Who built the Upper Klamath Lake dikes and levees?

From Klamath Echoes - 1965, Volume 1, Number 2 published by the Klamath County Historical Society

Page 85 - 87:  

As Told to Me . . .

                     By Lester “Sharkey” Hutchinson  

March 28, 1965

Recorded by Devere Helfich  

        I was born in 1894 in Nannygoat Hill, Mission Heights , San Francisco .  We left there in 1910 and moved to Doyle , California .  I was there for five years and then went to work for the Siskiyou Light and Power Company in 1916, at what is now Copco on the Klamath River , in Siskiyou County .  

        My first job there was swinging a 16-lb sledge hammer.  After a week of that I got a job on the rock crusher.  I stayed there until World War I came on, when the work was shut down.  I then went to the shipyards at Benecia, where they were building wooden ships.  Stayed there four or five months and went to Mare Island .  I joined the army in 1917, and when the war was over I came back to Fall Creek late in 1918 and again went to work for Copco.  I came here in 1919, then to the Keno Plant in 1921, and back here to work on building the Link River dam in 1921 and 1922.  

        Then when an injunction was served on the Power Company, work was stopped on the dam and I helped put in the power line to Algoma.  It was at that time that I first net Nosler, who had a museum on the hill back of the Buena Vista boat landing.  All sorts of carved objects, etc., people, books, and even an organ, I think.  It later burned.  

        We finally returned to work on the dam and finished it in 1922.  I then went to work on the old suction dredge, the Klamath Belle, in 1923, building dikes on the Upper Lake .  

        I always liked boats.  I had a brother who built boats and I learned from him about the smaller type boats.  He lost part of one hand in a saw and later went into the lithography business.  

        There was a boat called the Benicia that was here before my time and had quit before 1922.  It had been a cutter on the cruiser South Dakota at one time.  It was used in surveying the Upper Lake .  

        I never used the Oregon , it also had been used as a survey boat.  (This Oregon is in no way connected with the Oregon of Odessa – Editor).  Del Gammon was the engineer in charge then.  He had a boat of his own called the Lil Gal.  Shipped it to the Bay region when he left here.  I took his place.  

        The Spray blew up on Copco in 1935 while they were bringing a log raft from some west side homesteader.  They were headed for Algoma and were this side of Eagle Ridge.  They were filling it with gas and when about filled it blew up.  Everyone got off safe.  Copco took it over about 1924.  

        The Lilly was built by Telford in 1924.  It was used as a tender for the suction dredge, Klamath Belle.  There had been another boat before, called the Lilly, but it gave a lot of trouble and quit while towing.  When we test run the new one, we broke ice with it, drove it over boom sticks and bucked four foot waves.  

        I remember the ice cut holes in the Spray on Agency Lake when we were hunting for the bodies of Woods and Nitchelm.  Dr. Sharpe’s boat, the Winnelen, also had holes cut in its sides by the ice.  The ice was about half an inch thick and literally wore out the sides.  We also took the Lilly up there, and on the return fastened on 2x12’s, and they were almost gone by the time we got back to the docks.  

        Copco used the Hooligan for a time and it ended up along the Lakeshore Garden dykes.  They used the hull to haul junk around, had acquired it through the John Linman operations.  

        Wickstrom owned the Modoc and Eagle.  Used the Modoc to tow, and the Eagle to pump sand at Williamson River .  Linman owned the Wasp.  When it became obsolete, Copco burned it in about 1935 or 1936.  The second Wasp had a reverse.  It also had a pointed prow.  

        The Curlew remains lay alongside the Copco boathouse for years.  

        The old clam shell sank off the Buena Vista docks.  The Eagle sank off Ritchie Point, near Skillet Handle, when Wickstrom was pushing it backwards for some reason.  The Modoc was set on fire in the early 30’s and the remains were used in the Lakeshore Garden dykes.  

        The Pup was a tender for Copco’s original clam shell, the Cardinal.  The Nancy K was launched in 1923.  Telford built it in a tent.  The Mazama’s hull lay in the tules, west of the Copco boathouse for years after it was dismantled.  

