Rock Walls of Telegraph City
In the 1860s the discovery of rich veins of copper in Calaveras County California set off a major "Copper Boom." With preparations being made for the Civil War and the wide spread use in manufacturing copper had become a very valuable metal more so that even gold or silver. The town of Grasshopper, about 15 miles west of Copperopolis, California, was established to support the needs of the miners working in the area. Grasshopper was renamed Telegraph City after the construction of a telegraph line from Stockton to Sonora was routed through the city. Like most of the mining booms in the West the copper boom did not last long. The Civil War ended and the need and price of copper dropped dramatically resulting in most of the local mines closing and/or going bankrupt. Today all that remains of Telegraph City are a few building foundations, a still working windmill, a single Palm tree, and the Telegraph City's famous rock walls.
The walls were built during the mid-to-late nineteenth Century under the supervision of James Sykes, a Scottish Stone Mason, who hired local workers for the construction. The fact they still exist today speaks well of the skill of the persons who built the walls.
