With the first installment of county property taxes due shortly, let’s take a look back in time.  In the first year of Lassen County’s operation, 1864-65,  there was a total assessed valuation of $239,558 in land improvements and $439,301 in personal property. The County had an original tax rate of $1.25 on each $100 assessed value for County purposes, plus collected another $1.25 on each assessed value for State purposes. The total collection in taxes amounted to $16, 971.47 of which the County received $8,485.57.

In the County’s first year of operation, the District Attorney attempted to collect $958.95 in back taxes, which represented nearly eleven percent of the County’s budget. The District Attorney filed lawsuits ranging from A.H. Hardin who owed 90 cents in a special assessment levied by the Janesville School District  to $164.40, which Isaac Roop owed on his municipal Piute Creek water system.

Tim

Alas, the photograph featured is not the one the inquiry was about, but another McKissick ranch house in the same vicinity.  The latter is distinct and can be seen along Highway 395, where a green meadow, with a tall stand of cottonwood trees surrounding an abandoned large two-story ranch house. In 1869/70 Daniel McKissick became the first permanent settler of Secret Valley. When the NCO Railroad was completed to Amedee, on the east side of Honey Lake, it created a lot of traffic for those headed north. The McKissick family established a stage stop/hotel to take advantage of the weary travelers. As time marches on, changes were on the horizon and by the the time the French family acquired it in 1925, the building had more or less been converted into a very large bunkhouse. Recently some one wrote a comment about it, and it appears below.

“The cottonwoods that previously lined both sides of the road approaching that old hotel are now gone. But the building remains, as evidenced by the following pictures and story assembled by creep girl who recently went there looking for ghosts for purposes of stimulation she apparently lacked. And I promise you, there were plenty of loud unseen forces at night upstairs at the time that me another cowboy lived downstairs in the 70’s working for a large cattle company.”

Notes From the Field: Abandoned Brothel of Secret Valley
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/notes-from-the-field-abandoned-brothel-of-secret-valley

Tim

Having spent considerable time in the local cemeteries, it is not always quiet resting place many would believe. It actually has a long history. Just because one is initially interrred there, does not mean its that person final resting place. When Fannie Knoch died in 1910 she was buried in the Susanville Cemetery. When her husband David Knoch passed away in 1911, his remains were taken to San Francisco where he was interred. He was not alone, for his wife’s grave was exhumed and transported with him.

In 1921, William S. Brashear filed a complaint with the Lassen County Board of Supervisors because in September of that year a non-family member was buried in his family plot. This I have learned is more common than you think. I received a call from Jack Rager’s family who upon arrival at the Lassen Cemetery were ready to intern his ashes in the family plot, only to find someone, with a headstone, was buried in his place. Then I had to deal with a good samaritan genealogist, who purchased and had placed a headstone for her relatives. It turns when the immediate family saw this, they were incensed, because while the family’s name were the same, they were not related. The headstone was removed, who knows whatever became of it.

Tim