On August 4, 1857, the Plumas County Board of Supervisors created the Honey Lake Valley Township. The action did not set well with the Honey Lakers who met to protest the Township action on August 29, 1857. (It was originally presumed that the Honey Lake Valley was not a part of the State of California—a logical theory that the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range created a natural eastern boundary.) As a result of this meeting , a resolution was adopted opposing any control of Plumas County over the affairs of Honey Lake Valley.
After this event a piece of popular local folklore began, as to Honey Lakers evaded paying taxes to any one. The news of the Honey Lakers’ meeting had spread and the Marysville Express newspaper of Marysville, California reported: “The citizens of Honey Lake Valley, are for the most part violently opposed as ever by the exercise of any jurisdiction over them by the authorities of Honey Lake Valley. There is, however, some with some inconsistency in their conduct, for when the tax collector of Plumas County came among them, they told him that they were in not in California, but in Utah. Orson Hyde from Salt Lake visited them, they said they lived in California.”
It should be noted Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde was sent to form a Mormon settlement, known today as Genoa, Nevada. The Honey Lakers reluctantly agreed and paid their Plumas County property taxes. Of course, there are those who do not, and this happens every year. Honey Lakers were not tax evaders per se, but they. were disgruntled with Plumas County because during the winter months they were cut off from the county.
But the Marysville newspaper makes a great story, that is repeatedly told from one generation to the next without any veracity.
Another interesting piece of trivia was the 1860 US Census. Honey Lake Valley was included in the Plumas County head count. However, to the south, Long Valley was included in Washoe County, Utah Territory.