Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: Syd Whittle
Taken: June 13, 2010
Caption: Images of a Lost Community
Additional Description: Far beneath the waters of the New Melones Lake lie the remains of the small town of Melones, which was situated on the north bank of the Stanislaus River. For thousands of years, native peoples have inhabited this location, leaving evidence of their culture in the soil and on the rock outcroppings next to the old river channel. But this area, like hundreds of others in California’s Mother Lode, was forever changed by the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada on January 24, 1948. The modern history of Melones has been shaped by gold, and by the Sierra’s other great resource--water. In 1979, the construction of the 2.4 million-acre foot New Melones Lake submerged the town under hundreds of feet of water.
Submitted: June 30, 2010, by Syd Whittle of Mesa, Arizona.
Database Locator Identification Number: p115187
File Size: 2.023 Megabytes

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