With the pending arrival of the railroad to Susanville in 1912, it started a frenzy of housing subdivisions. The first was Hill Long’s Long Addition. It was unique in many ways, it being one of the smallest and at that it was located inside the city limits.
There was a reason it had never been subdivided, most of it being a steep rock hillside, most of it unsuitable for building streets let alone houses. Of the four streets and four alleys proposed only one street and alley was constructed—Hill Street and Hill Alley. Hill Alley initially started at North Pine Street went down the hill and towards the base made a 90 degree turn and into Hill Street. In the 1940s, Bernie and Irene Dillinger bought a small home on that alley. Bernie renamed the alley Burma Road, after the famed Indochina road of World War II, noted for its ruggedness. In 1961, the road was straightened to connect to Roop Street instead of Hill.
Fast forward to 1957 and the upper portion of Long’s Addition would be developed through a new subdivision known as Valley View Estates. It gave the city a new street, View Drive.
