USA > California > Glenn County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 14
USA > California > Colusa County > History of Colusa and Glenn counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 14
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Hyman tract was subdivided, and in 1911 forty thousand trees were set out, besides a lot of vines. That same year the Arbuckle Al- mond Growers' Association was organized, and the marketing end of the business was put on a business basis. From that day to this the industry has been steadily growing, and today there are five thousand two hundred acres in almonds in the Arbuckle dis- triet, with forty thousand trees, or eight hundred acres, to be planted next spring.
A. M. Newland, residing three miles north of Colusa, was the pioneer almond-grower of the county. Mr. Newland came to this county as a small boy in 1853. Ten years later they set out a few almond trees, and later added to these till there was quite an orchard. In the course of time the trees got old and were dug up, and the present orchard was planted in the year 1889. Mr. New- land's orchard, being along the river, of course suffers considerably from frost. In the twenty-eight years of its life, at least half of the crops have been thus destroyed; but Mr. Newland says that if he gets a crop only once in every three or four years it pays better than to sow the land to barley. The Newland orchard contains forty acres; and when the frost does not catch it, the yield is heavier than from any other orchard in the county.
Mr. Newland is the originator of the Eureka almond, a species that has the size and flavor of the Jordan combined with a soft shell. It has not been planted as widely as it deserves, because it is not adapted to all conditions and has not been advertised; but it bids fair to be one of the leading varieties of the state.
A. Fendt, whose land adjoins that of Mr. Newland, followed the example of the latter and set out an orchard of almonds about the year 1905; and the trees have made a wonderfully thrifty growth. Being near the river, it, too, has suffered from frost; but worse than that, it has been attacked by the root knot and Mr. Fendt is digging up many of the trees.
Oranges
There is little more to be said of commercial fruit-growing in the county, because there is little more fruit grown on a commercial scale. There are two orange orchards of nine acres each, both on the edge of Colusa, one belonging to Col. John T. Harrington and the other to District Attorney Alva A. King. Part of Colonel Harrington's trees are thirty-five years old, and he has a few seed- lings forty years old, planted at the same time as those in the court- house yard. From this orchard as many as two thousand boxes of fruit have been taken in a year, some of the older trees produc- ing four hundred boxes per acre. For many years Colonel Har- rington's entire crop was taken by the Palace Hotel in San Fran-
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cisco, because it was superior to any other oranges produced in the state. Another significant fact is, that Colusa County oranges took the prize at the Midwinter Fair in San Francisco in 1894. Mr. King's orchard, better known as the Cooke orchard, was planted by the late J. B. Cooke about fifteen years ago. The trees are hardly in full bearing yet, but have produced twenty-five hun- dred boxes in a year. These are the only orchards in the county that ship oranges; and the present prospects are that they will be the only orchards for some time, as there seems to be but little interest in oranges just now.
Lemons
Although not known at all as a producer of lemons, Colusa County is said to have the largest lemon orchard in the world. In 1912 James Mills, an extensive fruit-grower of the South, bought the Houx ranch, four miles west of Maxwell, and proceeded to establish a lemon principality. He had concrete pipe made on the premises and laid so as to carry water to the tops of all the rolling hills, of which the ranch is largely composed, leaving openings at convenient points for bringing the water to the surface and con- dneting it through contour ditches to the roots of the trees. A tract of four hundred acres was planted to lemons that first year, and that acreage has been added to since, until there are seven hundred twenty-four acres in all. The older trees have begun to bear, and Colusa County has been, for the past year or two, a shipper of a car load or two of lemons. The Mills orchard also contains forty acres of oranges, two hundred forty acres of almonds, and twenty acres of pomeloes, all non-bearing.
Peaches and Apricots
In the year 1880, W. L. Cotter planted four acres of peaches and apricots on his ranch four miles south of Arbuckle. They thrived wonderfully, and for a time created some excitement over the fruit prospects in that neighborhood. For some reason or other, however, Mr. Cotter's example was not widely followed, and the Arbuckle district is not yet famous as a peach or apricot district, although there are about fifty acres of the former and about one hundred acres of the latter in the district at present.
