Butte County
Biographies
PAUL RIECKER
PAUL RIECKER.--Probably no man now living in Butte County has seen as much of the United States as has Paul Riecker, of Oroville. He has traveled in every state and territory of our country except Maine, Florida and Alaska. His travel and study have made him a very well-informed man, able to converse intelligently on almost any subject. A native of Germany, he was born in Stuttgart, on March 2, 1851; and when he had attained school age he was sent to the public school, and later the polytechnic school in Stuttgart, where he made a specialty of civil engineering, more particularly along railroad lines. After his graduation, then being nineteen years of age, he came to America and joined an uncle, Charles Weicks, who was a stockman in Walker’s Basin, in Kern County, Cal. For the first eighteen months he rode the range, and became proficient in the art of throwing the lariat and branding cattle. During this time he saw the necessity of learning the English language; so he quit his job, and with his savings went to San Francisco. He locked himself in his room and began to study, and in forty-two days had memorized Shakespeare. His friends in the turnverein immediately saw the improvement in his speech, and through their influence he obtained a position with the United States government at a salary of one hundred twenty-five dollars a month, which was later raised to one hundred sixty-six dollars a month.
Never before having had so much money at his disposal, Mr. Riecker began to speculate in stocks, and in a short time had accumulated fifteen thousand dollars. This having come to him easily, however, it went in the same manner, for he lost it in other speculations. Finding himself in need of a position, he surveyed a government road from Camp Apache to Camp Thomas. He went out alone to look for a new survey route, and told the other members of his party to meet him at Ash Creek Springs; but upon his arrival at that point he found no one. In looking about he found newly made tracks and began following them, thinking that they must have been made by members of his party; but before long he ran into Geronimo’s band of some fifteen hundred Indians, about one hundred fifty yards away. He was surrounded by the red men, who rode slowly up to him; but he resolved to show no fear, and asked, “Did you see my party?” Geronimo answered, “No, I did not.” Then Mr. Riecker replied, “They must be right here, for I just left them a short while ago.” Upon saying this, he turned his horse and rode slowly away, expecting to be shot. His ruse worked, and he got away safely and went back to Ash Creek Springs, met his party, and then went on to Camp Thomas, where he received the news that Geronimo and his band had ambuscaded a cavalry company, killing twenty-six of them.
After spending eight years in Arizona, Mr. Riecker went to Los Angeles, at the time of the great boom, and began surveying, having a corps of thirty-five men. He laid out the town of Redondo and Inglewood, and laid out in subdivisions several large ranches, among them the Palos Verdes and the Dominguez ranchos. After spending some time in Southern California, he went to Seattle and became chief engineer for the Kirtland Land & Improvement Company. He was city engineer of Seattle for a time, and also served as surveyor of Kings County. It was while he was in the latter position that he went to Niagara Falls and examined the Niagara power plant, then under construction. He later went to work for the state, having charge of the geological survey of the State of Washington, and then was chief assistant engineer on the Nicaragua Canal, under Menocal, chief engineer, where he did some very efficient work. His next employment was with the Southern Pacific Railroad, as right-of-way and locating engineer, with branch offices in various localities. This position he filled until 1906, when he located in Oroville and engaged in the real estate and nursery business, which he is still following. He had laid out and sold the Western Pacific Addition to Oroville, and the Howe and the Bowers Tracts, besides dealing in general realty. In his dealings he has been very successful, and has become one of the active, live-wire business men of Oroville.
Mr.
Riecker, while prospecting, discovered a water-power project on the Feather
River that will furnish tremendous electric power. With some associates he went
out to locate some mining claims, and having seen some Swedes diving and
scraping bed rock for gold, he conceived the idea of the feasibility of a power
project. In Bald Rock Canyon on the Middle Fork of Feather River, he discovered
a location favorable for a dam that will give over two million acre-feet of
water, and generate approximately one hundred sixty thousand electric kilowatt
power. He surveyed the land and found that by constructing a dam six hundred
fifty feet high, a lake ten square miles in area, and six hundred feet deep in
places, would result, thereby giving the supply of water for irrigation and
power mentioned above, and that at this height the dam would be only eleven
hundred feet across the canyon and the bottom only two hundred feet wide.
Nowhere else, perhaps, has nature provided so safe and favorable a place for
such an engineering feat. Native granite is abundant; at hand are
one-hundred-ton pieces of rock which can be lifted into place by a huge crane;
timber is also plentiful; and the only necessary importations would be
sufficient machinery and cement. With his associates, J. M. Chubbuck, W. L.
Curran, George C. Riley, E. E. Walsh, and Ernest Klinow, he has located a
sufficient number of claims to secure the site for such a project.
Transcribed by Vicky
Walker, 1/23/08.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 660-662, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Vicky
Walker.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies