As tomorrow is the 4th of July and Chester will be a hub of activity. However, it that was not the case for many years. Chester was slow to evolve, and would gain prominence when the Great Western Power Company created Lake Almanor in 1914. The initial Lake Almanor was smaller than it is today. It is another story for another time, but it should be noted that in the early 1900s, when Great Western began land acquisition in the basin. their goal was to acquire everything below the 4500 elevation contour line.
Many of the original families, once they sold to Great Western moved away. That was not the case for members of the Olsen family. In 1859, the patriarch, Peter Olsen, settled along the west bank of the Feather River . which would later become the community of Chester. Peter passed away in 1892, leaving his three sons, George, Nels and Edgar and carried on the family’s dairy operation. The sons sold the majority of the family property Great Western, retaining 110 acres above 4500 contour line.
The dairy operation would slowly be phased out, so it was time to change occupations. The family became innkeepers. In 1913 construction began on their hotel. In early May 1914, the doors were open to the public, and timing could not have been better. By the end of the month, Lassen Peak began erupting, bringing throngs of people to see it. Olsen’s was one of the few nearby lodging establishments and business was off to a booming start.
For many years the hotel was operated by Nels and Eula Olsen. In 1948, it was time to retire and they sold the hotel to Earl McKenzie. McKenzie leased it for a time, and it finally shuttered. As to the building’s final demise, I do not know. It should be noted that the Olsen Barn has been perserved and graces Chester’s east entrance.
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Kids started a fire and it burned down, about 1968, I believe.
Interesting article. I assume that Peter Olsen was, Like Peter Lassen, a danish immigrant Perhaps also from Farum? I have been putting together material on Danish Americans, as that was my father’s homeland. On Peter Lassen I have “Uncle Peter, the story of Peter Lassen and the Lassen Trail” by Rene Weybye Lassen, “Legendary Truths Peter Lassen and his gold rush trail in fact and fable” by Ken Johnston, and Peter Lassen af California en dansk pioners skaebne og aeventyr i wild west” by T. Vogel-Jorgensen, published in Kobenhavn in 1937. I would be interested if there is more information on the life of Peter Olsen or other local Danish immigrants. Mange tak, tillykke med Fourth of July, George Christian LIndholdt
As best I can recall the deserted hotel building lasted into the 1980s or 1990s at least. In the 1950s when I was growing up in Chester there were two very large barns in back and to the east a few hundred feet of the hotel. There was the old barn with its hand-hewen timbers and an old wooden wheeled wagon or passenger wagon (can’t recall which) stored in the corner closest to the hotel. This is the barn that has miraculous survived. The was a newer equally large, if not even a bit larger, barn where hay was being stored and we kids would sneak in and play. Perhaps that barn was later set afire by mischievous kids and burned down, I dont know. It was still there in 1958 when My folks sold the resturant that they had started in 1954, called “the Kopper Kettle”, and we moved to Paradise in Butte Co. My older half-brother Bob Jenks and his family stayed in Chester in the old log house his dad and my grandfather Fred Huff had built in 1929. (It is still in the family) We returned often to visit and I even worked for a winter in the mill and the woods logging in the early 1960s. Chester will always feel like my hometown.