As a public service announcement on Saturday, June 8, kicks off the Farmer’s Market in Uptown Susanville on South Gay Street. It is a wonderful oportunity to do some alternative shopping and a side benefit of some socializing, too.
I have been tinkering around with doing some guided Susanville Strolls during the Farmer’s Market. Quite honestly, I am a bit behind on plotting out some of the walks. It is not due to lack of interest, but other matters seem to creep in and disrupt my good intentions. If anyone is interested, just let me know.
Gay Street, looking north, 1864. Courtesy of Gilbert Morrill
In its earliest days, Johnstonville suffered an identity crisis. In the mid to late 1850s, a whenever a warm spring/ summer rain storm hit that area and its aftermath caused a swarm of frogs/toads to appear and someone gave that district the name of Toadtown. In 1864, when Lassen County Board of Supervisors were busy with the formation of the county, they named the voting precinct there Toad Town. At the same time, the board named the school district there Susan River. There were some people who did not like the monicker of Toad Town. A dated petition of November 12,1864 signed by 41 individuals asked the Board of Supervisors to change the name to Johnsonville, the “t” omitted. Another peculiar thing about this petition besides the spelling, was the majority of the people who signed it, lived in Susanville. On December. 7, 1864, meeting of the Board of Supervisors they approved the petition as submitted, changing the Toad Town Voting Precinct to Johnsonville. As to the Susan River School, they did not change the name to Johnstonville until 1878.
1927 holiday greeting card from the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office. Left to Right, Sheriff Jim Leavitt, Deputy Tom Massey and Deputy A.C. “Cass” Hunsinger.
Today, residents in far northern California will go the polls in a special election to elect a new State Senator. Having worked elections for many moons, so I want to give a special thanks to all the poll workers that make it possible.
With that in mind, here is a bit of local election history. The race for Lassen County Supervisor, District No. 2 was a cliffhanger. On Thursday after the November 1936 election, incumbent Seymour Case had 1,055 votes and challenger, former Lassen County Sheriff Jim Leavitt had 1,026 votes. There were still ninety absentee ballots to be counted. When the final count was tallied Leavitt won by two votes—1094 to Case 1092.
Remember When? In the 1940s, these youngsters had a graduation ceremony at Susanville’s Baptist Church.—Louise West Collection.
It is that time of year. The first graduation at Lassen High School was in 1906, a three year program. In 1907, a four year class schedule was fully implemented. At Lassen College, the first graduation conducted there was in 1927.
The above photograph is from the Louise West collection. Unfortunately, it has no date. Miss West taught kindergarten and first grade at Susanville’s Washington School from the early 1940s to the early the 1960s.
In keeping with the theme of Go Exploring, Skedaddle Creek and Mountain is worth not just one, but many visits. Actually, for the record we did a BLM tour many years ago crossing the mountain from Honey Lake Valley to Bull Flat. Of course, one of more interesting historical sites is the remnants of the Skedaddle Dam.
Skedaddle Dam, 1992. Courtesy of Ginger Martinez
This is an interesting stream which has a small drainage area of 32.1 square miles. In times of very wet years, it can be a raging to torrent.
There are many different ways to see the country. These Eagle Lake boaters were checking things out back in 1906. Courtesy of Lola L. Tanner
There are a handful posts that I repeat each year, and for good reason. With summer weather upon us, it is an ideal time to check out the many wonders that surround the residents of the Lassen Region. I hope this editorial from the Lassen Advocate of June 21, 1929 will inspire you to explore the wonderful country around us.
Know Your Country
If you were wondering what to do with your weekends this summer, have you ever given any thought to the fact that you don’t know your own county and the wonderful lake and mountain country immediately contiguous.
Within a few hours of Susanville there are numerous beautiful lakes as well as some beautiful streams and excellent camping spots.
How many have been to Drakesbad and to the top of Mount Lassen? How many have been to the ice caves near Eagle Lake and Wilson Lake?
There are many trips that can be taken from Susanville in the morning returning the same evening and traversing in the meantime a lot of new country that you have never seen before. Beauty spots near a mountain stream with clear sparkling water are numerous where one may have their picnic lunch.
