The Great Flood: a peek back in time to Sacramento, California from the end of 1861 through the beginning of 1862 heralded some big changes for the state.
The biggest flood in recorded history of California, Oregon, and Nevada started in December 1861 and ran through January 1862.
In November 1961, the big rains started-nonstop-with heavy snowfalls in the Sierra Nevada range and they continued into January 1862. No one could remember that much water falling.
Unfortunately, from January 9-12, warm rains fell, which melted the snow… and the result was disastrous. Catastrophic floods. The image shows the areas flooded throughout California, but the floods extended from the Columbia River in Oregon through California to San Diego, and inland to Idaho in the then Washington Territory, and Utah and what is now Nevada (then both part of Utah Territory), and what is now Arizona (then western New Mexico Territory).
image credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
Towns were swept away, valleys inundated, mills, dams, flues, houses, domestic animals and people. The land was never the same. California had been mostly owned by the holders of the old Mexican land grants, the Californios, who ran cattle and horses on the semi-arid state, and cropped the extensive lands. Losses within the state ranged from 100,000 sheep and 500,000 lambs; 200,000 head or so of cattle, a quarter of their previous number; one home in eight; and an awful lot of mining equipment–sluices, flumes, derricks, etc. . About a quarter of the taxable real estate in the state was destroyed. The state nearly had to declare bankruptcy.
New Governor of California, Leland Stanford, went to his inauguration in a boat…through the streets of Sacramento!
There’s a lot about it online, but you might want to read about it in The Hills of Gold Unchanging… to feel what it was like living through it, as Aleksandra and Xavier did when they left Virginia City in 1862!
The Hills of Gold Unchanging
No one will stand in their way—and live.
As the Civil War rages, secessionists menace California. Aleksandra and Xavier are trying to get back home—through the oncoming Civil War, the mining camps of 1860’s Nevada and California, and the Sacramento floods—to Xavier’s Californio Rancho de las Pulgas. Embroiled in the Confederate’s fight to drag the new state from the Union and make it their own, can Aleks and Xavier survive? The secessionists mean business.
Thanks for reading about the Great Flood!
Have you ever heard about the Great Flood of Sacramento? I grew up in California and lived right where the flood happened… and I’d never even heard about it. How about you? Let me know in the comments below!~