Frances Martin and her Mother

Frances Has Her Lake Back!!!
By A. Dale Johnson, November 11, 2000

Who Was Frances? --- Frances Marianna Martin was born in Alabama on December 18, 1888. She was the oldest of John and Abigail Martin's five children. John Martin named Lake Frances after her in 1899, when she was 10 years old. "Francis" has incorrectly been used as the name for the lake and dam over the last 70 years, or so. There are ample records, however, to prove that Frances is the correct name. Frances married Duval Moore. Her daughter, Mavis Moore, now lives in Seattle. James W Martin, MD, now retired, lives in Sacramento. They are cousins and grandchildren of John and Abigail Martin. Mavis will be very happy that the lake, named after her mother, has its correct name again!

Lake Now Correctly Named --- Lake "Francis" Road was quietly renamed Lake "Frances" earlier this year by Yuba County, as evidenced by the new sign at Marysville Road. The Yuba County Water Agency has now finished a brand new dam and will officially name it -- Lake Frances Dam and Lake Frances. The Yuba Electric Power Company was created in early 1899 for the purpose of building the Colgate Powerhouse project. John Martin had contracted to deliver power to the Sacramento electric streetcars and that commitment was met on September 5, 1899. John Martin was the company president and his major partners were Eugene J. de Sabla, Jr. and Romulus Riggs Colgate. They had previously built the Nevada "Rome" Powerhouse in 1896-98, near Nevada City, and the Yuba Powerhouse in 1898, near Browns Valley. Mr. Colgate, a grandson of the founder: of the Colgate Soap Co., was the major investor in all these projects. Colgate was honored by naming the new plant after him and by nicknaming the Nevada plant "Rome" after him. The water for the Colgate plant came from Bullards Bar on the North Yuba River via 8 miles of wooden flume down the steep canyon wall. It was decided to create an emergency water supply should them be problems with the flume. A dam was built above the powerhouse on Dobbins Creek for this purpose. Two years earlier, as part of the expansion of the Nevada "Rome" Powerhouse, a new lake was created and de Sable named it after one of his daughters - Lake Vera. Now, it was Martin's turn to name a lake and he called it -- Lake Frances.

An interesting sidelight is the fact that the original Lake Frances Dam failed a few days after completion. This happened on October 18, 1899 after nine inches of rain in 36 hours. The 50 foot high dam had been rushed to completion without proper compaction of the top layers of earth. The dam was rebuilt in a much more substantial way in 1901-2 using hydraulic sluicing techniques. The rebuilt dam was 77 feet high and held three times as much water as before. The new lake covered 92 acres, more than twice as much as the original. After nearly 100 years of service, this dam has now been completely rebuilt by the Yuba County Water Agency.

Phase two of the Colgate Powerhouse attracted worldwide attention on April 27, 1901, when it delivered power 142 miles away to the electric streetcars in the City of Oakland. This was the longest distance power transmission in the world. Martin, de Sabla and Colgate continued their partnership by building new plants and acquiring gas and electric companies throughout Northern California. Martin and de Sabla would become known as the "fathers of PG&E," when their California Gas and Electric Company purchased the San Francisco Gas and Electric Company in 1905 - giving birth to PG&E.

The original Colgate Powerhouse suffered major fire damage in 1946 and was shut down in 1948. It was completely rebuilt with a state-of-the-art single generator unit in 1949. The present Colgate Powerhouse was completed the Yuba County Water Agency in 1970 through a partnership agreement with PG&E.

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