Tuesday, September 7, 2010

FAMILIES from Flickr

Starting off with a blast from the past, TREECHICK posted this one from 1969 at camp!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3594/3326990745_df1b51a3d9_b.jpg
Wow... 41 years ago. The tents were a different color, but the kids were exactly the same.


Melanie De La Cerda posted some wonderful shots of the local swimming hole along with deck pics from 2006:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/60/201932922_84c1e59955_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/61/201932455_20d424f37a_o.jpg




From 2 summers ago, this family had FUN over the 4th of July!
Their full photos of this great summer are HERE

Scott Holmes captured his kids in 2006 with a fish!
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/71/200382011_c656e0e529_o.jpg
Janine Sanchez posted some wonderful shots of the family-
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3460/3836037478_fb50ffef39.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2635/3835242793_6a5505308c.jpg


Do YOU have great memories? Please contact us to post a sample of your on line album. Let's show the world what wonders we have in our Family Camp!



The history of our camp

In The Beginning:
First , there was the water.




San Jose Family Camp would not exist today had it not been for the Hetch Hetchy Valley, considered by many to be the most beautiful valley in the entire Sierra Nevada mountain range.
Seen here pre 1908 in a photo by Isaiah West Taber, the valley containing the Tuolumne River was obliterated in the 1910's to supply SF with water. To do so, San Francisco constructed O'Shaughnessy Dam- and several camps for the workers to live in during that decade long project.
From Wikipedia:

"In 1906, after a major earthquake, San Francisco applied to the United States Department of the Interior to gain water rights to Hetch Hetchy. This provoked a seven-year environmental struggle with the environmental group Sierra Club, led by John Muir. Muir observed:

Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

Proponents of the dam replied that the valley would be even more beautiful with a lake. Muir correctly predicted that this lake would deposit an unsightly ring around its perimeter, which would be visible at low water. Because the valley was within Yosemite National Park, an act of Congress was needed to start the project. The federal government ended the dispute in 1913, with the passage of the Raker Act, which permitted flooding of the valley.

Construction of the dam was finished in 1923."

In reality, San Francisco's water issues had started 60 years earlier and as early as May of 1882, John P. Dart created the San Francisco and Tuolumne Water Company and proposed Tuolumne River water for San Francisco. In 1888 San Francisco Mayor E. P. Bond bought Tuolumne River water rights for $200,000 and started the process inexorably forcing the issue years before environmentalists even realized the valley was up for grabs. In 1891 John Quinton surveyed the Tuolumne River as potential San Francisco water source. Interesting that the Mayor bought the rights not even knowing how the survey would turn out isn't it?
By the turn of the century, the Mayor had changed the city charter to require them to have a new water source, and the wheels were turning to take the Valley and build a damn-


TIMELINE
Jan 1900 New City Charter requires development of municipal water supply
U.S.G.S. 21st Annual Report recommends Hetch Hetchy for San Francisco’s water supply
Spring Valley Water Works completes Sunol Aqueduct and Filter Beds
1901 Feb 15 Congress permits the Interior Secretary to grant rights-of-way through Yosemite
July 29 As private citizen, Mayor James Phelan files for water rights on Tuolumne River
Aug 12 City Engineer Carl Grunsky recommends Tuolumne River out of 13 sources considered

