Johnstonville’s close proximity to Susanville hampered its development. Initially, for many years there were only two institutions that existed a school and flour mill. When the Diamond Mountain Creamery was established there, it was an impetuous start for the development of a community. Soon to open was Aaron Hooks blacksmith ship. This was followed by Andrew Spoon’s general store. On November 15, 1902, Spoon had established the Johnstonville Post Office. After a few years Spoon sold out to W.T. Stark in search of new opportunities. On March 3, 1936, Stark’s store, home and along with the post office was destroyed by fire from an overheated chimney. Once reimbursed by insurance all was rebuilt. The post office closed on October 27, 1943. 

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Isolated settlements in their earliest days had many obstacles to overcome and one item that was hard to come by was cash. This problem was only excabberated during the Civil War years of the 1860s in this region.

The Honey Lakers were a resourceful lot. One crop that grew well was rutabagas. In April 1860 when Honey Lake Valley’s first newspaper, Richmond Times, made its debut they offered a subscription price of 200 pounds of rutabagas. There is one recorded court case in which the lowly rutabaga was accepted as legal tender. In 1866, A. Dillon sued Antone Storff over the payment of labor and sundry supplies. Dillon accepted Storff’s partial payment in the form of rutabagas.

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There was a time when the DeWitt family was well known throughout the Honey Lake Valley. However, with time comes many changes and many old time families slowly fade away. DeWitt is one such family.

Franklin and Mary DeWitt settled in the Tule District of the Honey Lake Valley. A portion of their ranch is now known as the Fleming State Wildife Refuge Unit. Their son, Walter B. DeWitt (1863-1948) was a life-long resident of the Tule District.  His 1906 biography stated: “The farm which he now occupies is situated on the Spoonville and Hot Springs stage line, about four miles west of the last named place. On his homestead, July 1, 1903, through his earnest and energetic efforts, a post office was established named in his honor, and he was chosen the first postmaster, a position which he still occupies, with his wife as assistant.” The post office closed on November 30, 1927 as part of implementation of the Rural Free Delivery system.

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In the summer of 1850, when Peter Lassen and a group of prospectors traveled through there, they named the lake and the valley for a sweet dew type substance found on the wild grains. Lassen returned that fall and was accompanied by J. Goldsborough Bruff and several other men in a search of the fabled Gold Lake.  On October 5, 1850, Bruff named it Derby Lake, for his friend George H. Derby, a United States topographical engineer, who at that time was surveying Southern California. In 1943, the Oakland Tribune published an article about Fred Lake’s 1892 dream town of Honey Lake City.  That prompted a question from several readers as to how Honey Lake received its name.  John S. Thomas of Oakland wrote the newspaper and stated: “They call it Honey Lake on account of the honey dew that fall on the borders of the lake.  In haying time, if you lay or stand a pitch fork out all night, the handle in the morning will be as sticky as if it had been rubbed with honey.  However, W. E. Booth of Hayward questioned Thomas’ claim in a letter to the Tribune. They published his response:  “Booth used to live in the Honey Lake Valley and worked on a dairy ranch.  Booth insists that he never saw such phenomenon and never heard the story.  It would seem that if such a phenomenon was the source of the name of the lake and region, it would have been a matter of common experience and knowledge.  The phenomenon of which Mr. Thomas speaks may have been incidental, the sticky handle may have been caused something other than the dew .”

It should be noted for the record that the Hudson Bay fur trappers of the 1830s and 1840s referred to the area as Hot Springs Valley.

Today, a graveside service is being held at the Lassen Cemetery for Clara Beth Haley Green, a great-granddaughter of Andrew Litch. When the family relayed the news of Clara Beth’s passing, they were bewildered by the fact the entry in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, states that the town of Litchfield is named for Thomas Litch. Of course, this is false. While there is a ton of information to be found on the internet, it does not mean that it is accurate. Even commercial sites are not immune from providing paying customers with erroneus material.

In 1912, with the construction of the Fernley & Lassen Railroad was surveyed to go through ranch of B.F. Gibson and its location in that part of the Honey Lake Valley made it an ideal place for a combination townsite and railroad shipping point.

As Standish was less than three miles away, Gibson offered residents of that community free lots for those willing to relocate, which he dubbed his enterprise, New Standish. However, his offer was not well received, so Gibson named is his new town, Litchfield, in honor of pioneer settler and his father-in-law, Andrew Litch. By the way, the Thomas Litch referenced in Wikipedia, was Andrew’s son.

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