Category Archives: History

History

Not One, But Two Madelines

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Van Loan’s Hotel, Madeline, circa 1904.

In 1874, Merrick Cheney and George Ford opened a stage-stop in Grasshopper Valley to take advantage of the traffic generated by the Hayden Hill mines. On September 16, 1875, the Madeline Post Office was established there with Ford as postmaster. Why Ford selected the name Madeline is not known. The post office closed on October 17, 1882 and in the following year Ford sold his Grasshopper holdings to William T. Summers. This location is where Slate Creek enters Grasshopper. However, an 1893 U.S.G.S. map indicates the location at the lower end of Grasshopper.

The current town of Madeline came into existence in 1902 when the Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad extended its line through the region. On October 9, 1902, the Lassen County Board of Supervisors accepted the Madeline townsite. For the next fifteen years, prosperous times were to be found at Madeline. The advent of World War I and the subsequent depression of the 1930s had a dramatic impact, not only to the town of Madeline, but to the Plains as well, as seventy percent of its population left the area.

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History

Those Annoying Bank Fees

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Note how the bank featured the eruption of Lassen Peak on their checks.

Believe it or not, bank fees have been around for a long time. In 1926, the Lassen Industrial Bank introduced a “service charge” on checking accounts. The bank’s reasoning that it was meant to provide better service. The bank stated: “For the past decade the cost of conducting the banking business with higher wages, higher taxes and higher cost of check books, stationery and supplies has increased greatly. The rate of income realized by the bank has not advanced with the increasing cost of doing business.”

Of course this did not go over well with its customers in the greater Susanville area. It should be noted that the bank also had branches in Bieber and Fall River Mills, and those folks registered their dissatisfaction.

Tim

History

Poison Lake, Lassen County

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Poison Lake
Poison Lake, 1916

A shallow lake, along Highway 44, with water that was found to be unfit to drink by the emigrants on the Lassen Trail. The travelers also found that Lassen’s Trail was not “fit” for travel either. According to the journal of Gorham Gates Kimball who was driving sheep to Idaho in 1865, it mentioned that Poison Lake ‘was so named from the effect of the bites of small red spiders which frequented the surface of the water.’ Apparently, merely washing your face and hands was enough to receive bites and experience red inflammation.

In 1916,  William L. Wales, an engineer hired by the Honey Lake Valley Irrigation District, took the above photograph, as part of his exhaustive study to seek water. He proposed diverting annually 33, 962 acre feet from Butte Lake, (no one had ever filed a water right claim to it) . A canal would be constructed from Butte Creek to divert it to Poison Lake, thence onto to Pine Creek to Eagle Lake, through a tunnel there and onto the Honey Lake Valley. Very clever. However, the district was plagued with so many problems in the beginning that it never went past the initial study phase.

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History

Lassen County Free Library, 1921

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Susanville Branch, 1920

In 1915, the Lassen County Free Library was established. In 1917, Lenala Martin was hired as County Librarian, a post she would hold for four decades.

Lenala was bound and determined to make the library and its branches accessible to all Lassen County residents. Besides the main library in Susanville in 1921 there were a total 76 branches—42 in elementary schools and 34 community branches. The community branches were held in individual homes, such as the A.J. Hall family in Doyle. The custodians of these branches received a salary of $2.50 a month. The library had a total of 17, 171 bound volumes.

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History

Forty Years of Fruit Growers, 1907-1947

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A stand of ponderosa pine of Fruit Growers

On October 7, 1907 citrus owners organized the Fruit Growers Supply Company, as a co-operative purchasing agent for the growers. This was due in part, as the growers were having a difficult time securing wooden boxes to ship citrus. Little did they know that within a few years they would be operating a sawmill and box factory at Hilt, Siskiyou County. This turned out to be beneficial. In 1919, with difficulty securing wooden boxes due in part of the conditions of World War I, they expanded and bought 41,000 acres of timberland in Lassen County and established a mill and box factory at Susanville.

