It is nearing the end of year, so I can wrap up dumpster diving tales. This is a peculiar tale. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Lassen County Clerk’s Office was discarding historic records left and right. While I expressed my displeasure to the powers to be, it was a fruitless effort.  Instead of being confrontal, I was passive. It worked wonders. By the early 1980s, that office have discarded over 70% of its archives dating back to 1864, but I was able to salvage most of them.

In 1912, Susan Roop Arnold donated her father’s land register to the County Clerk for safe keeping. Isaac Roop’s Land Register is the oldest document of the area, where individual in 1855 began to file their land claim. The book had been tucked away in a drawer and ignored. In fact, no one knew in the office, of its historical significance. For over forty years I have been the custodian this register. Ultimately, much of my archives, this included, its future home will be lodged at Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno, there being no safe and secure facility in Susanville.

Tim