It is the middle of August and for seasoned folks it seems strange that is back to school time. For years, schools did start until fall, or least in September after Labor Day.

Like many Lassen County rural schools, the Constantia School District in southern Lassen County had its own story. In 1897 and 1898 the Warm Springs and Junction Schools were formally declared closed by the Superintendent of Schools. Due to that circumstance, no school existed in the extreme southern portion of Lassen County. In 1904, F.C. McDiarmid petitioned the County Superintendent of Schools, J.F. Dixon, to form a new school district in the southernmost portion of Lassen County. McDiarmid cited there were 21 school age children in the proposed district and that the majority of these children resided more than ten miles from the nearest schoolhouse. McDiarmid’s petition was submitted on March 14^th and required urgent attention. State law required all new districts be formed before the 5^th of April of any year. Dixon urged the Board of Supervisors to approve the District and noted that the Board would need to hold a special meeting to meet the State deadline. The Board of Supervisors held a special meeting on April 4^th, with three members in attendance, and approved the formation of the Constantia School District. The District boundaries included the Constantia Ranch and all the territory south to the Sierra County line.

In the fall of 1904, school commenced in the old Warm Springs schoolhouse near Red Rock Station. In the summer of 1914, that schoolhouse was destroyed by fire. The next year, the District held a special election to move the site of the school to the A. Wills homestead near Chat. In 1944, the school closed and annexed to the Long Valley School District.

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On February 18, 1928 the Lassen High Block L Society formed, that was the boy’s athletic organization. One of their first activities was the painting of the “L” on Susanville Peak. In 2008, Betty Jo Buckles Coplen provided me with this behind the scene account: “In 1924, my father, Maynard Robert “Billy” Buckles accepted a position teaching at Lassen Union High School, and we moved to Susanville. Four years later, members of the new Block L Society came to my Dad. They asked him to help them plan a Block L for them to lay out on the hillside. He helped them to design a letter L with the proper classic proportions (200 yards long). He also warned them that a letter of that size would be difficult to keep whitewashed. The Block L boys persevered and constructed the letter on the hill, moving rocks into the outline to be painted white. For decades as planned the freshman boys painted the letter each year, but eventually that practice died out.”

While the Block L Society no longer exists, the Lassen High Alumni Association has from time to time maintained it, the last time was done in 2008.

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It is graduation season, so a look back 100 years ago of Lassen Union High School Class of 1924. On June 13, 1924, twenty-five graduates received their diplomas. They were: Astrid Berglund, Gertrude Buffum, John Berglund, Mona Hartson, Edith Bowen, Edith Sisk, Dorothy Ferris, Trow Long, Erma French, Lucille Alexander, Frances Pearce, Dorothy Spring, Harold Holmes, Bernice Young, Margaret Jenkins, Edna Lawson, Helen Hibbert, John Hibbert, Marie Doyle, Eunice Woodward, Fae Bonner, Gladys Goodfellow, Alex Fry, Gladys Luke, and John Cramer.

Tim

Its that time of year, graduation season at local schools. In the 1940s, a number of rural one-room schools would cease to exist due to decline in enrollments and consolidation. Willow Creek Valley some twelve miles north of Susanville was one such school.

Established in 1871, it was one of the older school districts in Lassen County. As an example of declining enrollments came from Glenn Streshley. When Glenn started school there in 1915, there were twenty-three students. Seven years later, when he finished his studies there were only ten.

On April 17, 1942, the school house was destroyed by fire, caused a by a defective flue. It was a like a omen of things to come. However, a small building was moved to the school grounds, with little interruption of the school’s activities. In 1943, the school was suspended for a year for a lack of thr minimum five-students necessary.

In the fall of 1944, the school was resurrected. The student body consisted of Roy Gene DeForest, Elwin Murrer, Sally Murrer and Beatrice Walsh. Though one student short of the state mandate, the school may have been granted an emergency status due to the prevailing conditions of World War II.

In June 1946, Elwin Murrer graduated from the eighth grade. The school did not open again that fall for lack of students.. By 1950, it was apparent there was not going to be a surge of youngsters in the Willow Creek Valley and the school was annexed to the Susanville School District.

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Name changes can be a tricky issue. After all people are a creature of habit, so name changes can be disruptive. This is different from were names slowly fade away. Take for example Seven Bridges in the Honey Lake. Valley, if you know the locale, you are dating yourself. Anyhow, back to the name topic at hand—Lassen High School.

When high school was created in 1902 it was known as Lassen County High School. When it was established it was the only high school in the county. That changed in 1916, when two new county high schools opened—Big Valley and Westwood. California state law required Lassen to drop “County” and adopt “Union” to embrace all the districts in the county—thus is became known as Lassen Union High School.

A lot of people grumbled about the name change, since it was all they ever knew. Years later there is a generational change. The older insist its Lassen Union High School and the younger simply refer to their alma mater as Lassen High School.

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This is what some referred to as a “ghost” school. The circumstances are rather odd. In January/February 1911 W. Mylar, who had three school aged children circulated a petition to establish the Purser School District. It met all the criteria. In the proposed district boundary there were 22 children. They were also more than five miles from the nearest school. For reasons unknown Lassen County Board of Supervisors did not approve it. Three years later, a new petition, known as Caloreta School District, which was identical to Purser, was approved.

Purser would later become known as the railroad community of Wendel. That locale had many names in its early years. It was named after Edward T. Purser, a major player in irrigation projects of the Honey Lake Valley in the 1890s.  I have large size professional photograph negative of him  but not a print, but once with a positive scan I will write about him.  A person has offered to scan negatives like this, but I have experienced issues on my part that have have stalled the hand off of such. Hopefully soon, another project to be completed during the forthcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Tim

There has been for some time a debate brewing over whether cursive handwriting should be taught. Debate no more. One of the many bills California Governor Newsom signed into law in October was to bring back cursive writing in elementary schools. Seventeen other states have cursive writing as part of the education process.

It should be noted that by 1850, Spencerian Script had been widely adopted in schools as well as in the business community. With the advent of typewriters it began to fade away in the early 1900s. By the 1920s, schools began adopting the Palmer Method. It was considered more streamlined, less laborious and faster technique.

Of note, the Spencerian had some quirky traits, which one sees a lot in early documents of Lassen County. A double “s” such as Lassen, looks like a “p.”  This was evident in the short-lived Lassen Post Office in the Willow Creek Valley that only operated from June 19, 1874, to July 14, 1875.  Some records cite it as “Lapen,” due to the penmanship of Edward Bonyman, its first and only postmaster.

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