Pierre “Pete” Biscar (1881-1947), a native of France, came to Secret Valley in 1904. In 1909, he constructed the first reservoir at the mouth of Snowstorm Canyon. In 1915, it was washed out by a flood and subsequently rebuilt. Today, there are two small reservoirs that are part of the 550-acre Biscar Wildlife Area.
Tim
In 1923 for the first time in the nation’s history the shift of the majority of the population had moved to urban centers. A portion of this can be attributed to the effects of World War I. Many young men who served in the war did not want to return to the farm. This was especially true for those who prior to the war had a hardscrabble life in eastern Lassen County with desert homesteads.
Locally, with the establishment of the lumber mills in Susanville and Westwood brought more opportunities. In the early1930s, with the completion of the Western Pacific Railroad’s Highline, Big Valley saw a major increase of population, whereas other rural areas of Lassen slowly declined.
Tim
In the 1860s, stockmen on the Great Plains first introduced barbwire to keep their livestock in one region and to fence springs, preventing unwanted livestock access to the water. It was also an economical measure, wood was not a common commodity on the plains.
The introduction of barbwire in Lassen County was a slow process, and no doubt a 1880s lawsuit hampered its local use. In 1883, Charles F. Gardner and A.J. Rhoads claimed substantial acreage through the Swamp and Overflowed Land Act in northern Grasshopper Valley. The men proposed a large-scale livestock operation. In the spring of 1886, they hired William Tanner to construct a barbwire fence to enclose their lands to protect their
pasture from roaming livestock. Tanner constructed a three-strand
fence—the top strand 52 inches high, with posts thirty-six feet apart.
Charles F. Loveland, the adjoining property owner claimed the fence
was a hazard and poorly maintained. He claimed that five of his
horses had been killed by the fence and an additional twenty horses
had been crippled by it. On July 4, 1886, Loveland filed a lawsuit
against Gardner, Rhoads and Tanner for the loss and injuries sustained by his horses from that fence. On April 11, 1887, the jury awarded Loveland $575 plus costs. Gardner appealed verdict. On May 27, 1889, the appellate court remanded the case back to the local court with two options. Loveland could accept damages in the amount of $300 or the parties could have a new trial. Loveland accepted the $300 award.
During extremely wet winters, come spring time, California and Nevada usually experience a mining bonanza, and locally it has occurred in this region. While, this was a wet winter in Lassen and Modoc, it was far from record breaking.
1907, on the other hand was a different story. It was a whiplash winter throughout California and Nevada with heavy rains, followed by heavy snows, and the scenario repeated itself. It caused a mini-gold rush with massive erosions in gullies and streams, exposing gold and other minerals. On Bass Hill between Susanville and Janesville one ravine along the road revealed gold nuggets. Thus, there was a prospector frenzy there, as well as the entire Bald Mountain. Spoonville native M.E. “Mul” Mulroney, noted that on that side of Bald Mountain a tunnel was made in hopes of gold ore, but found none.
It did not stop there. Discoveries were made just north of Susanville, on Antelope Grade. An unlikely spot was Skedaddle Mountain, where there was so much interest that caused for the creation of the Hot Springs Mountain Mining District, the last one of its kind in Lassen County. While nothing materialized there, one desert mountain seemed more promising—Fort Sage. Prospecting on Fort Sage continued for decades and I can personally attest. When my father passed away in 2002, while sorting through his paperwork, unbeknownst to me were several mining claims he had on Fort Sage.
Tim
On April 26, 1856, twenty settlers in the Honey Lake Valley gathered at Isaac Roop’s Trading Post nee cabin and held a “mass convention” to establish a territory of their own. After all, the group concurred, they were not residents of California and they did not want to be under Mormon domination of the Utah Territory whose boundaries extended to the eastern boundary of California. They named their new government Nataqua Territory. Nataqua, or Natauga as it is sometimes spelt, purportedly, was a Paiute word for woman. Their land grab was grand to say they least. They carved out a territory, 240 miles long and 155 miles wide, almost two-thirds the size of the State of Nevada. Ironically, the legal description of their new sovereign state, excluded themselves. Roop’s Post for instance, was located 35 miles west, outside the their western boundary. The Nataqua Territory, in essence, served as a form of local government to provide an avenue to protect their rights and to handle local land affairs. The territory served as a foundation until a more formal government was established. In 1857, the Territory was abandoned when an attempt was made to form the Territory of Sierra Nevada.
Tuesdays, as many are aware, is usually a day I do not post, unless I have a short tidbit to share. It may be some time before I provide some Tuesday Tidbits, while I concentrate on an upgrade to resume scanning photographs, which I have a back log, but I can guarantee there are a lot of interesting old photographs coming your way in the near future!