A. S. McWilliams planted the first apricot orchard about Colusa. That was in 1884, and for a time apricots were a "lead- ing industry" about the county seat. But as the trees grew old they did not do so well, and the orchard was dug up about ten years ago. J. B. DeJarnatt, P. V. Berkey, H. Ahlf, and others also tried apricots; and for many years it was a familiar sight on the
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streets of Colusa in apricot season to see a spring wagon loaded with the best girls in town, bound for the apricot orchards to "work in the fruit." But a change seemed to come over the spirit of the people, and it became very hard to get girls to help with the apricots; so Mr. Berkey planned to pull up the last of his apricot orchard, although the trees bore abundantly this year. The Ahlfs, however, still dry a few apricots.
So the apricot perished from the earth, as far as production commercially in most of Colusa County is concerned ; and the peach has suffered the same fate. The most magnificent peaches on earth can be grown here, but many of the peaches we use are brought down from Glenn County or over from Sutter County. Why should we worry with peaches, anyway, when we can put out a patch of rice and in five months have several thousand dollars with which to buy peaches ?
Pears
The history of the Bartlett pear industry has been about the same as that of peaches and apricots. Along in the eighties the business had a boom along the river, where the land and the climate are well adapted to pears. Henry Ahlf, Joseph Boedefeld, Hagar & Tuttle, P. V. Berkey, J. B. DeJarnatt, John Boggs, T. C. Hub- bard, Perry Wills, and others planted pears; and for a time the returns were all that anyone could wish. In those days pears were only fifteen dollars to twenty dollars a ton, but the yields were so abundant that the growers were well satisfied. Then came the pear blight, which was epidemie in the state; and in spite of all that the growers did, their orchards were practically ruined and had to be dug up. The Ahlf, Hubbard and Boedefeld orchards were the only ones that survived; and one of those, the Hubbard orchard, was dug up a couple of years ago by J. L. Langdon, who had come into possession of it. This leaves only the Ahlf and Boedefeld orchards today. The Boedefeld orchard is ont on the overflow lands and does not produce so well; but the Ahlf orchard, which is near the river, yields an average of three hundred boxes of fruit per acre. As pears have been selling for from forty to sixty dollars a ton, it will be seen that they are a profitable crop to those who take care of them.
W. G. Henneke, who lives near Cooks Springs, has about ten acres in pears and realizes well on them. F. B. Pryor has a small orchard on Grapevine Creek, which produces well; but like Mr. Henneke's orchard, it is so far back in the hills that marketing the crop is expensive.
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Walnuts
J. C. Westfall is the walnut king of this county. In 1907 he got a picture in his mind of a nice twelve-acre orchard of English walnuts that he hoped to have. Then he planted a black walnut tree in each spot where an English walnut had been in the picture in his mind. Two years later he grafted English walnut buds on the black walnut trees; and then he watched them grow. The first year the grafts grew thirteen feet. The second year the nuts took a prize at the State Fair, and people began to ask Mr. West- fall how to grow walnuts. Four years after grafting, the twelve acres produced fifty sacks of nuts that took all the prizes they were entered for, and Mr. Westfall was recognized as an authority on walnuts. In 1911, Mr. Westfall grafted two acres more; and since then he has added still further to his acreage.
Hugh L. Dobbins is about the only other man in the county who is interested in the walnut as a commercial possibility. Mr. Dobbins has conducted a small walnut nursery in Colusa for several years past, and next spring will set out ten acres to walnuts on the Swinford tract east of town. Some attempt was made a few years ago to start an orchard at Arbuckle, but it never amounted to much. There may have been other attempts, but there are no other orchards. There are, however, many individual trees, or rows of trees, the product of which is sold.
Figs, Plums and Apples
There are two small fig orchards in the county. One of these is an orchard of four or five acres a mile north of Colusa. This orchard belongs to Richard Bayne, and is cultivated by Emil St. Louis. It is an orchard of black figs, and it produces well and is highly profitable. The trees were planted twenty-seven years ago, and now yield in prodigal profusion. W. C. Roberts also has one acre of figs, from which he has taken four tons of fruit in a year.
Ahlf brothers have ahont twenty acres in shipping plums on their ranch on the east side; and the success they have had has in- terested a number of others, who will plant plum trees next spring.
The other fruits that I have mentioned, and possibly still others, are grown in yards or family orchards throughout the county, but are of no especial interest to the reader of history. There are some small apple orchards in the hills in the western part of the county, but very little of their product is marketed out- side of the county limits.
