There were some hardy souls that were lured to eastern Honey Lake Valley with the promise that irrigation companies of plentiful water would transform the sagebrush lands into a verdant wonderland. Countless companies formed and later went, but some individuals remained. For those who remained they did not have many options and remained, at least they owned land. One of those was a man by name of Carl Serwotke who arrived in the early 1890s.
Upon his arrival, while the reclamation companies failed deliver water at least Mother Nature was cooperative. It was during this period until1917 the region experienced one its ever recorded wet cycles. While the desert homesteaders met with a lot struggles the above normal precipitation made things some what bearable.
1917 the region’s twenty year drought began. Many a desert homesteader abandoned their homesteads and sought a new life elsewhere. Serwotke was not one them. However, in 1921 he appealed to the Lassen County Board of Supervisors for property tax relief. Serwotke wrote:
“I beg pardon-I see you try to tax the dry land much higher now when their sagebrush land in this for ability is worth to tax 2 and 3 dollars per acre, then that land, where they have water and are able to to grow everything on, ought to be tax from 75 to100 per acre. Last year, I sowed 1 ton of rye for hay for my horses, but didn’t get anything and had buy $150 worth of hay, and paid about 25 dollars taxes. And this year I sowed the same amount of rye and got nothing neither, so have buy hay again. When a person can’t sell anything from the dry land to pay the present taxes with, then how can he be able to pay more. ”
From then on it was exercise in futility. He died in 1929 and is buried in the Honey Lake Cemetery (Stacy). There is no marker for his grave.