In their 1947 annual Fruit Growers report they noted that Hilt had produced 896,824,000 board feet of lumber and the box factory consumed 729,445,000 board feet of lumber. At Susanville the total cut. was 1,597,990,000 feet of lumber and the box factory consumed a total of 902,128,000 feet of lumber.

An indicator of growth with their successful marketing of the Sunkist brand, in the first year they needed 6,628,000 boxes.  Forty years later the number of boxes had escalated for 40 million.

Tim

History

Forest Service Aerial Mapping Program

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Forest service aerial of the south shore of Eagle Lake taken on 11/9/1941 from Flight No. 44—Hank Martinez

In the fall of 1941, the Lassen National Forest implemented the use of aerial photography as a tool to manage the forest’s resources. However, while the aerial mapping was completed, the outbreak of World War II suspended the work.

In February 1946, the project was brought back to life, to utilize the aerial photography taken five years ago. The forest service was pleased with the program. One of the many benefits, was that forest service personnel could conduct other kinds of field work than surveying during the summer. In the winter months, the aerials provided work for staff to plot out and design new roads, etc.

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History

Where Are We—Susan River Ranch

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Originally known as the Susan River Ranch was located on Johnstonville Road a few miles east of Susanville. It was originally a part of the Bangham Ranch. In 1948 the property was acquired by Dale Soule. Construction of the house began in 1950 and over the course of time additional buildings were constructed. However, in time the property was too much for the Soules who had other business interests in Susanville to tend to. The next owner was Lawrence Holland and he owned until his death in 1969.

Susan River Ranch, 1958. Courtesy of Wendell V. Loughead

In 1973, Ray and Elberta Fraley purchased the ranch, who had spent many years in the Standish district. It was ideal for Ray as it just the perfect size for a semi-retirement ranch to raise his registered herd of Red Angus cattle. After Ray’s passing in 1979, Elberta sold the place. Its been through a number of owners over the years, and is no longer referred to as the Susan River Ranch.

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History

A Town Called What?

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Westwood, 1915. Courtesy of Leona F. Byars

In 1912, witnessed the Red River Lumber Company’s westward expansion from Minnesota to California. The founder, T.B. Walker, turned the enterprise over to his four sons. The site selected at Mountain Meadows, Lassen County initially had no name. Rather peculiar in my thinking that a company is going to spend $3 million to build a mill and company town, and it does not even have name.

Fletcher Walker was in charge of the new town and would be its resident manager. On October 3, 1912 he wrote to the Red River board, i.e., his brother’s soliciting a name.  In his letter he wrote:

“I have thought over the name TRRLCO, first letter each word and the abbreviation of company, and talked it over with Clinton and Della [Walker]. They are not very enthusiastic over the name but said it seems like a good business name and sounded pretty good. I have written you on several occasions mentioning the name, but up to present time have not had a very enthusiastic adopting of the name. It seems that unless someone else can come through with a better name that we should officially adopt it.”

There was a sense of urgency as they needed a name to submit an application to the postal authorities. Several names were bounced around including Fletcher’s favorite, “City of Trees.” That, too, was rejected, and the name of Westwood was decided, though it is not known who coined it.

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History

Lassen County Budget Crisis—Trim the Fat!

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Lassen Union High School—Lola Tanner

In November 1931 a Lassen County Farm Bureau committee was formed to see how to make cuts to the expenses of Lassen County government. One of their first recommendations was to make the Lassen County Assessor personally inspect every tax payers property to make sure nothing escaped assessment.

It was education they really set their sights on. J.H. Hunter of Westwood stated that 32 cents out of every state dollar went to education. It was Hunter’s opinion that colleges were turning out so many yearly graduates who could not find employment.

J.A. Pardee chimed in with his two-cents worth. He thought community colleges were a waste of time and money. Its was Pardee’s thought that a grammar and high school education was more than sufficient and that higher education was not necessary. Their consensus, “We are spending hundreds on ten-cent kids.”

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History

Where Are We?

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During the late 1950s, the Lassen Advocate held a contest for readers to ascertain a local ranch taken from an aerial view. This particular photograph was not featured, but the first person to identify will receive my 2022 calendar, due out later this month.

Tim