Boca Reservoir - Nevada County, California

Visited on 7/7-9/2017 – Picture taken on a weekend camping trip in our Truck Camper with Jeff and our dogs, Summer and Skye.  Boca Reservoir is a 977 acre lake in the Tahoe National Forest of Nevada County, California, created by the construction of Boca Dam across Little Truckee River, approximately 6 miles northeast of Truckee, CA. It is located downstream (south) of Stampede Dam and reservoir, and to the east of Prosser Creek Dam and reservoir.  Boca Reservoir is at an elevation of 5,614 feet above sea level and the lake freezes over every winter.

View from our campsite #24 at Boca Rest Campground on the northeast end of Boca Reservoir. Boca was only a construction camp for the Central Pacific Railroad when Judge Crocker from Sacramento named it in 1868.  The name means “mouth” in Spanish and derives from the fact that the town was located at the mouth of the Little Truckee River where it empties into the main river.  With the completion of the transcontinental railroad, there was a demand for enormous quantities of timber for trestles, ties, buildings, as well as fuel for wood burning locomotives and woodstoves. Even greater was the demand for clear, cold mountain ice.  At Boca, winter temperatures frequently dropped to 15 and 20 below zero, making it natural for the commercial ice cutting trade.  Realizing the potential for huge profits, wealthy investors built numerous sawmills and ice companies throughout the area. Hence, the first settlers came to Boca in1868 when the Boca Mill and Ice Company commenced operations. In 1891, the company officially incorporated as The Union Ice Company, Inc. Tevis and Hopkins made arrangements to supply Boca ice for the countless railroad boxcars headed for markets both east and west. With ice from Boca, fresh California produce could be shipped anywhere in the country.  A dam was built on the Little Truckee creating a millpond area of 180 acres.  This was used for summer storage of logs and in winter as an ice harvest field.  There were six monstrous icehouses in Boca, each capable of storing thousands of tons of ice. The ice was cut from the millpond, floated 200 yards down the canal and skidded on a tramway to where it was packed in sawdust and stored year-round.   It took about 4,000 tons of ice to keep the storage cellars cool in late July.  It was reported that the company had ample facilities for storing enough ice in a single winter to supply California for a dozen years.  In its heyday, Boca’s brewery produced 30,000 barrels of beer each year.  The brewery was located across the river from the mill and ice plant where today’s Interstate Highway 80 now crosses over the site.  Boca, being one of the coldest places in the country in winter, had five cold springs and unlimited ice that could be harvested and stored for use for over a year, ideal for a brewery site. Jeff and I along with our dogs hiked to the top of the hill above the Boca Rest Campground to visit the Boca Springs that the used back in the day to provide crystal clear water for the beer manufacturing.  Boca Beer was sold worldwide and gained fame due to brewing with natural spring water and ice.  It became a popular drink at the 1883 World’s Fair in Paris, France. On a cold January evening in 1893, the Boca Brewery burned to the ground marking the end of one of the country’s most popular beers.  By the turn of the century, man-made ice began to replace natural ice and the Boca Ice Company ceased operations. At the same time, every tree near Boca had all been harvested without regard to conservation, forcing the timber industry to close down.  Boca’s last ice harvest took place in the mid 1920s when Union Ice Company constructed its refrigeration plant on west 4th Street in Reno.  The old building is the current home of Glacier Ice Company.  In 1904, fire destroyed the hotel and what was left of the town was demolished when Boca Dam was built in 1939.