There were a number of Hollywood films that used Lassen County locations in a number of movies. Susanville native, Ephie Asher, had a lot of influence as a Hollywood producer, and members of the Asher family are still in that business. One the last films shot here, was released in 1939 and called “The Good Samaritan.” Featured in the film was Antelope Grade and some scenes near Westwood. I have not an opportunity to research it further to ascertain about its availability.

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Among those interred in the Susanville Cemetery is U.S. Congressman John E. Raker. A native of Illinois he came to California with his parents in 1873 and they settled at Milford, Lassen County. In the early 1880s he studied law and was admitted in the bar in 1885.  In 1889, he married Iva Spencer, daughter of Ephraim and Lucy Spencer of Susanville. From that union, another one was formed, the law firm of Spencer & Raker.

The Rakers made their home in Alturas. Raker was later elected Modoc County District Attorney, and subsequently Superior Court Judge. In the fall of 1910 he decided to run for California’s First Congressional District. Raker ran against a popular incumbent W.F. Englebright. Raker campaigned on the belief that Congress took care of special interest and ignored the general public. Whatever, the case maybe he won by 140 votes. He continued to represent the district for seven more terms until his untimely death in 1926.

In future we will examine the many aspects of Raker’s career.

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There have been a variety dams built on the Susan River, and there just as many that were proposed but never built. The earliest dams were for manufacturing, i.e. lumber mills. By the late 1880s the focus was on reservoirs for irrigation. These will all be explored in future posts.

One of the last dams proposed occurred in 1987. The Tudor Engineering of San Francisco released a preliminary study for a hydroelectric power dam on the Susan River. The site selected was Crazy Harry Gulch, about eight miles west of Susanville. The firm proposed to construct a 170-foot high dam, at a cost of $30 million. For whatever reason, the project was never undertaken.

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In 1915, Lassen County voters passed a bond measure to approve the construction of a new courthouse and hospital.  The old hospital located along the Susan River was sold in a property exchange and in 1916 the new Lassen County Hospital was completed near Richmond Road. In 1960, it became known as the “annex” as a new facility was built next it. Both hospital buildings has since been abandoned when Banner Lassen was constructed north of Lassen College.

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In February 1890, San Francisco resident, Albert Gallatin who owned ranching properties at Eagle and Horse Lakes in Lassen County penned the following opinion piece for the Lassen Advocate:

“When the waters of Lassen County which have heretofore run to waste, shall be utilized for irrigation, when the sage brush plains shall be reclaimed, when tens of thousands of barrels of apples from Horse and Honey Lake valleys shall became a large item of east and west bound freight, when tens of thousands of tons of alfalfa shall be produced from what has heretofore been considered worthless land, and fed to beef cattle for San Francisco and Chicago markets, when your city shall be located on one of the overland railroads, when your immense timber forest shall have been converted into merchantable lumber and transported over one or more overland railroads to market, when Eagle Lake, the Geneva of the Sierras, shall be connected with the outside world by railroad and shall become one of the finest summer resorts of the Pacific Coast, with sail and steam yachts, mountain trails and drives and all the auxiliaries for hunting and fishing, then may Susanville assume metropolitan airs and rival any city from the Sierras to the Rocky Mountains.

“While this picture is largely overdrawn for the present, it will in my judgment be to a greater extent realized before the year 1900.”

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