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CHAPTER XII MINING AND QUARRYING Mining
Colusa County cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called a mining county. It has some mines, and it has had some mining stampedes; but it is lucky that it does not have to depend entirely on the income from its mines for its wealth, for the mining industry in this county has been more or less of a fizzle. It is trne that several compartments in the county recorder's office are filled with the articles of incorporation of mining com- panies; but mining companies are not mines. The fact of the matter is, there has been much more money put into the mines of this county than has ever been taken out of them, although the same thing could be said, probably, of mines in general.
Small quantities of copper, coal, quicksilver, gold, silver, oil, sulphur, salt, limestone, and chrome ore have been produced in the county; but none of these has been obtained in very profitable amounts. No better history of the early mining activities in the county could be given than that written by Julius Weyand and published in the Rogers history some years ago; and I reproduce it here:
"Copper .- About November 1, 1863, the first discovery of copper was made in township seventeen north, range six west, on south side of Little Stony Creek, by F. M. Rice and J. B. Turner, in finding a large nugget of native copper, and also rock containing considerable copper, on the grounds located by the discoverers and five of their friends as the Mary Union claim.
"The news brought within a few days many of the people from Colusa and the county at large, and also people from other parts of the state, to the locality.
"On November 4, 1863, the Commonwealth Mining District was formed. The Mary Union lode was traced in southern and northern course, and claims were located as follows: 1, Extension Copper Hill; 2, Blue Hill; 3, Colusa; 4, Little Giant; 5, Sacra- mento; all south of Mary Union. On the north were: 1, North Star; 2, Indian Valley; 3, Grand Island; this comprised thirty- seven thousand two hundred feet on that ledge or lode, or seven miles long in distance by six hundred feet wide. Separate lodes were found and claims located, as: The Eagle, the Blazing Star, the Wyandotte, the Lion, the Settlers' Claim and the Pioneer. A town was surveyed and laid out on the twenty-eighth section, township seventeen north, range six west. by Judge H. W. Dun-
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lap and others, named Ashton, east of Little Stony, situated on lands now owned by Josh. C. Smith and Jonathan Ping, two hotels, two stores, livery stable, blacksmith shop and mining offices constituting the town.
"Further discoveries required the formation of districts as follows :
"Stony Creek District, December 24, 1863; St. John District, January 2, 1864; Snow Mountain District, January 5, 1864; Pacific Mining District, February 6, 1864; Mountain District, March 14, 1864; Lane District, also in March, 1864. In many of these locations the principals were: W. M. Rice, T. M. Rice, J. B. Turner, R. G. Burrows, James M. Berry, N. J. Greene, G. W. Keys, J. L. Howard, C. Dixon, J. Hop. Woods, Harry Peyton, J. A. Rush, H. Fairchild, W. K. Estill, G. W. Ware, Amos Roberts, J. K. Weast, J. W. Lane, Gil. Roberts, Judge H. W. Dunlap, Fred Clay, Mart Gibson, H. A. Van Dorsten, A. d'Ar- tenay, William Johnson, J. J. Lett, H. Mitchum, W. M. Gassu- way, Dav. Lett, Henry McCausland, J. C. Johns, A. N. Greene, Thomas Votaw, W. W. Greene, D. A. Greene, Jackson Hart, L. H. Baker, Joseph Whitlock, J. W. Goad, Stewart Harris, W. W. Noble, Charles Denmark, G. W. Noble, Joseph Ingrim, Thomas Talbot, J. W. Brim, James Taggert, A. J. Slye, and Julius Weyand, all of Colusa County, besides many persons from adjoining counties and the state.
"The agents of Flood & O'Brien, of San Francisco, had located a claim (the Ophir) running over and into the lines of the Mary Union Company, and a dispute arose between the parties, which was adjusted by a miners' meeting on February 4, 1864, deciding that Flood & O'Brien had to abandon their loca- tion. The parties did do so at once, and left for San Francisco, and, as appeared afterwards, to the injury of the further explora- tion of the locality. Their instructions were to spend a large sum of money before they should give up the work.
"The ores found in all this territory were native copper, red and black oxides, blue carbonates or indigo copper, and gray ore, the red oxides always carrying a trace of gold, and the gray ore a small per cent. of silver. Assays run as high as thirty-three per cent. copper.
"Strata of ore were found all over the country, claimed to be well-defined ledges, and as such were located, though hardly ever worked to prove their value.
"All well-defined ledges ran from southeast to northwest.
"The most work was done on the Mary Union, Copper Hill, the Colusa, the Sacramento, the Pacific, the Lion; and all of them undoubtedly will develop into mines of value if worked properly.