        While dredging a channel opposite Pelican Bay with the suction dredge, we hit a rock strata, and mixed up in the muck that came up was a fine Indian mortar.  

        Copco built the Shark.  They received two bids, both of $1,000, one from Frisco and one from Seattle .  They decided to build it themselves and it coast them $1,000.  It was launched May 20, 1936 .  Captain Linman built the superstructure.

The men presented me with an admiral’s cap one time, and I still have it.  

The Boy Scout mill had a boat but it had no name.  Browns also had a boat with no name.  D. E. Alexander had a boat at the Doak ranch, and also a barge.  

Dismantling started February 10^th, 1953 , on both the Oakland and the Shark.  The Lilly was sold to Glubrecht, a school teacher, in 1953 for $75.00.  He immediately started repairing it in his spare time.  

Copco used to haul everything.  Delivered freight to the ranchers and homesteaders on the Upper Lake .  Once I delivered 4,000 baby chicks to the Alexander Ranch.  We first took the Wasp out in the wind on a test run.  Wanted to see if we could keep the temperature up to 70 degrees.  The baby chicks were from Petaluma .  We loaded them on the Wasp, closed up all the openings and holes, and by firing heavy with slab wood, kept the temperature at the required 70 degrees.  We had two thermometers.  I don’t think we lost a chick.  

We towed log rafts, pushed barge loads of rock from the Eagle Ridge slide, to strengthen the dykes; in fact did about everything.  

Copco towed for cost, logs to Lamm’s, Pelican Bay, Shippington, Boy Scout, Algoma, and Blocklinger; sheep for O’Connor to Buck Island, and horses to Bear Island.  We once pulled a plane out of the water.  

The Beth belonged to J. C. Boyle, and was lost on Agency Lake .  I remember, one time Totten was working on the boom at Shippington, when some fellow jarred the boom with a boat on purpose, and Totten fell in.  The Ellapoppin was used by Wilbur Telford and Doug Puckett as an ice boat.  Copco bought out both Linman and Wickstrom.  

The Geary dredge – George Stevenson owned it at one time – had been the Southern Pacific dredge and was later acquired by Copco.  

Frank Loosley helped build O. K. Puckett’s boat.  

I was on the Upper Lake for twenty-five years before I retired in 1956.  

***************************************************************** 

Page 59:  

The Wasp  

          Anton Wickstrom and Hon Linman built the Wasp in late 1910 or 1911.  It was 13 x 50 and had a draught of 26 inches.  The Wasp burned in 1912 or slightly later.  The partnership was then dissolved, after which Wickstrom rebuilt the Wasp.  The first Wasp was a barge type boat, and had no reverse.  The Wasp was said to have been sold to Del Gammon, California Oregon Power Company engineer.

*****************************************************************

Page 60:  

The Modoc  

          The Modoc was built by John Linham during the summer of 1910.  It was a stern wheeler, 16 x 60 feet, with a draft of 34 inches.  The boat was a tug type and was burned in 1912. The Modoc was rebuilt shortly thereafter, and the above dimensions may apply to the latter boat, since from pictures it appears to be the larger of the two.  The Modoc was eventually sold by Wickstrom to A. Graham, thought to be representing the Power Company.  It was used as a pile-driver and work boat by the California Oregon Power Company for several years and was eventually burned by them and the remains used in the Lakeside Garden dykes.  

*****************************************************************

Page 62:  

The Oakland  

        Long a work boat for the California Oregon Power Company, the Oakland was built for the Southern Pacific Company by Henry Telford and son Ray, in 1910.  It was originally used to haul the Pacific engineers under H. P. Hoey, on the Upper Lake .  It was later purchased by the Klamath Falls Transportation Company, who added the deck house in front.  They, in turn, sold it to the California Oregon Power Company in 1920, who used it for many years (Herald and News, Feb. 10, 1953).  The Oakland was dismantled in February, 1953.