La Grange Museum

Circa 1860’s cover mailed to Empire City, with a mark from La Grange’s earliest known device cancel. It was sent to La Grange but Horr’s Ranch (Roberts Ferry), the only other Post Office operating in Stanislaus County at the time, would have been closer to the addressee. Williams list only one known example of this cancel (STA-920), with a date of 3/17/1861. Edit: After 3/30/1860 Stanislaus County had four PO’s, Horr’s Ranch, Knights Ferry, La Grange, and Lovings Ferry.

Circa 1870’s photo by M. M. Hazeltine, showing the head gate for the La Grange ditch located at Indian Bar on the Tuolumne River, now under the waters of Don Pedro Reservoir. It was the source of La Grange’s domestic water supply from about 1871, when the ditch was completed, until 1923, when the first Don Pedro Dam was finished.

Chrome postcard showing the Tuolumne Dredge.

Real photo postcard showing the first or old Don Pedro Dam, mailed from La Grange in 1933 when Mrs. Vida M. Varain was the postmistress.

Circa 1880’s pirate stereoview (not attributed to any photographer) showing Wheaton Dam. Built in 1871 by the Tuolumne Water Company, using 250,000 board feet of lumber at an expense of $24,000. Sold, with water rights, in 1890 for $56,000, torn down in 1891 and replaced with the much larger La Grange Dam.

Undated photo of old Basso Bridge when it was still new.

Undated photo of Basso Ferry, one of the last if not the last ferry to operate on the Tuolumne River, replaced by old Basso bridge in 1912.

1870 Thomas Houseworth & Co. stereoview showing Roberts’ Ferry, operated by John W. Morley at that time (1864-1872), note the old hotel in the upper left corner. The ferry scow in this photo was built at Murray’s Ferry near Merced Falls, then floated down the Merced and San Joaquin rivers and towed up the Tuolumne River by the steamer Fresno, to replace the scow that was lost in the flood of January 1866.

Ca. 1870’s Hazeltine stereoview of the La Grange Hydraulic Mining & Ditch Co.’s Miner’s Ditch at the three mile stake looking up, three miles downstream of Indian Bar near the confluence of the Tuolumne River and Hatch Creek. Site now flooded by Don Pedro Reservoir.

1934 photo of La Grange Gold Dredging Co.’s dredge #2 (Yuba #52), being dismantled to be rebuilt as dredge #4 (Yuba #98). Even though the LGGD Co. had their dredges numbered, they only ever had one dredge operating on the Tuolumne River; it was just rebuilt a few times over it’s career (1907-1951), and claimed to be the longest operating dredge in California.

Ca. 1893 photo showing La Grange Dam nearing completion.

Only known photo of Don Pedro’s Bar, circa 1856, presently located near the middle of Middle Bay in Don Pedro Reservoir under several hundred feet of water. The only vestige left of this mining town is the oldest house in Modesto, the Luke Church House (302 Burney St.), it was built in the 1860’s in Paradise, out of lumber salvaged from Church’s hotel (presumably in the photo), then moved to Modesto in 1870 where it still stands.

1964 La Grange Rodeo Clown, Bill Lane. *Identified by viewer as being Tom Kelly from Bakersfield, CA.