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1951 Map of Smartville

Name: 1951 Topographic Map of Smartville
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1951
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1951

About this map

Smartville stands at the center of this 1951 survey, a landscape deeply altered by the legacy of California gold mining. The winding Yuba River is flanked by extensive mounds of Tailings and historic hydraulic mining sites like the Blue Point Mine. Remnants of earlier settlement patterns are evident at the Timbuctoo (Site) and Parks Bar (Site), which were once major mining camps. Water management for industrial and agricultural use is a dominant theme, illustrated by the presence of China Ditch and the Englebright Reservoir to the northeast.

The southern portion of the map is dominated by the Camp Beale Military Reservation, showing the transition of the land from nineteenth-century mining and ranching to mid-century federal use. Numerous ranches, including Forbes Ranch and Empire Ranch, are scattered among the hills, while complex terrain features such as Sucker Flat and Timbuctoo Bend reflect the specialized local nomenclature of the Sierra Nevada foothills.