One of the problems that stymied development was water, or specifically the lack thereof. Efforts were made to bring water from Willow Creek, but that was fraught with problems—litigation over water rights. Then there was another dilemma, of finding water in all the wrong places. In the tunnels miners experienced a tremendous amount of water seepage, compounding an already difficult task. The author can attest first hand having had explored the Golden Eagle mine with water dripping everywhere.
Red River was not only the nation’s largest electrical sawmill, it also built one of the largest millponds, in which several people met an untimely end in it. During the afternoon of July 29, 1914, 19-year-old, Willard Pierce was fishing where Robbers Creek entered the millpond. Others the vicinity were swimming and later left. Later in the day, John Jeffreys discovered Pierce’s body face down in about three inches of water. Jeffreys and Charles Phelan pulled him out of the water, and attempted to resuscitate to no avail. During the Coroner’s Inquest it was revealed that last year Pierce was swimming in the millpond with friends. After swimming, Pierce had a fainting spell and collapsed for no apparent reason. It was presumed that he must have had a spell causing him to fall into the water resulting in an accidental drowning.
On this date, forty years ago, the Lassen County Times made its debut. At the helm was Martin Hickel, editor, Margie Teeter, city editor and yours truly penned a column entitled “Historic Moments.’
Some of the headline news was the rate hike hearings for CPN, then the local electric company. Congressman Harold “Bizz” Johnson was about to pay the community a visit. Then, there was the ongoing saga over the logging of the Westwood Cemetery.
Hot Springs Peak at an elevation of 7,680’ is the highest point on the Skedaddle Mountains. So named for the Amedee and Wendel Hot Springs located at the base of the mountain. Skedaddle was a Civil War term used primarily by Southerners to “flee.” The mountain was named by the Kidder & Ives state boundary survey of 1863, when they had a skirmish with the Smoke Creek band of Paiutes, in which ultimately the latter fled.
Long before the American Disabilities Act was passed, one county official, specifically Lassen County Superior Court Judge Harry D. Burroughs went the extra mile so to speak to accommodate a court litigant.
In October 1929, a World War I veteran involved in a divorce proceeding was physically unable to climb the stairs to the courtroom, and no one was able to carry him. Thus, Burroughs held court on the front lawn of the courthouse. The veteran had suffered from a gas attack by the Germans, and for the last ten years he was still unable to lift his hand to his head. At the time of the court proceeding he was residing at Wendel, hoping vapor baths from the hot springs would aid in his recovery.
On a quarterly basis, I ask you the reader, if there is something you would like to learn more about or maybe its something you heard, but question its validity. So here is an opportunity to participate. I will do my best to answer any questions. It should be noted, it may take awhile for the answer to appear as a post. The primary reason, many of the daily posts are done nearly a month in advance. So by the time you read this I am already working on posts for the middle of November, or at least I should be. Whatever the case may be, I look forward to hearing from you. Of course, it should be noted that paid subscribers requests receive priority. In addition, you can always send a request at any time.
First of all, I am not sure if the low lying ridge in the foreground has a name. The peak behind it is, is rather prominent and can even be seen from the top of Lassen Peak.
From time to time, the Red River Lumber Company struggled to keep up with the demand for housing. There was a lot of debate, especially the cost. Initially, the life-span of Westwood was to be twenty years. Fletcher Walker, the resident manager had different ideas.
On September 12, 1922, Fletcher wrote his brother, Gilbert, who resided in Minneapolis, to convince him for his support. Fletcher wrote: “Additional houses would very well materially build up the morals of the crew as it is a conceded fact men with families to support will take more interest in their work and in making good than single men who have gotten into the habit of wandering from job to job and no particular responsibility or care to work steadily. A campaign along the line to build 200 houses and as soon as they are completed build 200 more, if the demand still held out as we could fill 200 houses at this time, if we had them with men of family. Two hundred houses would add more than $200,000 to the annual sales of the mercantile departments as it is impraticable for an average family to get along on less than $1,000 a year. The $1,000 being less than a year’s salary and minimum pay and usually there is more than one employed out of each family.”
In February 1935, the residents of Susanville were astir as they watched the new neon sign being installed on the newly constructed Sierra Theater. Purportedly, when the sign was installed it was the largest neon sign installed in Northern California. More importantly, the residents were anxious for the new theater to open. The previous Liberty Theater was condemned by the City in August 1934. The Liberty was torn down in September to be replaced with the current Sierra Theater.
On July 8, 2015 the featured post that day was a “A Living Memorial.” In 1940 the local American Legion Post began a project that would result in two objectives. One was a beautification program for the Lassen County Courthouse property, that would serve a second purpose as a living memorial. They planted seventeen American sycamore trees, one each for every Lassen County man that perished in the “Great War” as World War I was referred to then. It was their intent that that at the base of each tree a plaque would be placed with that service man’s name. In the meantime, with so much focused on the war effort leading into World War II, that detail was put on the sideline, and like so many other community projects started in that era, were forgotten after the war ended.
Fast forward to the fall of 2018 and it is with great joy that the project has come full circle. Ryan Elison, as part of project to obtain the Eagle Scout rank with Boy Scouts completed the goal started seventy-eight years ago! Ryan, with some outside help, was responsible to place memorial markers at each tree as originally intended.