Secret Ravine is a perennial

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of Miners Ravine which shortly thereafter runs into Dry Creek in

Placer County, California Placer County ( ; ''Placer'', Spanish for "sand deposit"), officially the County of Placer, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 404,739. The county seat is Auburn. P ...

. Its course lies within the cities of Rocklin, Loomis, and Roseville, as well as unincorporated parts of Placer County. It passes through the campus of Sierra College. Over its entire length the creek runs near the

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...

freeway. It is an area becoming increasingly suburbanized. It was the site of placer mining operations during the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

, and areas of

tailings In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...

remain to this day. Later the drainage was a locale for

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

quarrying.

History

The Rocklin Cemetery is very close to the ravine. An old Indian cemetery was farther up the drainage. In 1869 some laid-off Chinese railroad workers moved to Secret Ravine to mine. They also raised vegetables which they marketed locally. They were driven out during the anti-Chinese

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

of September 1876. This area is still known as China Gardens. * Drainage area: * Stream length: * Elevation at source: * Elevation at confluence: The Secret Ravine Post Office operated from 1854 to 1868. The U.S. Census for 1860 lists it as the address for

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (February 11, 1805 – May 16, 1866), sometimes known in childhood as Pompey or Little Pomp, was an American explorer, guide, Animal trapping, fur trapper, trader, military scout during the Mexican–American War, ''alcal ...

- mountain man and son of Toussaint Charbonneau and the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...

's guide Sacagawea.

Parks

* ''Loomis Basin Community Park'' is off King Road just east of Loomis. The park consists of a North and a South division on each side of Secret Ravine. Giant boulders dot this wooded area.

Places named for the Secret Ravine tributary

* Secret Ravine Parkway, in Roseville * Secret Ravine Road, in an unincorporated area east of Loomis * Secret Ravine School,

Newcastle, California Newcastle is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Placer County, California. Nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills, Newcastle is located northeast of Rocklin and 31 miles northeast of Sacramento. Newcastle genera ...

* Secret Ravine Vineyard and Winery, in Loomis * Secret Ravine Way, in Rocklin ''NOTE: A second Secret Ravine, also in Placer County, flows into the North Fork of the

American River The American River is a List of rivers of California, river in California that runs from the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountain range to its confluence with the Sacramento River in downtown Sacramento. Via the Sacramento River, it ...

near Colfax. It was alternatively called Robbers Ravine.'' California's Geographic Names - "Secret Ravine"
/ref>

References

External links

Secret Ravine Adaptive Management Plan

Wintering at Secret Ravine
(tale from the Gold Rush days) {{coord, 38, 45, 34, N, 121, 15, 23, W, display=title Rivers of Placer County, California California Gold Rush Roseville, California Rivers of Northern California