The Valley Flower Creamery was built in 1914 north of the Salt River on Dillon Road , expanded operations over the next several years , and continued in business for 45 years . In its earliest days , the creamery was producing about pounds of butter and pounds of casein every month , and during World War I they had a contract with the U.S. Navy for of butter . Historical land reclamation activities for agriculture , including tide gates and levees as well as siltation from uphill landslides and erosion , slowly filled in the river over time , reducing the watershed by 42 percent . Most of the original vegetation and trees were gone by 1900 , leading to an increase in siltation and a shallowing of the river . In the ten years spanning 1889 to 1899 , the river depth changed from to . Logging in the Wildcat hills continued and intensified following World War II , leading to construction of logging roads and exposed slopes , producing additional siltation . Siltation continued ; by 1949 , the Salt River had become so shallow that " at low tide ... parts of it can be waded across by a man with hip boots . " After the catastrophic 1964 flood , nearly had been covered by sand or silt . In 1967 , residents built a levee cutting off the flow of water from the Eel into the Salt , which prevents the Eel River from spilling over into the Salt channel during high water , and facilitating sediment removal . Without the occasional overflow from the Eel , plus the 1964 sediments , and the addition of landslide sediments from the 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquakes , by 2008 the river had become mostly dry land . During the 1970s , the California Department of Fish and Game stopped farmers from clearing out local channels ; willows and brush quickly filled in the riverbed , and caught sediment , stopping nearly all the flow in the lower half of the Salt , leading to flooding , problems with dilution ratios at the Ferndale Water Treatment Plant , and water quality in general
1992 Cape Mendocino earthquakes
1992 Cape Mendocino earthquakes
Salt River (California)