Very nice article about the long history of the dam, and how the gold rush built it.
How the Gold Rush made the Oroville Dam
By Michael L. Whiteley/Staff Writer
Article Launched: 06/01/2007 12:00:00 AM PDT
Gold Fever may have struck in Oroville in '49, yet it wouldn't be until 50 years ago today those initial diggings would be recycled in a process that went on to make the largest earth-filled dam in the world by the time it was completed.
After most other methods of harvesting gold gave way to the more convenient method of dredging the Feather River, much of Oroville soon became one huge mass of more than 165 million tons of river rock. This was the way it stayed until somehow the idea to build a massive earth-filled dam on the Feather River got started with a handful of contracts to drill the earth to test for the core rock foundation in June of 1957.
Of those first explorations into the feasibility of actually building a dam made of earth across Oroville's most pristine valley, where legendary bars, such as Bidwell's Bar, once put this country on the map of California, Oroville's Gene Merian can say a lot. His father, Robert, was of the first to be issued a local dam contract, and rightfully so, as his family had been mining the Feather River since the 1850s.
"My grandfather A. T. Merian started mining here back in 1850, and my family continued to mine here up until WW2. Steel and fuel prices then went up and the gold
prices stayed the same. It was hard for them to continue on their own as they were a small mining operation," Merian said.
About the time the family mining business gave in, Merian's father hooked up with the Richter Brothers of local mining fame and fortune. "My dad worked for them on and off for the better part of his life," he said.
Merian is a 1955 graduate of Oroville Union High School, who remembers hanging out on the banks of the Feather River with a gold pan since he was very young. After graduation, he went on to work part time at Oroville Auto Parts and also worked part time putting his engine-greasing experience to work along side his dad and his dad's partners, the Richter Bros.
Before the Oroville Dam project got under way, Merian remembers that Oroville was "like 10 degrees hotter" than it is today. "It was hotter because the rock piles collected the heat of the sun all day long and would release it into the air at night. In the rock piles there were no trees," he remembers.
Robert Merian received the contract to begin test drilling for core rock at the proposed dam site when his son was in the Army, but in 1959 his son was back from service and working for his father again, "of course." They had already dug test tunnels, yet were still in the exploratory stages. The young Merian helped out by rebuilding roads to the site.
Later came the rail system that would eventually connect the Gold Rush diggings of Oroville, then referred to as the "Barrow Pits," to the dam site. "They were originally going to build the dam out of concrete but the materials left behind from the dredging bucket-line operations were close at hand. The Gold Rush came first. If it wasn't for the gold ¬ that's what made Oroville. And, that's what went on to make the Oroville Dam, too," Merian said.
