The Crescent Valley

In the 1800s, a young married couple named Cornelius & Mary Carroll moved from their native Ireland to the United States. Cornelius Carroll was a merchant and engineer.

The Carroll family lived in Minnesota, Wisconsin, then went West to Salem, Oregon. From there they moved south to San Diego's Mission Valley and finally in the 1880s after purchasing land from Walker Sherman, they settled in the Lake Hodges area. His nephew, Thomas Carroll, also settled in the area.

The Carrolls had a large family. Their kids were born in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Oregon. Maybe this is a coincidence, but it just happens that about 35 miles from Salem, Oregon is an area called Crescent Valley. Crescent Valley in Oregon has a winding river and large hills (almost exactly the same height as the Mt. Israel area near Lake Hodges). Cornelius Carroll died at his Crescent Valley ranch in 1885 and his wife Mary passed away 13 years later in 1898.

The Crescent Valley is the area that is now known as Del Dios and 4-S Ranch. The Crescent Valley was known as an agricultural area, but in the early days it was also a mining district. At least six different miners were working the area in the late 1880s. Around the turn of the century (the 1900 turn, not 2000), large chunks of the area around Lake Hodges were owned by family related to Cornelius D. Carroll: his nephew Thomas Carroll, daughter Mary Anne Carroll Hollan, the estate of wife Mary Carroll, and son James B. Carroll.

In 1905, the Crescent Valley was considered as a potential location for part of the proposed San Diego and Eastern Railroad. The route to Escondido would have been alongside the San Dieguito River.

But as we now know, in around 1916, a large portion of Thomas Carroll's land was sold to the Santa Fe Railroad for the construction of the dam, and parts of Thomas Carroll and Mary Anne Carroll Hollan's land were engulfed in the rising dam waters.