Melones is a former settlement in Calaveras County

Calaveras County, California

Calaveras County is a county located in the Gold Country of the U.S. state of California. Calaveras is the Spanish word for skulls; the county was reportedly named for the remains of Native Americans discovered by the Spanish explorer Captain Gabriel Moraga. As of the 2010 census, the county had a...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, now submerged beneath a reservoir

Reservoir

A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...

 named New Melones Lake

New Melones Lake

New Melones Lake is an artificial lake in the central Sierra Nevada foothills of Calaveras- and Tuolumne County, California near Jamestown. This reservoir created by the construction of the New Melones Dam across the Stanislaus River has a capacity with a surface area of...

. It lay at an elevation of 955 feet (291 m). Melones was founded on the site of a ferry operated in 1848 by John W. Robinson and Stephen Mead. The town initially took its name from the ferry.

The first post office opened in Robinsons Ferry in 1879, the name was changed to Robinson's in 1895, and to Melones in 1902. The post office was closed in 1932, re-established in 1933 and closed for good in 1942.