drowning of big meadows: Nature's managers in progressive-Era California, The

Environmental History, Jan 1999 by Teisch, Jessica

That same year, the Earls solicited the financial backing of Frank L. Brown and Harley P. Wilson of San Francisco. In 1904, Brown and Wilson enticed Edwin Hawley of New York, president of the Western Pacific Railroad, to invest in GWP. Hawley then attracted a group of New York and Boston financiers, including Colonel Frank H. Ray, vice-president of the American Tobacco Company; A. C. Bedford, later president of Standard Oil; James H. Wallace, president of the Central Trust Company of New York; and Clarence Mackay, whose father had made his fortune in Nevada's Comstock mines. The project also attracted the attention of John R. Freeman, a prominent engineer from Rhode Island, as well as Southern Pacific Railroad's Henry E. Huntington.'

As the New York and Boston syndicate transferred their assets from Nevada and California mining to power projects, the promise of white coal's unlimited power took hold. Envisioning a system of dams and power plants, GWP planned to harness the North Fork of the Feather River to send electricity cityward. The North Fork subsequently became California's greatest producer of hydroelectric power, and Big Meadows the largest man-made lake in the world at that time. The doctrine of prior appropriation of water rights and power of eminent domain bestowed on them the great prize that was to become Lake Almanor.9

Achieving "economical power everlasting" did not come easily to GWP, however. Obtaining land posed a problem, and the town of Prattville in the southeast corner of Big Meadows an even larger one. Not only did residents believe their town to be safe from corporate takeover, but they wholeheartedly bought into the myth that they would own lakeside property once the rest of Big Meadows was flooded. They lost no time in making considerable improvements to their properties, refurbishing the Bunnell Hotel and constructing an ice cream parlor, restaurant, and store in the summer of 19o2. In 19o4, the hotel had to turn tourists from San Francisco away, and the stage line from Stirling "was scarcely sufficient to provide transportation for the great number of visitors." Assemblyman W. J. Costar even began advertising "Costar's Addition" lots to unsuspecting visitors, boasting of the "pur[e] and health-giving" lake they would soon border. GWP thus faced the dilemma of increased settlement in the valley at a time when it wished to limit tourism, and worse yet, settlement. The company eventually acquired and closed the two hotels in Prattville, eliminating a major source of revenue for the town.lO

In 19o6, GWP enlarged its plans for the reservoir and declared its interest in west-side properties in Big Meadows, including some in Prattville. The company had tried at various times "to secure possession of [the town,] but failed." GWP succeeded only after July 4, 1909. While the entire town attended a picnic and baseball game one mile away, a fire mysteriously wiped Prattville "out of existence." One report claimed that "fireworks set off in the rear of the [Abbott store] by Indians" precipitated the fire. Not surprisingly, town residents blamed GWP. Though the company's guilt was never established, suspicion persists. After the fire, Dr. Fred Davis of Susanville, a physician who had started working for GWP that year, produced the hand bell from Prattville's school. It had somehow come into the company's possession the day before the fire. The razing of Prattville considerably aided GWP in its efforts to acquire the town. What remained was virtually worthless. Inhabitants who had waited to sell to GWP on their own terms or faced condemnation proceedings abandoned their charred property. By this time, very few property owners remained in Prattville and the valley. Even John and Annie Bidwell, who had held out for more than a decade, sold their remaining eight hundred acres."