Some things never change and politics and schools is one. I can verify this first hand, having served as a trustee on the Lassen College Board. The stories I could write about that ten year tenure—Mormon Massacre anyone?
Today’s story is about an odd short-lived or should I say a ghost school district in Big Valley—Pioneer. Its name is rather peculiar since a half dozen schools in that region had already been established.
On August 23, 1887, residents on the west side of the Pleasant Butte School requested that a new district be established on the grounds: “The School House being so situated now that the greater portion of the Schollars in the Division we mention cannot attend the greater portion of the time on account of the Sloughs being full of water.” On September 27, 1887, Myra Parks, Lassen County Superintendent of Schools, informed the Lassen County Board of Supervisors that she personally inspected the conditions and recommended the Pioneer District be formed, that creating a new district would not be detrimental to Pleasant Butte. In October 1887, the request was granted.
Then things got weird. In January 1888, the Pleasant Butte School District residents on the east side petitioned the Board of Supervisors to rescind its action that had created the Pioneer School. They stated that the original petition provided “fake, fraudulent and misleading facts.” At the February 1888 meeting of the Board of Supervisors, approved their request and the Pioneer School District was abolished.