Tuolumne County Oral Histories

Have you found the collection of Tuolumne Co. oral histories at Columbia College?   Clinking on the link will take you to the Index page.  Just brows through to see who these collectors spoke to.  Then listen to an interview or three.   Enjoy!

Another Local History Website

In exploring for another purpose altogether, I fell into yosemitegazette.com, The link will take you to their archives, where you can explore to your heart's content. Look for the two articles on Jacksonville, written by a Sonora woman who grew up there in the 1930's and 1940's. Read some of the other articles, too. Read about John Sheehan, Billy Mitchell and the Gamble Building.

I love the attitude over at Columbia State Park, described in the article titled, "California governor says 'close the park'. Locals say 'baloney,', plan to keep park open." It's like the children's tale of the Little Red Hen. "If you won't help me, I will do it myself. And she did."

Or "The Little Engine Who Could" -- I think I can, I think I can, I t-h-i-n-k I can --- I knew I could!

It is an attitude still found around Groveland and Big Oak Flat. We did it with Wayside -- oops, Mary Laveroni -- Park. We did it with ambulance service. Remember SEMSA? We did it with our museum and library. We are still doing it with the museum. We will do it with the Gamble Building. County-wide, we can do it with Columbia State Park.

All it takes is your willingness to respond to the call, get your hands dirty occasionally, and help out. You will meet lots of interesting folk and learn all kinds of tidbits of interesting information about people and places in our community. You will make a difference.

They Lived in Jacksonville?

Once upon a time, there was a town in Tuolumne Co. called Jacksonville. It was on the Tuolumne River, just downstream from the confluence with Moccasin Creek. When the "New" Don Pedro Reservoir was filled in the 1970's, Jacksonville was inundated. The overlooks on either side of the Hwy 120 bridge over Don Pedro Reservoir look down on the general area of Jacksonville.

Early county records seem to differentiate between the town of Jacksonville and the community of miners, farmers and ranchers living along Moccasin Creek. Yet at least in the 1904 Voter Registrations, after the glory days of mining along the creek and before the City of San Francisco built their operating headquarters for the Hetch Hetchy Project there, families known to have lived in Moccasin (aka Moccasin Creek) are listed as "of Jacksonville".

Researchers, be cautious when researching someone "from Jacksonville". They may indeed have lived in Jacksonville town. But they might have lived farther afield -- as far out as the community we now call Moccasin.

As for the New Don Pedro Reservoir ... it has been around long enough that the "new" designation is fading from memory. There's been a Don Pedro Reservoir since the 1920's, managed by the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts and providing irrigation water for those communities. In the 1960's, the Districts and the City and Co. of San Francisco joined forces to build a new dam and increase the storage capacity of the reservoir. You can read more about Don Pedro Reservoir here.