Oct 15 Mayor Phelan applies to Interior Secretary Ethan Hitchcock for reservoir sites in Sierra Nevada.
Jan 20 Secretary Hitchcock denies San Francisco’s application to develop Hetch Hetchy
Feb 20 Mayor Phelan assigns all Hetch Hetchy water interests to San Francisco
Dec 17 Orville and Wilbur Wright take first flight over dunes at Kitty Hawk, NC
1906 Board of Supervisors adopts resolution No. 6949 abandoning development of Hetch Hetchy
Apr 18 Great Earthquake disrupts San Francisco’s water supply; fires rage for three days
1908 Apr 22 City Engineer Marsden Manson files duplicates of Phelan’s maps with Interior Secretary James Garfield
May 11 Secretary Garfield grants City limited permission to develop Hetch Hetchy and Lake Eleanor
Jan 14 San Francisco overwhelmingly approves $45 million bond issue to build Hetch Hetchy
Feb 25 Interior Secretary Richard Ballinger withdraws Hetch Hetchy from Garfield Permit
Apr 13 City purchases Eleanor Basin lands and water rights for $400,000
May Secretary Ballinger asks War Secretary Jacob Dickinson to assign Board of Army Engineers to consider Hetch Hetchy Project
1911 California Constitution grants Railroad Commission authority to fix water rates
Jun 22 City purchases Cherry Basin land and water rights for $600,000
Jul 15 John Freeman publishes his plan to develop Hetch Hetchy, Eleanor and Cherry Valleys
Sep 1 Mayor Rolph hires Michael M. O’Shaughnessy as City Engineer
Nov City attends hearings before Interior Secretary Walter Fisher on Hetch Hetchy Project
1913 Feb 19 Board of Army Engineers recommends Hetch Hetchy as best supply for San Francisco
Mar 1 Interior Secretary Fisher refuses further permits without Congressional authority
Aug 1 Rep. John E. Raker, California, 2nd District, introduces Hetch Hetchy Act to Congress
Sep 3 & Dec 6 House & Senate, respectively, adopt Raker Act
Dec 19 President Woodrow Wilson signs Raker Act into law
1914 Spring San Francisco ratifies Raker Act
Apr Surveys start for Hetch Hetchy Railroad route
Jul Contractors begin building Hetch Hetchy roads at Hog Ranch (now Camp Mather)
1915 Jul 21 Canyon Ranch sawmill starts operations to provide lumber for Hetch Hetchy
Sep 1,000-foot tunnel built inside cliff at O’Shaughnessy Dam site to divert Tuolumne River
Dec 6 Construction of Hetch Hetchy Railroad starts
1916 Aug 11 Construction of Lower Cherry Aqueduct starts
Summer Lower Cherry Diversion Dam completed
Jul Drifting Mountain Tunnel begins at Early Intake and South Fork
Aug Construction starts on Eleanor Dam
Oct Hetch Hetchy Railroad begins operation

Jun Hetch Hetchy Sawmill moves to Hog Ranch (now Camp Mather), nearer the dam site
1924 Sawmill operations at Hog Ranch (Camp Mather) terminated
1925 Nov 27 Hetch Hetchy moves its construction staging area from Groveland to Hetch Hetchy Junction,
near Foothill Tunnel



The construction of the dam required hundreds of man hours over those 10 years, and those men needed living quarters close to the work site. From another SF water history document comes this:

"GROVELAND HEADQUARTERS. Before building the essential elements of the system, it was first necessary to get into the mountains with packers and guides, often using chartered stagecoaches and freight wagons out of Groveland, a small mountain town left over from the Gold Rush. It sits astride the Big Oak Flat road into Yosemite. With the coming of San Francisco’s work forces into the area, Groveland was revitalized, booming for a decade as headquarters for the Hetch Hetchy Project. The quiet mountain village found itself suddenly with office and hospital buildings, homes for officials and their families, and shops and operating headquarters for a full scale railroad, bringing the first locomotives and cars that some in Groveland had ever
seen. Hetch Hetchy workers and equipment helped with extensive road improvements in the district. They
improved the water supply and started a sewer system. They also resurveyed Groveland and nearby Big Oak Flat to correct inaccurate surveys made during the Gold Rush days.