Try and see your own neck of the woods this summer. You will find many a pleasant day in store for you.
Walt Wiley was a feature writer for the Sacramento Bee and focused interesting stories about Northern California. Some readers may recall I highlighted an article of his last November, Westwood, A Tough Old Town. The following appeared in the Bee on October 13, 1973, when Hallelujah Junction was to no longer be.
“Hallelujah Junction was never much of a town; it never even got its own post office. But it was right there on every road map and aircraft navigation chart. Now Hallelujah Junction is going to be obliterated to make way for a freeway.
“For forty years it was a popular stop some 30 miles north of Reno, Nev at the intersection of Highways 395 and 70. Until last month, Hallelujah Junction was a haphazardly-arranged community of a few houses, a bar, motel, restaurant, service station and even a couple of aircraft hangars and an abandoned stretch of Highway 70 that made up. ‘Hallelujah International Airport.’
“Now the State of California is selling the buildings after having bought the land to build a highway interchange next year when 395 is widened into a four-lane freeway between Hallelujah and the Nevada State Line, some eight miles to the south.
“I’ve still got 12 acres of the land left across the highway. When they’re through I guess I’ll try to build something there,” said Charles Armstrong, Hallelujah Junction’s owner for the last two years.
“They bought the land because they wanted the access to it, and if I build anything new, I’ll have to until they’re through with the new highway so I can find out how much success I have on the land I have left,” said Armstrong. He is living in nearby Graeagle, Plumas County, waiting for the dust to settle from the construction.
“Harold Stoy, who sold the town to Armstrong, now lives some 15 miles north of Hallelujah at Doyle. Stoy’s father, Orville, founded the community in 1932, homesteading 80 acres, 68 of which now have been consumed by the highway builders. “It started out as a tiny gas station, and sort of grew from that as more and more people started traveling through, said Stoy, 58. “The only reason I sold the place is that it just got too busy for me. There was so much business it was wearing me out.”
“The name, he said, attracted all sorts of visitors. Pilots would land on the bumpy airstrip out of curiosity, and after a group from Mexico flew in one day a few years back, he deccided to call the strip ‘Hallelujah International.
“Ministers would occasionally stop to complain that a place with such a scriptual name was a disappointment because it had a bar but no church. Tourists would stop to mail postcards, only to find that there was no post office. “I never did get around to getting a post office there; I was always too busy running the business,” Stoy said.
“He said the place was named Hallelujah 80 years before his father homesteaded there. A group of emigrants shouted the word on the spot after hearing mountain man James P. Beckwourth describe the mountain pass just to the west—5,212-foot—Beckwourth Pass—as the lowest and easiest over the Sierra.”
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.
Devil’s Corral Bridge, 1918. Courtesy of Margaret A. Purdy
In 1944, the County of Lassen contracted Engineer, John D. Hubbard to conduct a study of Iron Ore Deposits in Lassen County as well as other minerals. This was done in conjunction with the Western Mining Council and the California Department of Natural Resources.
As a general rule, such reports tend to be dull reading. On the topic of coal deposits, Hubbard did interject a bit of humor. He wrote: “There is a lignite deposit in Sec. 7, T29N R11E one mile south of Devil’s Corral (handy for the Devil). It is owned by Paul Olsen and associates of Susanville.” Lignite is the lowest grade of coal, with little commercial value.
J.E. Lane’s depiction of Main Street, Susanville, 1864
Awhile back I wrote about the B&B a former Susanville business. One of the feature’s in the banquet room was oil canvas mural of the eruption of Lassen Peak. Lane’s main income was as a commercial painter of homes and businesses. Seasoned residents may remember Frank Maurino (1920-2001) who was also a commercial painter, but was also known for his artistic talent.
Lane was commissioned by the County of Lassen to do two paintings for the Lassen County Courthouse that was dedicated in 1917. One painting was Susanville in 1864, which is not only the county seat, but it was the same year the county was created. The second painting is that of Warner Valley, looking at Lassen Peak during an eruption. What is peculiar about this, is that Warner Valley is in Plumas County and Lassen Peak is in Shasta County.
