Untold Stories

by Jere Baker – Art Porter – Tim Purdy – David Wemple

Softcover, 6×9, 127 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-938373-58-7
Price Was $22.95 now $12.95

Surprise, surprise with a line-up of interesting authors with stories you never heard about. The collection includes tales of buried treasure, hot springs hanky-panky, murder, divorce and more!

A variety of untold facets of Lassen County comes to life whether it be Zamboni Hot Springs or Lassen’s Monuments, but not the man.

Milford takes center stage during the early 1950s with fire, flood, and snow. In the 1930s, the Army used Honey Lake for aerial training. Military might of the late 20th century comes to light with an ode to the bombing detonations of Sierra Army Depot.

Peter Lassen Grave — Lassen’s original gravestone as it appeared in 1905

While that is a brief description, there is just so much more. One of the first settled places in Long Valley is known today as Zamboni Hot Springs, the home of Great Basin Pottery. However, in the 1970s, it gained a certain notoriety, not necessarily of the best kind.

Besides Zamboni Hot Springs, two other springs are highlighted. Jere Baker writes the tale of Compton’s failed attempt in 1930s to develop a mineral springs resort in Susanville, now the site of Greystone Apartments. Tim Purdy’s story about Chauncey Smith’s Elixir Springs is an odd twist since it relates to buried treasure, that only his nephew knew about, but was murdered in Denver on route to take over his uncle’s property.

Smith property tag — Receipt for gold coins dug up on Chauncey Smith’s homestead. Though the rest was never dug up.

Locally, Chauncey Smith’s burial of coins was not an isolated incident. There have been various accounts over the years of finding someone’s lost or forgotten loot. In 1906, for example, when Will Spoon was a plowing a field near Buntingville, he uncovered a buried can of coins. It was finally attributed that it had belonged to H.J. Martin, who previously lived and died there in 1902. So maybe someone will be lucky and find Chauncey’s.

The stories continue how the military in the 1930s, used the dry Honey Lake bed for aerial training. David Wemple recounts his experiences of the wrath of Mother nature at Milford during the early 1950s. In addition, there is the story about Lassen’s Monuments, a neglected story of our past. Of course, you do not want to miss the sordid details of one of Lassen County’s intriguing divorce case of the 1860s.