Bridges Road cuts and guard rails can be seen when the water in the lake recedes after passing what is now Shasta Lake the highway had to be designed around challenging terrain the Sacramento River Canyon was a big task to overcome but to this day many bridges can still be found and visited reminding us of how far our engineering has come at the base of one bridge is an inscription of its completion from 1925 meaning this nearly 100 year old bridge segment reminds us of a time when Transportation was still rather primitive apparently it's still passable by four-wheel drive the other curious thing about the Lost sex sections of Route 99 is that they appear and disappear infrequently enough that the public has time to forget about its existence and therefore everyone is surprised at each occurrence such was the case when the times Advocate reported on the structure 1978 reading quote visitors to the Sacramento River near the lake shore in Reading must have done a double take Wednesday with the apparent disappearance of the roadway Bridge four months ago the bridge stood clear above the riverbed on Wednesday a 100-fold increase in Shasta Lake water level submerged the structure it's challenging to determine the condition of the many lost roads beneath the lake but using this map for comparison can give us a powerful imagination about it starting just adjacent to the dam was Kennett Road a major through Fair astonishingly the road matches its exact route until Dead ending in the water it appears that parking lots were added to the framework of this historic Road and then when the water level changes massive portions of this Relic disappear across the lake and along the ridge of backbone Creek is a dirt road leading into Kenneth although not as significant as the previous Road it would have also traveled directly to the heart of town but today it disappears on the edge of a cliff apparently there was also a road leading down to the creek from the Old Quarry although the area has traces of what I presume to be a path maybe an Old Road it Fizzles out almost instantly upon descending the hillside although these lost roadways do leave an eerie impression it's the submerged Railway infrastructure that really gets my imagination going have a look at this newspaper clipping from the Kennett train station in the late 19th century it offers a complete overview of just how Monumental some of these towns were with massive buildings and electrical grid and a population large enough enough to justify rail Works to access this mountain Region's Central Pacific Railroad created several tunnels that are now underwater such as the case with tunnel number six which is easily viewed in the muddy river below the nearby Lakeshore Drive the tunnel is accessible but about half filled with silt the construction of tunnel number six was an impressive engineering achievement in its own right as it involved drilling through solid rock hand work by laborers and using explosives to create a passage for the tracks it was completed in the late 1860s during the building of the first Transcontinental Railroad which was officially completed on May the 10th 1869 when the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met at the Promontory Summit in Utah when this California section of the network was to be flooded in the 1930s the railroad company built new sections of the track away from the affected areas this involved surveying land clearing a path for the the new tracks and Building Bridges and tunnels as necessary to navigate the Region's rugged terrain likewise tunnel number three also a part of the Central Pacific railroads route was submerged under the lake like tunnel number six it was a significant engineering feat constructed to allow the passage of trains through the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains then we have the Pitt River Bridge a series of trestles and tunnels which was built on the Southern Pacific railroads route over the pit river near the present-day location of Shasta Lake according to the transportation Library when it was built this double decked Bridge was the world's highest double decked bridge for both Railroad and vehicle traffic it also displayed new concepts of earthquake effects and design methods essential elements in the bridges design included the record-breaking 350-foot Central Pierce introducing earthquake resistant factors cooling the main Piers concrete and unique construction methods like reinforcing 11 million pounds of rebar such Innovations were shared with the engineering community Through Professional Publications such as civil engineering one fascinating observation you can make when admiring this old image of the Bridge Under Construction is that the historic Bridges which were also submerged were visible when the reservoir was being filled you see if we refer back to our map from earlier we can see that the train ran parallel to the Sacramento River it would have passed directly through the present-day Dam zigzagging its way up the valley and occasionally crossing the Sacramento River via these beautiful bridges the Pollock bridge is the most stunning example of this as when it appears it looks so well preserved that it might as well have been finished yesterday these Bridges and tunnels occasionally become visible when the water is at its lowest meaning boaters need to avoid crashing over the top of them and kayakers can pass through what would otherwise be a fully submerged train tunnel so as you can imagine with such unusual sights this lake has become a major tourist attraction for curious minds but it's also become a place of danger for most people the presence of abandoned underwater structures adds an element of Allure to the already unusual Lake many tourists come for the outdoors and Recreation but history lovers have also been flocking to the area for decades for example the Sacramento Bee reports that back in 1970 the U.S forest Service offered a unique water tour of the bully Hill copper mine where tourists had a chance to visit an old copper mine and Sunken City from the good old days guides would tell visitors where they were in proximity to what was beneath them stating quote you're passing over copper City population 5000 covered with almost 300 feet of water after the cities were flooded it did didn't take long for accidents to occur some common types of accidents at the lake include boating accidents drownings slips and falls and other water-related incidences now some of these cases have been somewhat mysterious in 1976 a fisherman near the gas stocks at Jones Valley reported that he hooked what he thought might be a dead body 90 feet under the Lake County Sheriff's officials said he reeled in after pulling loose a snag and he said he found what appeared to be two pounds of muscle because it smelled bad the man threw it back and called the authorities Lake Shasta offers us an appreciation for skill in the sense that this relatively small Reservoir conceals so much history from forgotten elements of the first Transcontinental Railroad to entire towns that will be lost forever now for those of you who'd like to see more I posted exclusive images of what's been lost beneath the lake in the YouTube member area so click that join button to check them out and help support the channel until next time thank you for watching this is Ryan socash signing off

Channel: IT'S HISTORY

Views: 454,123

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Id: QDcxI6-8aY8

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023