Historic Resource Evaluation Project - Tuolumne Utilities District

Roach’s Camp Ditch
The Roach’s Camp Ditch was constructed to take water from Turnback Creek to Roach’s
Camp south of Tuolumne on Ward’s Ferry Road, located near the top of the grade above
the Tuolumne River (Gudde 1975:293). The ditch was evidently built sometime after
1855, as when the camp was visited that year it was described as one of several small but
promising camps located southeast of Sonora, and that as soon as they could get a good
supply of water for the entire season they would be able to get a good amount of gold
(Heckendorn and Wilson 1856:89). There is little mention of Roach’s Camp in the
literature, but brief accounts of people still residing there were noted in the 1860s and
1870s (Lang 1882:236, 296).
Sometime in the late 1880s or early 1890s, it was connected to the TCWC Main Ditch via
the Section 4 and Eureka ditches at the Tuolumne Reservoir and extended southerly to
the Roach’s Camp Reservoir where it branched two ways to the Ajax and Free Lance
hard rock mines. The ditch was described as having been constructed about 1890 to
supply the mining region about Roach’s Camp and Poison Oak Gulch, so it appears likely
that the original 1850s-1860s Roach’s Camp Ditch was rebuilt by the TCWC at that time
to supply the hard rock mines that had recently opened (Rhodin 1916). The Tuolumne
Utilities District now refers to it as the Camp Roach Ditch.
END OF THE BOOM
Though essential to the development of mineral resources, related attendant industries
such as steam- or water-powered sawmills, and the commercial establishments and towns
that grew up in the county, the prosperity of the water system was ending by the late
1860s due to the general decline in mining. In 1866 the TCWC, however, was still
making a profit, paying $35,750 in dividends to stockholders (Browne 1869:194). That
year was also an auspicious one for the future of the TCWC, as on July 26, 1866, the
right of ingress to and egress from the ditch, as well as the right to clean, maintain and
repair it, was granted by the United States Congress under an act entitled “An Act
Granting the Right-of-Way to Ditch and Canal Owners over the Public Lands and for
Other Purposes” (Faulstich 1985).
With the Act guaranteeing its continued operations, water continued to be delivered to
agricultural users, especially the truck gardens and apple orchards, as well as some
mining ventures. Writing in the 1880s, Herbert O. Lang described the decline:
…by the end of the sixties but few placer claims were worked with good
results; the enterprising gold-seekers had sought more productive fields.
With the departure of the miners came dull times for the camps…The
store and saloons, no longer crowded with customers, put up their shutters
and retired from a business no longer profitable… Ditches and flumes
were suffered to go to ruin…By the close of the next decade the
resounding crash of the stamp mill had well nigh ceased, and now, in
Foothill Resources, Ltd. 3.28 TUD Ditch Sustainability Project
Francis Heritage, LLC
Historic Resource Evaluation Report