In the fifth season of the Hotel Ben Lomond, G. L. A. Smith became its fourth proprietor/lessee. A sportsman himself, Smith advertised his resort as a happy hunting and fishing ground. “Five deer,” he advised the Sentinel in August, 1893, “have been killed during the past week within a short walk of Ben Lomond station, and yet the woods are full of them.’ During his second season, the landlord and a guest went angling near the hotel and bagged 117 speckled beauties, including a four-pounder. His message to the press—“Trout are plentiful.”
Mr. Smith understood the enthusiasm of his audience. “Since the opening of trout season,” observed the local paper, “the trains bring numbers of visitors and tourists, who enjoy catching the tempting beauties — Wells Fargo and Co. is daily carrying baskets of trout, daintily packed in fern leaves.”
“What’s the matter with our trout law?” the Sentinel inquired with tongue in cheek, knowing that there was no one enforcing it. “Our fishermen think it’s all right. It never troubles them, although scores of splendid salmon trout have been pulled in the last two weeks.”
California had enacted some tough Fish and Game laws. As early as 1886, when Santa Cruz District Attorney W. T. Jeter protested against obstructions on the San Lorenzo, the head of the State Commission had replied that: “The builder who builds a dam without putting in fish ladders should be punished.” The problem was that enforcement was left to local authorities. The economy was depressed, and the county supervisors felt that the hiring of a Fish and Game warden would be an unnecessary expense.
The summer of 1895 not only brought yet another keeper to the Hotel Ben Lomond, but also a new owner. The purchaser of J. P. Pierce’s remaining real estate holdings, D. W. Johnston, was an associate of timber-owning millionaires, Timothy Hopkins and F. A. Hihn.
The new regime soon faced a challenge when Thomas L. Bell decided to erect a hotel of his own. Regarded by the Santa Cruz press as Ben Lomond’s unofficial mayor, Bell had accumulated acreage on the Felton side of the river, including the site of the original Pacific Mill.
Bell’s plan was gradually unveiled. An official of the Southern Pacific Railroad became a silent partner. “Next year,” it was predicted, there is the possibility of our having a grand hotel which will outrival the famous Del Monte.” A feature of the resort would be a body of water the Sentinel dubbed “Bell Lake.”
When Bell’s Hotel Rowardennan opened for business in the summer of 1896, its arrival was celebrated by a bright display. The repurposed mill dam that created the artificial lake was also employed to generate electricity for the hotel buildings. “Lights are scattered about the ground,” noticed the Surf, “and over the water of the river — where boating parties are numerous.”
Meanwhile, friends of the fishery were becoming worried. A dam, “south of Ben Lomond, which obstructs passage of the fishes” was singled out for criticism. The Sentinel urged the supervisors to appoint a Fish warden. “The game preserves and fishing streams, which have so long been the resort of rod and gun, need protection, or our game will be killed off entirely and our streams emptied of their fish.”
A petition, “signed by almost everybody,” insisted that the owners of dams across the San Lorenzo river be required to provide fish ladders. “Our streams,” insisted the Mountain Echo of Boulder Creek, should be kept free from obstruction by dams, and from the deposit of deleterious substances.”
While the editor impatiently awaited a response from the Fish Commission, other citizens took action. “Recently,” the Sentinel reported in February, 1897, “dams at Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek have been blown up with dynamite by unknown parties. Some think it was because the Fish Commissioners failed to put fish ladders in the dam, while others say it was for the purpose of giving the fish a way upstream. It was a fishy transaction, anyway.”
Less than a week later, Bell’s large house on the Rowardennan grounds burned to the ground. “Nothing was saved,” reported the Mountain Echo, excepting a few things which Mrs. Bell threw out of the window.”
Within a matter of days, the train from San Francisco brought a member of the Fish Commission to Ben Lomond. The offending dam in Ben Lomond had only suffered minor damage and, the State official was pleased to find, was now “furnished with a brand new ladder just put in, and satisfactory to the requirements of the law.”
To Be Continued
Randall C. Brown is a local historian and is a member of the SLVWD Board of Directors
