Mountain Meadows located in the western section of Lassen County comprises some 12,000 acres. Prior to the establishment of Westwood in 1912, its hub of activity was at Coppervale. More about that in a minute.
In 1860, Dr. Atlas Fredonyer became the first settler. He remained there for two years and William B. Long briefly settled on his claim. In the early 1860s copper was discovered in the vicinity. When Carlton C. Goodrich petitioned for a post office he suggested the name of Coppervale. It was granted and the Coppervale Post Office opened for business on May 24, 1864 with Goodrich as first postmaster.
In 1885, L.M. McKenney’s Directory of Northern California provided the following description of Coppervale: “A small town with a post office situated midway between Prattville and Susanville. sixteen miles from the latter place. It has a try-weekly stage route each way between these two points. Mountain Meadows, in which the town is located, has an area of 12,000 acres, principally devoted to stock raising and dairying.”
In 1886, Goodrich passed away. He owned 7,650 acres there. He had put up on the market in 1885, but it was not until 1909 his estate sold it to John Crouch. Crouch would later sell it to the Red River Lumber Company where that Company established the town of Westwood.
In 1888, the Mountain Meadows School District was organized. A school house was built in 1892. In 1902 the school was closed for a lack of students.
A primary reason the region did fully develop in the late 1800s was the weather. Mountain Meadows is susceptible to heavy winter snows. A number of the ranchers who located there wintered at Red Bluff.
It was a daunting task, since the high school never kept a set. My main task was to locate them, wherein Chuck did the “heavy lifting” of scanning. In the Acknowledgements we thanked those who shared their yearbooks. There was a subset group that really never received the praise they deserved. For Chuck it was truly a family affair, with many members assisting. For me, it was friends who gave me the helping hand when I needed it most.
