| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electricity |
| Founded | 1895 |
| Headquarters | Fresno, California, United States |
| Products | Electricity |
The San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation was a utility company that provided electricity to seven counties in the San Joaquin Valley of California. [1] The company is one of several utilities acquired by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company during the 1920s and 1930s to form the modern PG&E system. [2]
The company was first organized as the San Joaquin Electric Company on April 1, 1895, by engineer John Samuel Eastwood for the construction of the hydroelectric San Joaquin Powerhouse No. 1, located 37 miles from Fresno on Willow Creek, a tributary of the San Joaquin River. [3] [4] The company later became the San Joaquin Power Company in 1905 and then the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation in 1910. [5] By 1920, the company had 11 powerhouses. [3]
San Joaquin's early business was challenged by the competing Fresno Gas and Electric Company, controlled by Fulton G. Berry, owner of Fresno's Grand Central Hotel. [6] [7] Berry used riparian claims filed on water upstream from San Joaquin Electric Company's intake flume to divert water away from the company's powerhouse through a mile-long ditch. [4] Combined with several years of drought, this diversion of water forced San Joaquin Electric into bankruptcy in 1899. [7]
Despite the company's bankruptcy, San Joaquin Electric continued to operate. Bondholders, seeking to protect their investment by providing the company's powerhouse a steady source of water, financed the 1901 construction of what would become the hydraulic fill Crane Valley Dam and the reservoir of Bass Lake. [7]
San Joaquin Electric Company was purchased out of bankruptcy in 1902 by William G. Kerckhoff, a lumber magnate and president of Pacific Light & Power, and reincorporated as the San Joaquin Power Company. Under Kerckhoff, San Joaquin Power Company purchased the electric system of the competing Fresno Gas and Electric Company in 1903 for $25,000. [3] [8]
San Joaquin Power also reached a separate 1903 agreement with the California Gas and Electric Company—which would merge with the San Francisco Gas and Electric Company two years later to create PG&E—setting territories for electrical service, drawing a line that extended roughly from the southern border of Santa Cruz County east to the southern border of Mono County. [9] [3]
San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation was acquired in 1924 by the Great Western Power Company, a subsidiary of The North American Company. [2] North American subsequently sold its interests in the combined utilities to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 1930 in exchange for $114 million in PG&E stock, creating a single consolidated utility serving most of Northern and Central California. [3] [2]
The San Joaquin River is the longest river of Central California. The 366-mile (589 km) long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suisun Bay, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. An important source of irrigation water as well as a wildlife corridor, the San Joaquin is among the most heavily dammed and diverted of California's rivers.
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered at 300 Lakeside Drive, in Oakland, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 million households in the northern two-thirds of California, from Bakersfield and northern Santa Barbara County, almost to the Oregon and Nevada state lines.
Southern California Edison (SCE), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electric utility company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of approximately 50,000 square miles.
John Samuel Eastwood was an American engineer who built the world's first reinforced concrete multiple-arch dam on bedrock foundation at Hume Lake, California, in 1908, and was one of California's pioneers of hydroelectric power production. Eastwood's papers are held at the Water Resources Collections and Archives, University of California, Riverside.
The Mokelumne River is a 95-mile (153 km)-long river in northern California in the United States. The river flows west from a rugged portion of the central Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley and ultimately the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, where it empties into the San Joaquin River-Stockton Deepwater Shipping Channel. Together with its main tributary, the Cosumnes River, the Mokelumne drains 2,143 square miles (5,550 km2) in parts of five California counties. Measured to its farthest source at the head of the North Fork, the river stretches for 157 miles (253 km).
Friant Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the San Joaquin River in central California in the United States, on the boundary of Fresno and Madera Counties. It was built between 1937 and 1942 as part of a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) water project to provide irrigation water to the southern San Joaquin Valley. The dam impounds Millerton Lake, a 4,900-acre (2,000 ha) reservoir about 15 miles (24 km) north of Fresno.
Folsom Powerhouse State Historic Park is a historical site preserving an 1895 alternating current (AC) hydroelectric power station—one of the first in the United States.
Courtright Reservoir is a reservoir in Fresno County, California. The reservoir is at an elevation of 8,170 feet in the Sierra National Forest, in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, bordering the John Muir Wilderness and the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness.
