Note: With Hog fire raging out of control just west of Susanville. I went into the archives to retrieve a past post on the origin of Hog Flat Reservoir. Normally, Tuesday is a dark day for the daily post, this is an exception.
Constructed in 1889 as part of Benjamin Leavitt’s expanding reclamation enterprise and now part of the Lassen Irrigation District. Lassen National Forest Service Supervisor, A. G. Brenneis, wrote an article about the origin of its name that was published in the California Ranger, August 1938: “Many years ago the residents of Honey Lake Valley joined together to start the Susan River Irrigation District and, as a first step, began the construction of the dams at the present sites of Hog Flat and McCoy Flat Reservoirs. The first winter this country received heavy storms and as a result the dam at Hog Flat was destroyed. The entire meadow, which should have been a lake was covered with a rank growth of vegetation and in order to salvage something from the reservoir, the farmers of the district banded together, placed a huge herd of hogs on the meadow, fattened them, and made some money to repay them for the loss of the dam. Ever since then the reservoir has carried its name of Hog Flat.”