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"During the first excitement of the new discovery, there were incorporated the following claims :
Nov. 14, 1863, Mary Union Co., 1200 shares, at 40. $ 48,000
Dec. 17, 1863, Colusa Co., 345 shares, at 100. 34,500
Dec. 31, 1863, Pioneer Co., 3300 shares, at 5. 16,500
Jan. 8, 1864, Copper Hill Co., 4500 shares, at 5 22,500
Jan. 25, 1864, North Star Co., 4500 shares, at 4 18,000
Jan. 25, 1864, Blazing Star Co., 3900 shares, at 10
39,000
Feb. 6, 1864, Pacific Co ....
March 7, 1864, Sacramento Co., 5400 shares, at 5. 27,000
June 15, 1867, Lion Co., 5400 shares, at 20
108,000
"The work in 1864 shows the Mary Union shaft about fifty feet and several ents or short tunnels; the Copper Hill shaft, ninety-five feet; the North Star tunnel, sixty feet; the Lion shaft, forty-two feet, and incline abont sixty-five feet. The quantity of ore was small, the quality good. In the fall of 1864 the develop- ment of the mines was not satisfactory to the stockholders, the assessments became delinquent, and a great portion of the stock had to be taken by the company, for the assessment. Outside mining speenlators and prospectors paid no more attention to our mining region, from the date of the Flood & O'Brien agents leav- ing the locality, and our home capitalists and stockholders only of- fered to sell what they had, never offered to help develop the lodes. "Work was suspended for the season, and several attempts were made in 1865 to resume work; the only company continuing work was the Lion, which took ont some fine ore.
"A. d'Artenay, the principal owner, had assays made on Lion ore. These appearing satisfactory, he made preparations for erection of smelting works near the mine. In 1866, when every preparation for the enterprise was arranged, he died. His brother, T. d'Artenay, and Fred Schrieber, of Marysville, pro- ceeded in behalf of the company. Professor Isenbeck erected a fire-clay cupola furnace, steam engine for ernshing ore and blast, at a great expense of money. The taking out of ore, hauling to smelt the ore and coal, and running the smelting works, were only commenced when the furnace failed to do the work. A steady flow of the molten mass could not be accomplished; several trials were attempted, but all failed, and the furnace was declared unfit to smelt this kind of ore. Coffee & Risdon, of San Francisco, offered to put up a Haskell iron, water-lined furnace, warranting the same to smelt the Lion ore profitably and satisfactorily. The company agreed to their proposition, and the furnace was erected, and put under the management of their agents, Messrs. Johnson and Norcross, both being experienced smelters. They could run ont a few copper brick in good shape; but after one or two hours' run, the metal would chill or freeze, and the furnace had to be. cleared of the substance causing the failure. This proved to be
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asbestos, which does not melt nor flow off, and, when completely covering the surface of the furnace, will prevent its flow.
"Mr. Norcross gave his opinion that only a reverberatory furnace of the Swansea pattern could successfully and profitably smelt this quality of ore. The Haskell furnace was shipped back to San Francisco, and other attempts to smelt this ore have not been made since; the trustees continued to develop their lode, and as their ore, assayed by State Assayer Hanks, showed twenty-one per cent. copper, they shipped several tons to San Francisco in 1876, but did not realize enough for cost of production. The company has a quantity of ore on the dump, but cannot figure out a profit to keep at work, and therefore have suspended.
"In 1877 J. W. Brim, Jackson Hart, George Heath and W. K. Aldersley took several tons of ore from the Mary Union and Copper Hill grounds and shipped it to San Francisco, but failed to pay expenses and discontinued.
"In 1880, E. A. Frenzel, H. Gehrt, G. W. Hopkins, and James W. Warwick relocated claims on the Mary Union and Copper Hill grounds, working two seasons, finding new deposits, and running a tunnel to main lode, but suspended work to await a better value of copper.
"In 1883, J. L. Jordan, of Santa Rosa, and J. W. Cook, now of Maxwell, relocated the grounds of the Colusa Company, work- ing some time; but they suspended, and since that time nothing has been done in these mines.
"Coal was discovered in the foothills on the road between McMichael's, in Antelope, and G. C. Ingrim's, in Bear Valley, in the spring of 1855, by Isaac Howell and son; but no developments were made.
"In 1865, J. B. Turner also found coal on the left bank of Little Stony Creek, near Ashton, of good quality, but never devel- oped any of the seams.
