 |
Antique Views of Dinkey Creek, California
By KimMarie Pozar Gaye
|
| |
Dinkey Creek Store, 1950's
The Dinkey Creek store was one of the few places
that even until the 1980's had a sign posted inside the door
to "Please hang your firearms on the wall pegs" when
entering the store. With a small restaraunt and a bar attached
it had become the mountain watering hole of the area after the
closure of Ducey's. During the 1970's, weekends would find many
of the off duty hard rock miners working out their elbow kinks.
Family connection #1: Tim rented one of the cabins
behind the Dinkey Store while working on the McKinley Grove Road
as a flagman the summer of 1976. The family story was that he
hated the boredom of flagging and kept his sanity by repeating
the mantra, "$8.25 an hour, $8.25 an hour" under his
breath.
Family connection #2: KimMarie worked at the store
the fall of 1980 while pregnant with Kythe. Everything was copacetic
until one day while manning the short order grill, a customer
ordered a dinkey special (basically a grilled reuben sandwich),
the thought of all that greasy food gave her morning sickness.
The customer couldn't figure out what he had said when she looked
at him with wide eyes and ran out the back door of the store.
|
|
The Hotel, Camp Ducey, Dinkey Creek, Calif.
Ducey's was originally built by Jack Ducey in 1925,
for an informative article about the history go to
Memories of Summer at Camp Ducey by Mary Ann Resendes
Ducey's was called Trail's End during my days of
hanging around it in the 1970's. They had a decent pool table,
cheap meals and a fun, crowded bar on weekend nights...actually
most nights. In the mid 1970's, The Hell's Angels made Dinkey
their party place on several holiday weekends, but the only remnant
was a "Free Sonny Barger" bumper sticker on the mirror
behind the bar.
We were known to sneak away from camp on our hours
off and shoot a round of pool, drink sodas and pick on the forest
service employees. Several of those same Forest Service firefighters
were the ones who were given the task of tearing the abandoned
Camp Ducey down during the summer of 1981.
Family connection #1: KimMarie met Ron at Trail's
End. He had not made points while meeting KimMarie's best friend
when she introduced herself by saying "Hi! I'm
Binky!" and he drolly answered while staring at her
chest "They sure don't look Binky to me." Needless
to say, Binky ended up dating a different firefighter named Pete.
|
| |
The Store, Camp Ducey, Dinkey Creek, Calif.
|
|
Unidentified cabins At Dinkey Creek
|
| |
|
|
Plans from a HO Scale train kit of the Dinkey Bridge
|
| |
McKinley Big Tree Grove, Dinkey Creek, Calif.
The trees were one of the reasons that Dinkey was
originally settled. Mills owned by Pine Logging and Byles Jamison
were located at Dinkey Creek,
|
|
Dinkey Creek at Camp Ducey
Slightly out of focus, but kinda like my memory...
Modern pics of Dinkey can be found at Gloria Anderson's
websites: Camp El-O-Win,
& Dinkey
Creek Gallery
|
| |
Bathtub Pool in Rock Creek, Camp Ducey, Dinkey Creek,
Calif.
The numerous granite holes in Dinkey Creek from Ducey's
down to the old Strawberry Mill made terrific swimming and fishing
holes. Many have huge sloping granite rocks perfect for sunning
on after a swim in the chilly snow runoff in the early summer.
Down stream from Ducey's some of the best holes and rock slides
were near Camp Mar-Y-Mac, and Camp El-O-Win, but the best, place
to spend a summer's day was at the swimming hole near the location
of the old Strawberry Mill. Three deep granite holes approximately
15-20 feet deep were perfect for diving and jumping, a shallow
swimming area that was good for even younger campers and to cap
it off a terrific rock slide lined with the slippery water algae
was at the bottom of the area. After using the slides we would
have to pick the water pennies off of our behinds and legs. The
place was even fun in a rain storn as some of the jumbled granite
rocks afforded a dry location to fish from or sit and read a
book.
|
|
Lumber Flume in the Sierra Nevadas, Fresno County,
Calif.
This view of the 42-mile long lumber flume is located
just below the Shaver Mill. The large rock to the left is "Shaver
Rock", clearly identifiable today just to the west of State
Highway 168 on the sharp curve below the present Shaver Dam.
This area is known as "Devil’s Canyon" through
which Stevenson Creek, the natural outlet of Shaver Lake, flows
to the San Joaquin River in a series of spectacular falls in
a vertical drop of over 2,600 feet .
A similar flume known as "the Dinkey" ran
from Dinkey Creek down to Sanger, Ca. In the book The Years Between",
Historian Brooks Gist told of riding the Dinkey flume as a way
for off duty loggers to get down to town in Sanger in the summer.
|
| |
Public Domain Images from old Postcards, dated
from the 1920's to the 1950's
|