Historic Resource Evaluation Project - Tuolumne Utilities District

October 31, 1856. At that time water was taken from the North Fork Tuolumne River,
about five miles above the Sugar Pine Mill, to Sugar Pine Creek, thence to the divide
leading into Curtis Creek, thence to the Dam, and a little below the Slater Rancho, to
Algerine Camp, Curtisville, Pacific Flat, and Jacksonville, including all waters, rights and
privileges. It also included the canal known as the Union Water Ditch (Deed Book 6:70,
73). On October 21, Clark had assigned his power of attorney to the above to Edwin B.
Mastick, a San Francisco attorney (Deed Book 7:20).
Seven days later, on October 28, 1857, Clark deeded the system to Thomas C. Brunton,
George Gleason, and James Parsons, but excluded the Slater Ranch on Curtis Creek and
Alderman Meadow on the Tuolumne River. The deed was signed and executed by his
attorney, Edwin Mastick (Deed Book 7:40). In February of the following year, James M.
Craig deeded his Craig’s Ditch, extending from the north bank of Sullivan Creek to
Campbells Flat, to Brunton and others for $1800. In addition to the ditch, the deed
included reservoirs, aqueducts, dams, etc. (Deed Book 7:315). In March of 1858, Willis
and Ildegritta Stone deeded a 15-foot-wide strip of land on which Brunton and his
partners had constructed a ditch, beginning on the road to Sonora and Jacksonville, for
$390 (Deed Book 7:362).
In 1859, a group of men, most of whom were associated with the San Francisco banking
firm of Pioche and Bayerque, formed themselves into the Phoenix Water Company, with
Sonoran Caleb Dorsey as their attorney. The men had acquired the Street’s/Shaw’s Flat
Ditch in the foreclosure of a Mechanics Lien that April, and turned the property to the
Phoenix Water Company for $1 (Deed Book 8:374). That same day Caleb Dorsey sold
the Shaw’s Flat and Tuolumne River Water Company to the Phoenix Water Company,
noting that he had purchased it at the tax sale for $1575 (Deed Book 8:370).
It was with this purchase that the THA/TRWC system entered into the then-modern era,
with a low-elevation reservoir to channel water into the various conduits to serve the
distant mines and communities through a common distribution system. The most
important reservoir in the lower system, the (lower) Phoenix Reservoir, built ca. 1853 by
the THA, took water from Sullivan Creek and was purchased by the Phoenix Water
Company, incorporated May 12, 1859 (Articles of Incorporation No. 141), that same
year.
In order to augment their water supply, on August 27, 1859, the Phoenix Water Company
purchased a mining claim and ditch on Dragoon Gulch, noting that the ditch took water
out of a gulch where the road from Sonora to the Race Track crossed, as well as a flume
and tail race connected with the mining claim (Deed Book 8:552).
On August 27, 1861, William Clark, Caleb Dorsey, and George Gleason deeded the
rights to build a reservoir on Clark’s Ranch to the Phoenix Water Company. The deed
noted that the 400-acre ranch was bounded south by the ranch and reservoir of the
Phoenix Water Company, and was for a reservoir about to be constructed. Clark was to
build a good wagon road around the ranch, as the Mono Road would have to be rerouted,
and to have the rights to his fencing, fruit trees, and vines; while the company was to
Foothill Resources, Ltd. 3.19 TUD Ditch Sustainability Project
Francis Heritage, LLC
Historic Resource Evaluation Report