In a very belated follow up on the history of Halls Flat. For a refresher for those new to the area, Halls Flat is located in western Lassen County, north of Poison Lake, which some times is a lake that Highway 44 skirts around the south shore.
Anyhow, Halls Flat came to life in a big way starting in August 1941 when the Red River Lumber Company established Camp Bunyan. This was a new experience for company. Its timber was no longer tributary to its Westwood mill—as a fact the camp alone was thirty-five miles to the north. The bottom line, this is where the timber was. Camp Bunyan was unique from other Red River logging camps. Not only did this camp have a name and not a number, it was their largest camp that consisted of both temporary and permanent buildings. At its peak time, it was the home to some 350 loggers, making it one of the largest seasonal communities in Lassen County. However, it got off to a rough start when not long after the loggers went on strike over wages and poor living conditions. Once those issues were resolved everything went smoothly. From Camp Bunyan a railroad logging line was constructed to the east in the company’s Blacks and Harvey Mountains tracts. In 1943, a second logging camp named Camp Harvey was established. At the end of the following of year, a major change happened when Red River sold to the Fruit Growers Supply Company. At the end of the 1946 logging season Camp Bunyan had served its intended purpose and was shut down. Its location remained a hub of activity since the log trains from Camp Harvey went to the Camp Bunyan site to connect with the Western Pacific Railroad that relayed the loaded log cars to the Westwood mill.
In the spring of 1948, though the hustle and bustle of the connections of the Harvey railroad line connecting with the Western Pacific at Halls Flat came to a sudden halt. In essence, it was similar to the opening of Camp Bunyan. This time, however, it was the cookhouse employees at Camps Harvey and Stanford that went on strike over wages. With no end in sight Fruit Growers permanently closed down those logging camps and the railroad logging line.
Awesome.