"In 1882, E. S. Ashley, in Antelope Cañon, one half mile east of Sites, found coal of fine quality. A tunnel was started to examine the extent of the deposit; but this not appearing satis- factory, work was stopped.
"In 1887, John Arnett discovered a good vein on Little Stony Creek, two miles southeast of Smithville. Not considering it profitable, no further exploration was made by him. As coal exists in many places in the western part of the county, the dis- covery of large deposits will depend on the pospector of a future day.
"Gold and Silver .- In 1864, J. W. Brim, J. K. Weast and others found quartz containing both metals on Trout Creek, at the foot of Snow Mountain, situated a few miles west of Fouts
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Springs. They put up an arrastra and worked a few months; but returns not being satisfactory, they suspended.
"About the same time the Manzanita mine, at Sulphur Creek, was worked by Woodruff Clark and William Cherry, for gold, paying fairly well. There were other silver claims prospected, namely, the Foolcatcher, by San Francisco parties, but only to a very small extent.
"Quicksilver was discovered in 1865, in the western part of Bear Valley, and across the line in Lake County.
"The Abbot mine for several years paid well. The Ingrim, Buckeye and Sulphur Creek were developed and beginning to pay a profit, when the price of the metal fell to fifty per cent. of for- mer values, and the production was not profitable. J. Furth, J. W. Brim, J. Hart, W. S. Green, G. C. Ingrim and others were prominent in that industry. Their works were closed and have never been reopened.
· "Sulphur exists in large deposits at Sulphur Creek, whence Johnson, of Sulphur Creek, shipped a great quantity in 1866 and 1867. The shipment is now discontinued.
"Petroleum was found in many places in Antelope and Bear Valley in February, 1865. The Lane Mining District was organ- ized at that time. Quite an excitement was created by the news, and people came rushing to the hills to locate claims, and to bore for oil. Louis Lewis bored with hand-drills, on what is known as the Glotzbach place, on Freshwater, a well about four hundred feet deep, the same now being a flowing well emitting a strong inflammable gas, burning freely if conducted through a funnel and set afire. The oil was not in sufficient quantity, and the gas could not be used profitably; so the place was deserted by Lewis.
"Hughes and Mrs. Warner, of Sacramento, used a steam en- gine in boring for oil at Mr. Lane's, now MeMichael's place. They never succeeded in finding oil worth mentioning.
"Taylor, of Virginia City, bored at the Gilmore ranch, in Bear Valley; and several others bored in different places in the foothills. Not being successful, they suspended work, and no new effort has been made since to prospect for oil.
"Chrome Ore .- This ore was discovered in township nineteen north, range six west, on Big Stony Creek, by J. P. Rathbun, William Needham and others, several years ago.
"Several shipments of the ore were made; its quality was reported to be good, but the work was discontinued from some cause not known. A mine is now being opened southwest of Newville.
"Limestone was also found by Rathbun Brothers, in town- ship sixteen north, range five west, two miles north of Leesville,
THE STONE CORRAL
STONE QUARRY AT SITES
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on the Indian Valley road, in 1878. They erected a limekiln and burned lime of very good quality; but the limited demand in the vicinity was the cause for stopping further prosecution of work."
It will be noticed that Mr. Weyand says that after the little excitement of 1865 no new effort was made to prospect for oil. Mr. Weyand's statement was made in 1890, and was true at that time; but ten years later the western part of the county was in the midst of one of the greatest oil excitements it had ever known. In 1901 nineteen oil companies filed articles of incorporation with the county clerk, and there were dozens of individual prospectors and locators of claims. Somebody had found a little pool of oil seeping through the ground at the edge of Bear Creek, between the lower end of Bear Valley and the mouth of Sulphur Creek. At once the theory was developed that this was boiling up from an immense reservoir of oil down beneath the surface of the earth, and men made haste to be among those who would share in the tapping of this great reservoir of oil and wealth. Borings were made, not only in the vicinity of the first discovery, but as far away as the Mountain House; and it took four or five years to discourage the prospectors. One company kept on for nearly ten years, but finally gave it up. This was the Williams Oil Com- pany, which had between six hundred and seven hundred acres of land leased, and drilled at least three wells.
A deposit of mineral paint was found on Little Stony Creek, near Cooks Springs, in 1909, and the Ruby King Mining, Town- site & Improvement Company was formed to develop it. Owing to inadequate transportation facilities, the mine has never been developed to any great extent; but it may yet prove to be a pay- ing investment.
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