Lake City is an unincorporated community in Nevada County, California. It lies at an elevation of about northeast of Nevada City as the crow flies, and about southeast of North Columbia, and southwest of North Bloomfield. It is located at the junction of modern day North Bloomfield, Back Bone, and Lake City Roads. It was an important mining and transportation center in the second half of the 19th century.

Early history Lake City was founded in 1853 when Israel Joiner built a cabin there.Thompson, Thomas H. and West, Albert A. (1970 ed.) History of Nevada County -1880, p. 59. Two years later, a group known as the Dutch Hill Company began mining there. In 1855, the Bell brothers built a hotel, and for a while the town was known as Bell's Ranch. In 1857, the Irwin ditch, which brought water from Poorman's Creek about away, reached town, and it began to boom as a center for hydraulic mining.Thompson and West, p. 59; Bean, Edwin F. (1867) History and Directory of Nevada County, p. 68; Selverston, Mark (2016) The French of Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park (hereafter French), p. 8. Many of the early residents were French, and French culture and language were common.French, pp. 1, 8-9. In 1858, the Eureka Lake Co., which had taken over the Irwin ditch, laid out a town, anchored by its district office. Inspired by a reservoir or "lake" the Company had built, it was named Lake City.Thompson and West, p. 59; Bean, p. 396. Politically, it was part of Bloomfield Township.Thompson and West, p. 58. That same year, the Lake City Hotel, also called the French Hotel, opened, with a restaurant and a saloon. In 1862, a third hotel, the Bordas, opened next to the French Hotel.French, pp. 8-9, 19. In addition to the hotels, the town had several stores, a tailor shop, and a saw mill, which burned down in 1871.Union, July 21, 1871. In its long history, the Union has had different names, including the Grass Valley Union and the Morning Union. For simplicity's sake, it will be referred to here as the Union, regardless of its name at the time of the cited article. The town also had a canvas hose factoryFrench, p. 16. and a number of homes.Thompson and West, p. 59. Lake City had its own school and election districts. A Catholic church was consecrated in 1872.Union, June 16, 1872. The population at its heyday was estimated at about 300.Massey, P., Wilson, J., Titus, A. (2006) California Trails Northern Sierra Region, #25. By 1880, the town had been reduced to one hotel, one store, one saloon, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable and several homes.Thompson and West, pp. 59. The 1880 census counted 93 residents.Union, July 21, 1881.

Prominent residents Henry Arnold took over the Bell Brothers hotel, which burned down in 1859. He rebuilt the hotel, now called Arnold House, and held several prominent balls there.Comstock, David, Lives of Nevada County Pioneers, Henry Arnold. He also experimented with planting fruit trees on his ranch, managing to produce very large apples.Morning Transcript, Oct. 24, 1860; Nevada Gazette, Sept. 4, 1865. At times, Lake City was referred to as Arnold's Ranch.French, p. 8.

Julius Poquillon, a prominent miner and engineer on the Ridge, opened the Lake City Hotel, complete with French restaurant, in 1858. Reportedly, he sold memberships in the Lake City Yacht Club.An illustration on p. 168 in Thompson and West depicts a small sailing vessel on the "lake" behind Paine's hotel. The references to a yacht club may be more lore than fact. See French, p. 63; Union, Feb. 24, 2007.

In 1860, Poquillon sold his hotel to Marius Dominique and Henrietta Bremond, who renamed it Bremond House, and operated it until it burned in 1872. The family continued to run a hotel in nearby North Bloomfield.French, p. 25.

In 1866, P. A. Paine, a native of Painesville, Ohio,Assertions that Lake City was once call Painesville, or that it had a post office, are mistaken. See ie, Janicot, Michel (1994) A History of Nevada County Post Offices, pp. 30-31. When Mr. Paine moved to Nevada County, he settled in the Rough and Ready area near the Zinc House. A post office called Painesville was established in that community in 1864. Not long after Mr. Paine moved to Lake City, that post office closed. Nevada Transcript, March 2, 1864; Dec. 12, 1866. USPS Post Office listings viewed Jan. 26, 2020 at https://webpmt.usps.gov/pmt003.cfm. The USPS has no record of a post office in Lake City. bought in Lake City and took over the Bell Brothers/Arnold hotel.Thompson and West, p. 226. Mr. Paine continued the successful apple orchard, once producing a pound and a half pippin.Union, Oct. 15, 1870.

Francis M. Pridgeon for many years was the elected member of the county Board of Supervisors for District 3, which included much of the Ridge. In endorsing his reelection, a newspaper observed: "Pridgeon has been one of the best supervisors this county has ever had or ever will have."Union, Sept. 26, 1894. His wife Elizabeth operated the hotel, which they took over from Mr. Paine.

William and Bridget Waldron owned the town's general store and stable and had a number of other prominent positions.Union, June 27, 1872.

Fires As with many mining communities, fire was a constant threat, and Lake City experienced several major ones. In 1859, the Bell Brothers hotel burned down. In 1868, fire destroyed the Lake House hotel, and several other buildings.Grass Valley National, June 27, 1868. In 1869, the school and blacksmith shop burned down.Union, June 26, 1869. In 1872, fire destroyed the Bremond House hotel, and several other buildings. Arson was suspected.Union, Nov. 19, 1872. In 1873, a fire "threatened the destruction of the town" but it escaped that fate.Union, Sept. 12, 1873.