Tim
A movement began in the fall of 1870 to form a school district in the
extreme south end of the County. The Junction School district was finally established in March 1871. It later closed, though the records do not indicate when that occurred.
In the spring of 1884, Jonathon C. “Chat” Roberts, along with his neighbors, requested the formation of another Junction School District. Roberts wrote: “I have built a school house at my own expense and we are entitled to a district.” E.A. Williams, Lassen County Superintendent of Schools, echoed that sentiment to the Lassen County Board of Supervisors. Williams noted that they had spent nearly $400 to build and furnish the school. In addition, they had hired a teacher and the school was in operation with sixteen students. Williams concluded: “Ás the financial guardians of the County you can determine the expediency of forming this new district, as to the justice of their claim, there can be no question.” It was approved. It should ber noted Junction, in the present vicinity of Hallelujah Junction, with the establishment of the NCO’s railroad station, that would be named Chat.
After the NCO Railroad moved onward there was a population decline. In 1898, the school was abandoned and annexed to Long Valley School (Doyle).
Known today as Herlong, and it was the one-time junction of
Nevada-California-Oregon (NCO) and Western Pacific (WP) railroads. In 1915, Stanley G. Rayl arrived on the scene. When Rayl petitioned to establish a post office, he proposed the name Rayl—the NCO opposed it. Charles Moran, President of the NCO, wanted the post office named Hackstaff—in honor of his mother-in-law, Clara Hackstaff Adams. After five months, the Postmaster General decided upon the name of Rayl, instead of Hackstaff. This delighted Robert M. Cook, editor and publisher of the Lassen Weekly Mail, Cook wrote: “ The NCO wanted a monument to an uncle of the wife of Moran, the New York capitalist behind the NCO. Hackstaff was never in Lassen County and no one here knows anything about him.”
When Rayl left in 1921, he assigned the postmaster duties to Cyrus Helman. Those two men had a disagreement and fought that battle in court. In the end, the Rayl post office closed. On March 18, 1922, the Hackstaff Post Office was established with Helman as postmaster. It did not last long and the post office closed on December 30, 1922. In 1927, Hackstaff’s meager population
was wiped out when the WP moved its section crew to Doyle. The
location continued to be known as Hackstaff until the Sierra Army
Ordinance Depot was established in 1942.
The Tule District of the Honey Lake Valley is the very lower end of the Susan River, where the river splits up into various sloughs.
In 1859, John Kelley of Missouri settled in this region. All was fine until 1863 when the United States Government surveyed the region. Under federal law, the most a person could file was 160 acres. Kelley had already claimed nearly 1,000 acres. Kelley concerned that he could lose his holdings wrote back home and encouraged fellow southerners to come out and join and settle on property he had claimed. Those who initially did were William Brashear, Robert Briggs, Chappell Kelley and John Saling. In 1864, when Lassen County Surveyor E.R. Nichols who was doing work in the region, noted a number of residents had served in the Confederate Army and he dubbed the district the Tule Confederacy.
Not all the residents were southerners and there were conflicts between the neighbors. In the spring of 1864, John Purcell set fire to DeWitt Chandler’s house and claimed it a victory for Confederate States.
Way before the infamous stock market crash of 1929 that sent the nation into the Great Depression, there were a lot of indicators before hand that the economy was in peril. The Lassen Mail’s editorial of February 8, 1928 provides and interesting glimpse of conditions and how Susanville and Lassen County were in better shape than a lot of other areas.
”Despite the optimism of the booster people, business conditions in the United States are very bad at the present time. The unhealthy commercial condition is not confined to one portion of the country. North, south, east and west are all undergoing a period of depression.
”The depression is not experienced in any single line of industry—all classes are suffering from it. Manufacturing firms complain of lack of orders and say that the orders they do receive are mainly of the credit variety.
”The situation is reflected in the stock and. bond markets. The New York Stock Exchange bottom is dropping out of the market in many lines. General Motors has gone to a new low level and steel has fallen to lowest point in years. Railroads and manufacturing companies are showing lesser profits than in former years. Oil companies, with large surplus production, are showing lesser earnings and in some cases a loss. The entire country is encountering a wave of depression.
“In sharp contrast to the situation most of the rest of the country is the business outlook of Susanville and Lassen County. While conditions are not as prosperous as in the good time of the year there is commercial slump here. Where business firms in other parts of the country are going bankrupt, the merchants of Lassen County are still going on and there is no great fear that any of them will not have a prosperous year in 1928.
”While Lassen County does not enjoy the reputation of being the most populous county in California, nor has it the greatest amount of wealth, it is far better off at all times than many of the so-called wealthy counties. Prosperity in Lassen County is unbroken and while we have no great “booms” we have no “panics” and are carrying on in the same way when the “boom” counties are wondering if they will survive the cold, cold winter.”