Devil’s Corral is an interesting spot along the Susan River some five miles or so west of Susanville. The circumstances leading to its name are not known. There are two possible explanations. In 1865, San Francisco journalist Lisle Lester wrote: “Late in the afternoon we crossed a weird looking place of a rock wall enclosing a little flat meadow land called Devil’s Corral. The place is historical, for in the early days a band of emigrants stopped here to feed their stock and were overtaken by disease which covered the little nook with the bones of their cattle, and added to its soil many a way-worn form. For years the bones of the cattle bleached here in rude piles.”
In 1923, when the first highway bridge to span Devil’s Corral was completed, this published version made its debut: “The name was given the curious lava rock formation on the banks of the Susan River at this point by early day wagon trains who sought to reach the Sacramento Valley by following the course of the Susan River. At this point the perpendicular rock walls of the canyon made further progress impossible and they were forced to turn back, hence the name Devils Corral.”