In the past I have wrote about Tunison’s which was a road house between Susanville and Westwood, and which the lone chimney near Goodrich Creek, is the last remnant of that establishment. It should also be noted that William “Bill” Tunison, was one of the longest serving Lassen County Board of Supervisors whose served from 1936-1964.

There was another Tunison in the annals of Lassen County’s past, though neither are related. In 1859, Abraham L. Tunison was encouraged by William Dow and Zetus Spalding, his former acquaintances in Michigan to come to the Honey Lake Valley, which he did.  For the next several years he was a teamster hauling freight from Susanville to the Humboldt, Nevada mines.

In 1864, Tunison felt the urge to settle down and located on some vacant land in Willow Creek Valley, just north of Susanville. Tunison wrote in his diary of March 11, 1864: “Went over to Willow Creek Valley to take a look at the valley. Some good hay land that is vacant yet. There is 15 or 20 cabins in the valley about half occupied. Lots of geese, ducks and sage hens in the valley.”   On January 1, 1872, he married Eva Johnston, for whose family Johnstonville was named for. They happened to be one of those families that had some hard struggles, five of their children died while very young.  Tunison also endured financial struggles, as, well, and in 1896, Tunison lost his ranch to creditors, as he owed $9,898.86 on mortgages alone and moved to Buena Park, California, where he died in 1909.

There is a mountain named after him, where he lived for so many years, but cartographers has misspelt his name as Tunnison, with two “n”, instead of one. Another legacy of his survives, his diaries. Asa Fairfield, in his epic work of the Pioneer History of Lassen County (1916) quoted them frequently.  I spent years locating them, and it paid off.  For example, he provides the only first person account of the Sagebrush War of 1863 which he was a participant.

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