While my Red River series covers a tremendous amount of material on the Red River Lumber Company, there were some topics that were not addressed. In 1938, the topic of controlled burns was being discussed, as the company had done it in its earliest years until Clinton Walker’s departure in 1913. Below is an excerpt of a 1938 memo Clinton wrote to the Board and the experience of a control burn at Lake Almanor.
Since this is the last day of 2020, which usually many folks reflect on the year that is very memorable to many. Personally, I have a special fondness for Gold Run. This, of course, had to deal with Frank Satica, who was an early instigator on my path to research the region’s history. For some the photographs might be bittersweet with the devastation by this year’s Sheep Fire, that the scars will be there for a long time.
Tim
On August 14, 1931, California raised the speed limit on state highways from 40 to 45 miles per hour. How quaint. Driving in residential districts also changed from 20 mph to 25 mph. School zones still remained the same at 15 mph. One other interesting change was that of the minimum age to obtain a driver’s license. It went from 14 years of age to 16.
In the early morning hours of July 17, 1929, the largest fire in the history of Standish occurred. At that time, a next door neighbor to the Standish Creamery saw the roof of that building on fire. Quickly, a volunteer farmer-firemen bucket brigade assembled to combat the blaze. It became readily apparent early on that the creamery could not be saved. All efforts focused on containing the fire and to prevent it from spreading to nearby residences and stores. By the time the sun rose, the creamery was a pile of smoldering rubble. Approximately, $1,500 worth of butter and cream went up in the flames. The total loss was valued at $20,000 and was only partially insured. It was owned by the C.E. Emerson Company of Susanville. Cause of the fire, a defective flue.
Fruit Growers No. 2 was purchased new from Baldwin in 1921. It remained in operation throughout the existence of railroad logging operations on the Lassen Operation until 1952. It was scrapped in 1953.
It should be noted when Fruit Growers built its mill in Susanville in 1919/20, they referred it to simply as the Lassen Operation. In 1944, when Fruit Growers purchased nearby Westwood from the Red River Lumber Company, they changed the name of Lassen to the Susanville Operation.
Crystal Lake is located just southwest of Taylorsville. It is on my list of places to check out in 2021.
While I do not know much about the lake, I do know about the photographer, R.E. Stinson. Robert Stinson was born in Quincy in 1882, and followed in his father’s footsteps as a commercial photographer. It was a tough trade to operate a business in a rural region. So like many others it became necessary to be itinerate traveling from community to community for business. In 1913, Red River hired Stinson as their company photographer, who at the time was located in Red Bluff. Stinson’s main job was to make a complete photographic inventory of all the buildings being constructed in the town, as well as the sawmill plant. A portion of this collection exists in the T.B. Walker papers housed with the Minnesota Historical Society. Stinson just happened to be at the right place at the right time, when Lassen Peak set off a series of volcanic eruptions beginning in 1914. Unfortunately, for Stinson and other photographers such as P.J. Thompson, are overshadowed by that B.F. Loomis, but that is another story, for another time. Stinson stay at Westwood was brief and left Red River in 1915. He later returned back to the region and when he died in 1932, he was buried in the Westwood Cemetery.
This was a special day for employees for the Susanville Post Office. For the first time, they got the day off and there would be no mail delivery. However, the postmaster was not so fortunate as the post office remained open on Christmas Day for those who needed to pick up mail and/or mail packages.
A number of Susanville merchants agreed to open on Christmas Eve, 1916. That year Christmas Eve was on a Sunday, and as a general rule all stores were closed on Sundays. In this particular instance the stores who planned to open agreed upon the hours from 10 to 6, to accommodate those “eleventh hour shoppers.”