School and election districts Lake City had its own school district and schoolhouse and its own election district.Thompson and West, pp. 143, 146. The schoolhouse burned down in 1869.Union, June 26, 1869 In 1873, the "new" schoolhouse was described as being in "poor" condition, needing to be replaced "as soon as fortune favors." The school then had 32 pupils and 1 teacher.Union, Oct. 29, 1873. It had 43 students in 1880 but by 1888, the number had fallen to 20. In 1894, the school district was declared lapsed and students had to go to North Bloomfield.Union, July 17, 1894.

In 1865, the Board of Supervisors established an election district at Lake City.Nevada Gazette, Sept. 1, 1865. Voting was liveliest in local elections. In the 1873 county election, 61 people voted.Union, April 14, 1873. By contrast, 16 total votes were cast in the 1880 presidential election.Union, Nov. 10, 1880. In 1892, 14 voted in a local election, and soon the Supervisors abolished the Lake City election district. Residents had to vote in North Bloomfield.Union, July 22, 1892.

Mining

The area was considered part of the North Bloomfield mining district, which was located on auriferous gravel beds which ran down the San Juan Ridge, and often branched out. One rich branch ran from N. Columbia through Lake City and on towards Red Dog and You Bet.Thompson and West, p. 59. Hydraulic mining took off with the arrival of ditch water. The principal ditch was the Eureka, which brought water from dams in the high Sierra, and channelled it to Lake City through the Irwin ditch. Principal mines were the North Star, McDonald, I XL and Ballarat.Thompson and West, pp.183-184. Following the 1884 Sawyer decision, which prohibited discharging mining debris into the Yuba River or its tributaries, hydraulic mining rapidly declined.The Sawyer decision is reported as Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Co., 18 F. 753 (CCD Cal. 1884). Soon thereafter, it was estimated that 130,000,000 yards of auriferous gravel remained to be mined.Lindgren, Waldemar (1911) The Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California, p. 139.

In the early part of the 20th century, there were efforts to revive hydraulic mining but most efforts were directed to drifting, or quartz mining.Union, Nov. 13, 1915; April 16, 1915; March 2, 1916. Prominent were Mr. F. M. Phelps,Union, Oct. 5, 1913; Aug. 15, 1916. the El Oro Mines CompanyUnion, Jan. 6, 1915. and the Paine Brothers.Union, June 5, 1913; Oct. 5, 1913: Nov. 15, 1913. These efforts do not appear to have succeeded.

Transportation Taking advantage of its strategic location at the junction of the principal roads between Nevada City and many of the mining communities on the San Juan Ridge, and later on one of the roads to the Henness Pass and the Nevada mines, Lake City was an important transportation stop for travelers and teamsters.Bean, p. 396. For many years, the road to Nevada City was a toll road owned by Edwards and Manchester.Union, Aug. 24, 1874. Toll roads were usually well maintained. Had the Central Pacific Railroad determined to run the Transcontinental Railroad through the Henness Pass, the planned route would have gone through Lake City.First Annual Report And Theodore D. Judah's Chief Engineer's Report, Central Pacific Railroad, 1863, viewed online Jan. 26, 2020 at http://cprr.org/Museum/Judah_Report_1863.html#Judah_1863

Built in 1855, the Bell Brothers hotel continued for many years, operated in turn by Henry Arnold, P.A. Paine, Elizabeth Pridgeon, and Frank Kropp. Mr. Kropp ran it for many years into the 20th century, attracting visitors with a 13 rattle "monster" rattlesnake on display.Union, Aug. 1, 1913. In 1858, the Lake City Hotel opened. It soon became Bremond House. There is mention of a third hotel, the Bordas, open in the 1860s.French, p. 19. This may be the hotel, called the Lake House, that burned down in 1868. Grass Valley National, June 27, 1868.

Lake City was a stop on the Gregory & English stage and pony express line between Nevada City and Graniteville, on the Summit City (Meadow Lake) Stage Line from Grass ValleyUnion, June 5, 1866. and on Dornin's Express Line between North San Juan and North Bloomfield.Bean, pp. 182, 339.

It was also connected to the Ridge Telephone Company's long distance telephone line.Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_long-distance_telephone_line

Today The town declined as hydraulic mining declined, especially after the 1884 Sawyer decision. In 1886, a local newspaper reported that "Lake City, like nearly all the hydraulic mining towns in this county, looks much like a deserted village."Union, June 1, 1886, quoting the San Juan Times. Over the last century, mining has gradually been replaced by ranching and horticulture.Union, Aug. 15, 1913. In 1939, an observer reported that: “A picture of decay is LAKE CITY, ... where two or three decrepit houses and a forlorn hotel (1855), its balcony sagging drunkenly, huddle by the grassy depression in the pasture which was once the "lake.”Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration of Northern California (1939) California: A Guide to the Golden State, p. 480. Today, it is a very rural outpost with a few ranches and residences and a vineyard planted about 30 years ago. There are no commercial establishments, and no readily visible remains of its historic past.

References

External links Photo, 1954