The San Joaquin & Eastern Railroad (SJ&E) was a standard gauge common carrier railroad that operated in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Fresno County in the U.S. state of California. The line was abandoned in 1933. The railroad hauled primarily lumber and agricultural products.
Mammoth Pool Dam is a hydroelectric dam located on the San Joaquin River in the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, about 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Fresno. It forms Mammoth Pool Reservoir and lies within the Sierra National Forest. The dam and reservoir were named after a large natural pool in the river that was once located above the present dam site.
The South San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID), located in Southern San Joaquin County, California, is a non-profit utility that provides irrigation water and domestic water in the Central Valley of California along with hydroelectric power.
The North Fork Kings River is a 40.3-mile (64.9 km) tributary of the Kings River, in the U.S. state of California. The river's main stem is entirely within Fresno County, and its watershed drains about 387 square miles (1,000 km2) of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range.
San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation Building is an historic 11-story, 52.8 m (173 ft) high-rise in downtown Fresno, California. The building was completed in 1923 for the San Joaquin Light and Power Corporation, that later became the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, by chief designer Raymond R. Shaw of the R.F. Felchlin Company. The building is the fourth tallest in the city.
Temperance Flat Dam is a proposed dam project on the San Joaquin River west of Auberry, California. Construction of the dam is on hold. The dam's main purpose would be to supplement storage capacity in the upper San Joaquin River basin. Under the current proposal, Temperance Flat would slightly more than double water storage on the San Joaquin River from below Friant Dam. The project is highly controversial because it would flood scenic canyons and historic sites along the San Joaquin River, and impact upstream hydroelectricity generation. The Bureau of Reclamation estimates the construction costs will be between US$2.5 billion and $2.6 billion, while other estimates range from $2.96 billion up to $3.35 billion. At 665 feet (203 m), Temperance Flat Dam would be the second highest dam in California, and the fifth tallest dam in the United States.
The Big Creek Hydroelectric Project is an extensive hydroelectric power scheme on the upper San Joaquin River system, in the Sierra Nevada of central California. The project is owned and operated by Southern California Edison (SCE). The use and reuse of the waters of the San Joaquin River, its South Fork, and the namesake of the project, Big Creek – over a vertical drop of 6,200 ft (1,900 m) – have over the years inspired a nickname, "The Hardest Working Water in the World".
Wishon Dam is a dam in Fresno County, California in the Sierra National Forest, in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It impounds the North Fork Kings River to form Wishon Reservoir.
William George Kerckhoff (1856–1929) was an American businessman.
Kerckhoff Dam is a concrete arch dam on the San Joaquin River in Fresno County, California, about 10 mi (16 km) southwest of Big Creek. The 114 ft (35 m) tall dam is a run-of-the-river facility impounding 4,252 acre⋅ft (5,245,000 m3) of water and is the primary feature of Pacific Gas and Electric's Kerckhoff hydroelectric project. The dam and its 160-acre (65 ha) reservoir provide water for the Kerckhoff Powerhouses No. 1 and No. 2. Powerhouse No. 1 has three Francis turbines producing a maximum of 38 megawatts (MW) and Powerhouse No. 2 has a single Francis turbine rated at 155 MW for a total project capacity of 193 MW. An annual 579.1 million KWh of electricity are generated here.
Florence Lake Dam is a concrete multiple-arch dam on the South Fork of the San Joaquin River, in Fresno County, California in the United States. The 171-foot (52 m) high dam was designed by John S. Eastwood and completed in 1926 as part of the Big Creek Hydroelectric Project, an extensive hydroelectric system in the central Sierra Nevada. Its reservoir, Florence Lake, provides for water diversion to Huntington Lake and Big Creek Powerhouses Nos. 1–3 via the 13-mile (21 km) Ward Tunnel.
The Upper North Fork Feather River Project is a hydroelectric scheme in the Sierra Nevada of California, within Lassen and Plumas Counties. The project consists of three dams, five power plants, and multiple conduits and tunnels in the headwaters of the North Fork Feather River, a major tributary of the Feather—Sacramento River systems. The total installed capacity is 362.3 megawatts (MW), producing an annual average of 1,171.9 gigawatt hours (GWh). The project is also contracted for the delivery of irrigation water between March 31 and October 31 of each year. The project is owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
