Remembering Bob “Mr. Tuolumne” Hackamack

Bob Hackamack passed away at age 90 in late April of this year. I always called Bob Mr. Tuolumne River for his decades of pioneering work to protect the Tuolumne River. And I was not the only one who did so.

Bob is probably best known for his work to defeat the proposed Clavey-Wards Ferry dam on the Tuolumne. He began that task in 1968 when he heard that San Francisco was proposing to inundate 12 miles of the Tuolumne River from Don Pedro Reservoir to nearly Clavey Falls.

Bob was an engineer at Ernest and Julio Gallo’s Modesto winery, a frequent Sierran “peak bagger,” and considered the Tuolumne River from its headwaters to its confluence with the San Joaquin River to be his adopted watershed. It didn’t take long before he had negotiated with his wife Jean to let him spend one hour per day for twenty years to protect and restore the Tuolumne River.

Bob never flinched from learning the engineering of the proposed dams and powerhouses on the Tuolumne. That also included San Francisco’s Hetch-Hetchy project and the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation District’s giant Don Pedro Dam. For us younger folks, when we needed answers, he was our Yoda (that’s a Star Wars reference).

1968 was also the year that the Congress and President Johnson created the national wild & scenic river system. Bob did not waste the moment. In 1971, Bob and the Modesto Bee’s late Thorne Gray authored an 82-page report to the Sierra Club Board of Directors nominating the Tuolumne to the system.

By 1975, Bob and Jerry Meral’s Sierra Club Tuolumne River Conference had convinced the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors and the local congressman (masterful work) and ultimately the Congress to designate the Tuolumne from its headwaters to the Don Pedro Reservoir as a wild & scenic study river, protecting the river for five years — and require the U.S. Forest Service to make a recommendation on whether or not the river should be added to the national system. It did so in 1979, but the recommendation did not quickly find fertile soil in the Congress.

Not to be dissuaded, Bob helped to form the Tuolumne River Preservation Trust (now Tuolumne River Trust), which along with a small army of Friends of the River volunteers (and staff) helped to overcome the opposition from San Francisco and the irrigation districts and get the river included in the system in 1984. (I had the privilege of attending the climactic showdown in the House Interior Committee. It was something not to be forgotten.)

Of course, work on the Tuolumne did not end in 1984, there was FERC stuff, more potential Forest Service wild & scenic river recommendations, getting more water in the lower Tuolumne, the list grows long. Bob was always there to do his part.

And yes, Bob had to renegotiate his agreement with Jean. He put in more than four decades of work on the Tuolumne River.

For those who wonder what the origin of Tuolumne River landmarks such as Meral’s Pool, Gray’s Grindstone, and Hackamack’s Hole, please trust that the appellations are well-deserved. It’s just one way to remember the history and individuals whose good work saved these rivers for future generations.

What are your favorite memories of Bob? Please share below. Send any photos you would like to share to rstork@friendsoftheriver.org.