This title should grab a few reader’s attention. While Lassen judges did sentence criminal murder defendants to a death sentence, those people were sent to a state prison facility where the execution was done. There were two instances in 1800s where vigilantes took matters into their own hands. I do recall personally an instance on the other extreme, whereby a justice court judge. instead of sentencing a misdemeanor criminal charged,  used the sunset clause. Those not familiar, the said person instead going to jail, was told to leave the county by sun down and never return.

Actually, this is post is about how the Lassen County Superior Court Judge’s portraits came to be. First, it should be noted that in 1879, California voters approved a new state constitution that revamped many governments functions. The District Court system was abolished and replaced with the Superior Court we have today.

In 1936, Ben V. Curler was elected Lassen County Superior Judge, a position he held until he retired on September 14, 1964. A side line project of Curler’s was to locate photographs of the previous superior court judges dating back to J.W. Hendrick who served as the first judge in 1880. At Curler’s own expense he had prints made, framed and then hung in the courtroom–however Judge Masillon Marstellar’s portrait was elusive. (Marstellar served from 1884-1890). As the story goes when the courtroom was repainted during the late 1960s, the portraits were carefully wrapped, stored in the basement and forgotten.

Enter Nataqua Parlor #152 of the Native Daughters of the Golden West. For the United States 1976 Bicentennial project Native Daughters, with Elberta Fraley at the helm, took on the task to have the portraits restored, rehung and updated to include portraits of Ben Curler, Judge Stanley Arnold and Judge Arthur Anderson. In 1978, a portrait of Judge Marstellar was located and subsequently added.

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While there are no longer grizzly bears in Lassen County, locally the name was a applied to a World War I infantry unit, and the Lassen High School adopted the grizzly as its mascot in 1929.

On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany and marked its entry into World War I. It was something that President Woodrow Wilson had attempted to avoid for two years. An all effort began seeking volunteers to fight in the war. On August 10, 1917, sixty-five men from Lassen, Modoc and Plumas Counties gathered at Susanville’s Methodist Church for roll call as members of Battery F, Second Light Artillery Division. Afterwards, Susanville’s businesses closed in observance, and the volunteers marched down Main Street, and onwards to the railroad depot on Richmond Road. It was in many ways a solemn occasion. This initial group were dubbed the “grizzlies,” who originated the monicker is not known.

Tim