Some years have a way for things to come together and that was the case for Spaulding Tract. On May 21, 2005 a dedication ceremony was held for the new $2.5 million Spaulding Marina.
In 2004, the property owners there approved to build a sewer system at an approximate cost of $10 million, which the community’s cost would be $8.8 million. In May 2005 it was announced that the Spaulding Tract Community Service District received a $1.8 million grant from the USDA as a part of rural development. With everything in place that summer they were ready to accept bids for the construction.
A view of Spalding Tract from the Eagle Lake shoreline,June 21, 2020.
Personally, this east side Honey Lake Valley resident, is a fascinating figure and I relate to him in on many levels. He began his career first working for U.S.G.S. He did extensive travel in the western United States with that agency. In 1905, he was part of the survey team to survey the boundaries of Crater Lake National Park. He put together four albums of his work there, with detailed notes.* During this same time, his brother, Marvin, was lured to the sagebrush plain of eastern Honey Lake Valley, and took up a homestead that would later become the nucleus of the town of Stacy.
In time, Marvin convinced Carl to join him the reclamation enterprise there. Their first endeavor was a well-drilling business, since the new homesteaders arriving in the region would need wells for domestic purposes. Carl kept well logs, that information nearly a century later is an important resource. In addition, he monitored the flow of High Rock Springs to see how the wells affected its flows.
The big project in the region was the establishment of the Standish Water Company in 1910 and their intent to build a pumping plant to use the water of Honey Lake to reclaim the sagebrush lands. The company recruited Carl, as its engineer. Not only, did Carl oblige, he and his brother invested $20,000 towards the project. The project went bust for a number of reasons.
On the bright side, Caudles had a great well, that not only provided their domestic needs, but irrigation, too. The family carried on. During the height of the homestead era, Carl was busy as a surveyor to plot out each land claim. By 1920, the area was deserted and services as a engineer or surveyor were no longer needed. Nevertheless, Carl persevered. In the 1930s, the United States Army contacted Caudle for information on this portion of the Honey Lake Valley. Caudle’s knowledge not only paid off for him, but for the region as a whole. It was with his information and lobbying efforts that the government established the Sierra Army Depot in 1942. He never saw its complete development, or that of the community of Herlong for he died in his sleep at his Stacy home on August 4, 1942. He is buried in the nearby Honey Lake Cemetery, with other family members.
Carl Caudle’s grave, Honey Lake Cemetery.
*The albums have been donated to Crater Lake National Park.
Note: This post originally appeared in April 2016. While examining a Government Land Office survey map of 1882, it notes the location of the Soldier’s Station.
In the fall of 1856, Levi Breed set up a trading post on the Nobles Emigrant Trail where it crosses Willow Creek, just north where the current Lassen County road A-27 crosses Willow Creek. It was second such post for the Honey Lake Valley. The following year Breed located to Janesville and became that community’s largest merchant for a number of years.
Looking north along Willow Creek towards the site of Dragoon Bridge, April 19, 2016.
It was the military that came along next to locate on Breed’s abandoned post. In 1859, a military station, under the leadership of First Lt Milton T. Carr, A 1 Dragoons, was established at the Willow Creek crossing. Its main purpose was to protect the travelers on the Nobles Emigrant Road. This group consisted of twenty-four men from Fort Crook, Fall River Valley. “Dragoon” is the name for a mounted soldier or cavalryman.The following year, it was replaced by Soldier’s Bridge which was located further to the east and along the Susan River.
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In 1922, the Modoc County Board of Supervisors did a bold act in an effort to control the wild horse population. At that time, they passed a resolution to allow the Modoc National Forest to round up stray horses on public land using the provisions under California Legislation under the various provisions of the Estray Acts.
George Lyons the Supervisor for the Modoc National Forest contacted W.G. Durbin of the Lassen National Forest for assistance with Lassen County officials, since a portion of the Modoc Forest extends into Lassen County.
On January 31, 1924 Durbin wrote to the Lassen County Board of Supervisors to pass resolution similar to Modoc. Durbin wrote: “For a number of years the Forest Service and stockmen of Modoc County have been trying to free the Modoc Forest of this class of stock and have gotten rid of most of it, except in that portion of the Forest Service extending from Willow Creek and Hayden Hill south to the Pitt River and east of Bieber. To a very large extent this stock is made up are commonly called fuzz-tails and are wither unbranded or of so little value that the owners do not care to go the expense or even gathering them and in some instances they will not claim them after they have been gathered.
”These animals consume and destroy range that is badly needed by the ranchers in the Big Valley country for their cattle. There is only one way of getting rid of this class of stock and that is to dispose of them under the State Estray Act.”
With the initial construction of Westwood in 1913, Fletcher Walker, Red River Lumber Company’s Resident Manager referred to the new community as the “City of Trees”. At that time, an order was issued not cut down any trees than necessary, just enough to clear building sites and streets. As one visitor to Westwood in 1913 noted, “The cottages are being built right among the pine trees, and the only clearance is where the trees have been cut to make way for the streets. The trees are so close together that one can only see a few houses at a time. Hence it is a city among the pines.”
