Yesterday, we explored possible developments at Susanville Ranch Park. Today, we explore its agricultural history.
In November 1855, Moses Mason claimed this property and became the second person to file a land claim in the Honey Lake Valley. It is interesting to note that Peter Lassen & Company had located in the valley in June 1855, Lassen never filed a claim to his property. Who Mason was we may never know.
On September 12, 1856, William Weatherlow located on Mason’s abandoned claim and lived there until his death in 1864. William B. Long purchased the property from Weatherlow’s Estate. Long would soon have neighbors. In the mid-1870s, Abner and Margaret Van Buren settled to the west of Long, where he planted a small apple orchard. In the early 1880s, James Bagwell located at the north of Long where a spring bears his name By 1898, William B. Long’s son, John T., had not only purchased Van Buren’s and Bagwells’ properties, but that of his father. He consolidated these lands into one ranch. On June 2, 1913, Long, heavily in debt with his extensive ranch properties and a slaughterhouse in San Francisco, deeded this property to Alexander & Knoch, whom he owed $13,362.11. Alexander & Knoch, in turn, sold it to the McKissick Cattle Company, who then sold it to Fruit Growers Supply Company.
