The following history is excerpted from Beulah: A Biography of the Mineral King Valley by Louise Jackson.
In 1927 the Forest Service constructed concrete ponds below the dining room in which they hoped to acclimate planted fish to the high altitude and cold waters. The project was finished on August 13 and water was turned into the ponds. The next day five trucks rumbled into camp from the hatchery at Hammond. Almost the entire camp turned out at dawn to watch 100,000 steelhead fry being poured into the concrete boxes.
The people watched the fish in their new home all that day and all the next, watched them dying. The next year the forestry officials tried again, rebuilding the "rearing" ponds, and this time the experiment succeeded. Until more modern methods of planting came in the 1940s, a favorite afternooon pastime was going down to the fish ponds to watch the fingerlings.
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www.MineralKing.org
April 1998