In the rugged and remote country of the High Sierra, the first priority was a reliable, high-capacity and all-weather form of transportation to move heavy machinery, bulk materials and supplies, and workers into the mountains to the new dam site. Clearly, a railroad was the answer. So, San Francisco built the Hetch Hetchy Railroad, a 68-mile-long, standard gauge railway, from Hetch Hetchy Junction, some 26 miles east of Oakdale, to the rim of the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
To generate revenues for its operation, the railroad hauled freight for timber companies and others doing business in the Sierra, charging 12½ cents per ton mile for carload lots. It also carried the mail and provided passenger service. Passengers paid 7½ cents per mile. Weekend excursion groups of 40 to 100 San Franciscans would leave the city by Pullman sleeper Friday night, catching the Hetch Hetchy train on Saturday morning. Public support for bond issues was essential to finance the ongoing construction, so Hetch Hetchy excursion trains took community groups to various camps to view the work in progress, with meals and overnight accommodations being provided at bunkhouses."

That might well be the first official mention of the camp that would one day become San Jose Family Camp.
Well documented is the largest of all the camps:
"In 1919 after the timber stand was exhausted, the mill was moved to Hog Ranch, some nine miles from the O’Shaughnessy Dam site. The operation was discontinued in 1924, after 21 million board feet of lumber had been cut. The mill was later dismantled, and Hog Ranch is now San Francisco’s summer recreation camp, Camp Mather, christened by O’Shaughnessy after Stephen T. Mather, the first Director of the National Park Service and later Assistant Secretary of the Interior. The old mill pond at Hog Ranch is now a fine swimming lake for Camp Mather’s summer visitors."
~~~~
Historical mentions of all the camps are at the Charlotte web site HERE:

Camp Mather, run by the city of San Francisco is the gateway to Hetch Hetchy. One literally drives through the middle of the camp to get to the Hetch Hetchy Yosemite Gate Entrance. Located on Evergreen Road (Just a mile from Evergreen Lodge) Camp Mather is also the home to the twice annual Strawberry Music Festival on Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends.

Berkeley-Tuolumne Camp is located just off Hardin Flat Road and has been a family retreat for city of Berkeley residents since 1922. Many of the kids who grow up with a week each summer at Berkeley Family Camp end up returning in their later years as camp councilors. We meet many of the parents who will stay in Groveland to visit their counselor-kids on their rare day off during the summer.

San Jose Family Camp is located just off Highway 120 on Cherry Lake Road. Tents and Cabins line the Tuolumne River where campers enjoy a bevy of outdoor activities. Camp is not limited to San Jose city residents.

Camp Tawonga is another very popular camp for kids and teens located off Cherry Lake Road. This camp has a huge return rate year after year and again, many campers come back as counselors. Activities include the usual outdoor recreation blended with an immersion ins self, community and Judaism.

And our newest camp: Camp Tuolumne Trails. A camp for special needs children. This camp was built by local Groveland residents Jerry & Paula Baker and became a community event in the last couple of years in building the cabins, landscaping and all sorts of other bits. They just opened this summer to a great deal of praise by the groups that bring in the children with special needs. Every single group has resigned for next year too. The lodge and setting are completely stunning.

A note on Strawberry Music Festival. This twice annual music immersion is held at Camp Mather, on Evergreen Road, just minutes from Hetch Hetchy and has been a sell out every year for over 30 years featuring the top bands in many musical styles from Americana, bluegrass, swing, rock, blues to gospel, all very folksy and family oriented.

We look forward to the Memorial Day and Labor Day Strawberry Music Festivals as we see many of the same guests year after year, watching the kids grow up. This is a fantastic family event and a festival of huge importance to the Groveland area and businesses. The Hotel Charlotte is thrilled to be so close to the 4-day festival and the many guests who stay with us before, during and after the event.



1985
Aug 18, 1985 - The proposed project would destroy the character of the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne which is the central feature of San Jose Family Camp and ... Berkeley's Family Camp would be under about 100 feet of water and San Jose's Family Camp and everywhere else downstream would enjoy only a ...
From San Jose Mercury News : HYDRO MADNESS -
docs.newsbank.com/g/GooglePM/SJ/lib00189 ...