No one was aware that the lofty pines would present a hazard until January 25,1914. The stormy weather began shortly after midnight and from all appearances was no different than any other storm the residents had endured. This all changed shortly before eleven o’clock in the morning. A ferocious windstorm struck the community. The gale force winds, while only lasting about five
minutes, wreaked havoc on Westwood and rattled the nerves of its
inhabitants. Over one hundred lofty pine trees snapped like kindling. One tree crashed on the roof of the cookhouse whose occupants were preparing the noon meal. A ten-room cottage under construction fell victim as well when a tree crashed into it, the force so great it tossed one of the carpenters into a snow bank. Several other cottages were destroyed, but luckily there were no other injuries. At two o’clock in the afternoon the residents gathered en mass at the Opera House to discuss what happened. A committee of three was selected to confer with Red River management to request all standing trees be removed immediately, as they felt threatened by them. So serious was their plea, should the company take no action many would quit and move elsewhere. Red River obliged and next morning removed a number of trees that they deemed posed a hazard.
Since no one replied to the recent Ask Tim post, Standish will be a topic. This is due in part while searching for a photograph of the water flume in the Susan River Canyon, I came across a portion of my manuscript on the early history of Standish. After reviewing the same, I can attest that my early writing skills were rough around the edges. At least the historical documentation was there!
In 1866 by Andrew Litch settled in the Honey Lake Valley having abandoned the Granite Creek Station. In 1868, Litch and Thomas J. French purchased the Shaffer Brothers Ranch (known today as Mapes). In 1874, the two men dissolved the partnership and split the ranch. In 1883, Litch moved to Reno, but kept the ranch, renting it out.
The Gibson/Haley Ranch, near Litchfield—John Gibson
In 1895, B.F. Gibson married Clara Litch, where he took over his father-in-law’s ranch. Gibson continued to make improvement and acquired additional property near Wendel known as the Purser Ranch. Gibson was also the main beneficiary of Ward Lake for a water supply. Descendants of the family continued to operate the ranch until 1975, when it was sold.
An acquaintenance of mine was surprised to learn that famed modern art painter, Jackson Pollock attended school at Janesville. The other day, I was thinking about a well known archaeologist who attended school at Missouri Bend, some three miles from Janesville. There the similarities stop.
In 1926, Harry S. Riddell moved his family to a small farm north and east of Janesville. Riddell, an engineer, was hired by the Baxter Creek & Tule Irrigation Districts to see if he could come up with a solution with the problems surrounding the Bly Tunnel at Eagle Lake. His two sons, only barely a year apart, Harry and Francis attended the Missouri Bend School. The two boys started noticing arrowheads on the school grounds. They were fascinated by this other finds of Native American artifacts. In 1936, the family moved to Sacramento. Both Harry and Francis studied and became archeologists. Harry was the low-key of the two. Before I go any farther, Francis was best to known to his colleagues and friends as Fritz. However, he was always Francis to me.
The old Missouri Bend School, December 2020–Smith Properties
Francis became the first archeologist to be hired by the State of California, first as a curator of the California State Indian Museum. Later, he went to work in the Department of Parks & Recreation. In 1948, he began to participate in archaeological surveys throughout the state, using a standardize form, something unheard at the time.
Francis had a special fondness for the Honey Lake Valley and the Indians there. He was involved with the archaeological excavations of Karlo and Tommy Tucker Cave. Francis did not stop there. He had a passion for Indian Ethnography to better understand his work. As Francis commented, “I could not separate the past from the present.” During the late 1940s and 1950s, Riddell, along with colleague Bill Evans would compile the Ethnographic History of the Honey Lake Maidu and the Honey Lake Paiute. A very valuable document, indeed.
Not only was Riddell was highly regarded in California archaeology, but for his work in Peru. Riddell even invited me to partake in one of his Peruvian expeditions. Alas, I had to decline due to a lack of funds.
John Edward Raker was born in Illinois in 1863, at the age of 10, came to Lassen County with his parents. In 1885, he passed the bar examine, and moved to Alturas to practice law. He eventually went into partnership with his father-in-law, E.V. Spencer. Raker went on to being elected Modoc County District Attorney and then Modoc County Superior Court Judge. In 1910 he decided to run for the California’s First Congressional District seat and won by a slim margin of 141 votes. Raker continued to serve as Congressman until his death in 1926.
Raker was buried in the Spencer family plot in Susanville. The services were held on Sunday, January 31, 1926–an impressive. affair. The body arrived by train at noon at Susanville, which also consisted of a number of Congressmen, along with a contingent of forty-seven people from Alturas.
As the Lassen Mail noted: “The procession was an imposing one, as it slowly and solemnly wended its way along the slush covered streets. When the first automobile reached the Methodist Church, the line was still moving at the depot. The line of march was along Richmond Road to Weatherlow, north on Weatherlow to Main, up Main to Lassen and thence to the church.”
The night before the region was hit with a heavy snowstorm, making the roads a big slushy mess. Twenty-five members of McKea Post, American Legion, attended but it took them two and half hours to make the trip from Westwood. Had the weather been more favorable there would have been an even larger turnout.
This is a good time as any, in the middle of winter, to label those old print photographs that you may have. It is sad and some what tragic to come across a box of old photographs given to me, only to find that so many are not identified.
Then, of course, there is the other extreme. When I received the C.R. Caudle Collection I was quite fortunate, since so many were labeled. Maybe because he was a civil engineer, might have something to do with it. Some of his photographs he wrote in great detail on the back of photographs. Today’s featured photograph is a perfect example. Caudle wrote: ”Overflow spillway for Lake Almanor, Plumas County, Calif. One of the water storage reservoirs of the Great Western Power Company, taken Aug. 1923 by R.A. Warden, when C.R. Caudle and Warden were on their way to visit V.S. Barber at the Sunnyside Gold Placer Mine.”
