This was the original name for Baxter Creek. In the summer of 1855, Marion Lawrence, better known as “Commanche George,” made one of the first water diversions of any stream in the Honey Lake Valley. In 1864, Lawrence and B.F. Murphy claimed the Buffalo Salt Marsh in the Smoke Creek Desert as a salt mine—that Murphy developed into a profitable enterprise. Lawrence died in 1868 and was buried in an unmarked grave, one mile north of Peter Lassen’s grave

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