For those who have have been enjoying skiing at Coppervale this season, you need to thank Bert and Mary Bain who established it.
First a little background. Back in the 1930s several road houses were established along highway 36 between Susanville and Westwood. They initially started out simple first with a gas station and restaurant, and later expanding. You can find a complete account of these in Red River: End of an Era.
At the same time, skiing, and more particularly ski jumping was all the rage throughout Northern California, where numerous professional events were staged. In 1934, the Paul Bunyan Ski Club even sponsored one which they built a ski jump on Fredonyer. In the spring of 1935, Bert and Mary Bain purchased The Meadows. First they expanded operations with an enlarged restaurant, but added a bar and dance floor. To attract amateur skiers, Bain had a ski jump constructed across the highway from The Meadows. Bain recruited noted skiers Sid Knudson and Phil Brown to design and build a small jump for his guests, and thus the Coppervale Ski Hill was born.
The old Fruit Growers barn, June 2, 2015, with the mountain in question. in the background.
Asa M. Fairfield lamented that the only item named after Susanville’s founder, Isaac Roop, was a street. Incidentally, Roop himself named that street when the town was plotted. Fairfield idolized Roop. If Fairfield and Roop had been Roman Catholic, he would had petitioned the Vatican to make Roop a saint. Continue reading Roop vs. Worley Mountain→
The grave of Charles Gardner, Westwood Cemetery, 2013.
In August 2013, I conducted a Westwood Cemetery Tour. Since Westwood began as a company town of the Red River Lumber everyone worked together in a common goal.
With that in mind, in every operation, everyone plays an important role, as one cannot exist without the other. But before you can build a mill, you first need timber. That is where Charles Gardner, along with brother Irvine, better known as “Ippy.” The Gardner brothers, along with E.G. Scammon were part of the early California timber cruisers working under T.B. and Clinton Walker to not only examine timberlands, but also had the tedious jobs of going to a variety of county courthouses to examine land titles, so see who owned what parcel, values, taxes, etc. In a relatively short time frame of just over a decade Red River owned nearly 800,000 acres timberland in California making it the third largest landowner in California, only behind the railroads, who received their land for free from the government. Even after the Red River assembled its timberland, there was still plenty of work for the timber cruisers to do. Chief among them, was to plot out every year which sections of land that would be logged. As it was in the past, timber is still part of Red River’s heritage, now operating under Red River Forests, which is managed by Beaty & Associates.
As spring is around the corner, many are probably antsy to get out and about. With that in mind, the Lassen Ale Works and I are proposing a special Susanville Cemetery Tour to visit those hardy pioneers who hailed from Ireland and played a role in our region’s history.
Among the graves to be visited is that of John Cahlan, president of the Bank of Lassen County. Richard and Margaret Thompson that involves a forbidden marriage, murder and a governor’s pardon. Jeremiah Wood the patriarch of the Wood family that has ranched for many generations in the region. Of course, there is the strange tale which Patrick Bagin who went for a final swim in Leavitt Lake with a sixty pound rock round tied around his neck.
Everything currently is in the preliminary planning stages. However, we would like to take an informal poll to see if the interest is there. Please either leave a comment or send me an email.Please take note this is a paid subscriber event. It only cost $5.00 a month to subscribe.
While many are aware that Lassen County was dotted with numerous one-room schools, it applied to post offices, too. Some operated for decades, like Merrillville, some short-lived like Hazel, and there are a few ghost ones.
For many, it might be hard to believe that Grasshopper Valley, a sagebrush plain in north-central Lassen County, would even have enough population to support a settlement, let alone a post office. Grasshopper, it should be noted came to the forefront in the 1870s with mining activity at Hayden Hill. In 1883, John Calvin York purchased the 440 acre Madeline ranch and stage-stop in Grasshopper. Over the years it simply became known as Yorks.
Very briefly, it became known as Hazel, when the family petitioned to have a post office established there. It was granted on May 14, 1895, but postal officials revoked it on July 9, 1895. The post-office was named for York’s latest addition to the family, his granddaughter, Hazel Mae York born there on February 14, 1895.
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Elk, with the Wingfield residence in the background. Courtesy of Alphozene Terrill
In 1910, George Wingfield established a summer residence south of Susanville, and more about that in a future article. He had a special interest in wildlife and established his own little preserve. That fall, he fenced off eighty acres for an elk and deer park. In 1914, he added four buffalo to his collection. This became a major attraction to local residents to view these creatures.
Wingfield also brought in such “exotic” species as peacocks and mammoth size frogs imported from New Orleans. He had two small lakes constructed on the property to plant with a wide variety of fish.
Where the buffalo and elk roam at Wingfield Ranch. Courtesy of Lola L. Tanner
In 1923 Wingfield sold the property to the Lassen Lumber & Box Company who were primarily interested in the timberland he owned there. The buffalo were shipped to Wingfield Park in Reno where they were on display for many years. The fenced enclosure to keep the elk in was no longer maintained and the animals began to roam the region, with spottings from nearby Bald Mountain to Willow Creek Valley. The elk were poached by hunters over the years, and were wiped out by the early 1940s.
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In 1887, Cesar A. Ramelli emigrated from Switzerland to the United States where he eventually located at Purdy, Long Valley, California. The area is best known to many as the region behind present day Bordertown. There, and later, with another location the Bella Vista in the Truckee Meadows, he along with his three sons, had seventy-five cows. From that herd, butter and cheese were made. The cheese was made into blocks of 10, 20 to 25 pounds which was sold in the Reno stores.
Lassen Mill & Lumber Company’s tugboat at Amedee, just before launching on Honey Lake, 1907. Courtesy of Marie Herring Gould
Well, it seems only fitting on the eve of the first anniversary of this web site, that a book of the month is featured. After all proceeds from book sales not only help support operations, but help finance future publications.
Sagebrush Reflections: The History of Amedee & Honey Lake my first book which made its debut back way back when in 1983, is remarkably still in print, barely. There were two boxes tucked away storage, but now down to one box, so about 60 copies are still available. This is the only concise work on the infamous Nevada-California-Oregon Railroad boomtown of Amedee located on the east shore of Honey Lake, but all the trappings of Honey Lake. A lot of things happened on Honey Lake, whether it contained water or not. So for a mere $12.00 you can buy this classic, before it goes out of print, and on Bookfinder.com they have a used copies for sale with price ranging from $20 to $3,000.
The partially collapsed Grand Cafe. Courtesy of Helen Sargent
The restaurant business is a tough one that requires shear amount of work and dedication. When the Grand Cafe was first established in 1909, it would go through several owners during the next twelve years until it found some stability with the duo of Sam Vucanovich and Steve Sargent, former operators of the New Brunswick Cafe. In 1928, saw the addition of Helen Zalac, Steve’s new bride, and who became an iconic fixture of the Grand for over a half century. Continue reading The Grand Cafe & The Sargents→
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 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 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, see Standish Water Company posts for details.
The one bright side, during these bleak times, was they 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.
*The albums have been donated to Crater Lake National Park.
