• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Wooden water pipes from 1861 found in CA

oregano

So buzz off!
V.I.P Member
A public works crew in Yreka, California, was trying to find the source of a water leak at a building on Miner Street, the town's original city center where some buildings date back to the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. Instead they found this:

Wooden pipes discovered under Yreka's historic Miner Street could be from the 1860s

A pair of wooden water pipes that apparently were installed in 1861. One was empty and one had a copper cable running through it whose purpose is unknown. The pipes were not the source of the leak, BTW. The pipes will likely end up at the Siskiyou County Museum.
 
Wow, really cool looking, the fact that they've lasted as long as that is amazing.

59d5b288-fd89-45a4-908f-8861d94664b4-wooden_pipe_under_Miner_Street.jpg
 
Last edited:
A public works crew in Yreka, California, was trying to find the source of a water leak at a building on Miner Street, the town's original city center where some buildings date back to the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. Instead they found this:

Wooden pipes discovered under Yreka's historic Miner Street could be from the 1860s

A pair of wooden water pipes that apparently were installed in 1861. One was empty and one had a copper cable running through it whose purpose is unknown. The pipes were not the source of the leak, BTW. The pipes will likely end up at the Siskiyou County Museum.

I wonder if they knew that copper inhibited bacteria growth in 1861? Likely not, but interesting.
 
Last edited:
A combination of the copper, and perhaps being made of Redwood, and not being in wet soil would have kept those pipes well preserved. Redwood is extremely rot-resistant. That's why it is often preferred for exterior construction.
 
The copper wiring in the one pipe is probably from when Yreka first got electric power around 1900-1910 or so. The pipes were probably out of use for water by then and somebody got the idea to route the electric main through one. Considering that cities on the East Coast were known to simply staple electric mains to buildings haphazardly, with predictable consequences for any maintenance man who happened to come into contact with one, this was a better solution.

The entire area was once heavily forested in redwood evergreens, and for decades after the gold ran out the area was a major logging center, with cut trees being loaded onto a spur line at Yreka that took the logs to the main line at Montague, and from there they went to the giant sawmill in Weed, 30 miles to the south.

Yreka is full of ornate Victorian houses built by lieutenants of the great lumber barons in San Francisco, and the houses remain in use as residences, never having suffered abandonment unlike the Victorians of Sacramento, Oakland, and San Jose. (Most of the ones in San Francisco became the victims of "slum clearance" in the 1960s.)

The climate in Yreka used to be much colder than now, with the average snow levels being lower, meaning that most precip fell as snow instead of rain, making ground saturation less of a problem.

@Mia, the background of that pic showing a scrub-covered hill in the background is a result of extensive logging. Yreka was originally surrounded by redwood and oak, all of which was cut, resulting in desertification.
 

New Threads

Top Bottom