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 19
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 19
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Jolin L. Jackson, W. A. Vann and George N. Farnsworth were appointed by President Wilson in 1917 as Colnsa County's Exemption Board to handle the draft of soldiers for the war. Colusa County's first quota of soldiers under the draft numbered eighty-two; and they were sent to Camp Lewis, near Tacoma, Wash., in four contingents.
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Facts and Figures
The Colusa Theater was dedicated on June 19, 1873.
A company was formed in Colusa in 1866 to go to Texas to settle.
An epidemic of a sort of pneumonia in January and February of 1868 carried off many babies.
Colusa had its first moving picture show in 1908. The Cri- terion Theater was opened on April 1, of that year.
On July 8, 1893, Bowden & Berkey shipped one thousand pounds of blackberries from Colusa to Williams and Arbuckle.
Three hundred and ninety-five oranges were picked from one tree in Colusa on January 20, 1894.
Bert Manville caught thirty-seven swarms of bees in the spring of 1914. One colony made seven dollars and fifty cents worth of honey in a season.
A ton of fish a week was shipped from Colusa in February, 1913. They were mostly salmon, although there were many bass and catfish among them.
The first shad was put into the Sacramento River on June 25, 1871. E. T. Niebling brought some carp down from Julius Wey- and's place near Stonyford in 1883 and put them in the river, but these were probably not the first carp in the river.
In June, 1881, ten merchants and saloon-keepers of Maxwell were arrested for keeping their places of business open on Sunday.
In 1873 there were twenty-nine people in the county owning over five thousand acres each. Col. L. F. Moulton was first, with 30,429 acres.
In 1850 the population of the county was 115; in 1860 it was 2,274; in 1870 it was 5,088; in 1880, 9,750; in 1890, 14,640; in 1900, after county division, 7,364; and in 1910, 7,732.
The town of Sites was laid out on July 21, 1886. The shutting down of the quarries about 1910 hit it a lick that almost laid it out again, and the decease of the Colusa & Lake Railroad in 1915 practically finished the job.
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CHAPTER XVIII COLUSA COUNTY TODAY
General Features
Colusa County today is indeed a prosperons land. It is not the closely populated territory, with a home on every twenty acres and a village every three or four miles, that the early settlers who had come from such conditions back East thought it would be long before this time. In some respects it is in certain sections much as the pioneers found it, with broad expanses of level land, and a house or a fence only here and there to break the view to the horizon. Of course these great expanses now grow barley, where once they grew wild flowers and wild oats; but the people who inhabit them have much the same freedom as pioneers. The fact that the county is not thickly populated makes more room and more freedom and more wealth for those who are here, and they like it.
Roughly speaking, the county today is a vast barley field, with an orchard or a patch of alfalfa interspersed here and there, a section of almonds and grapes about Arbnekle and College City, a fringe of fruit trees and alfalfa along the river on the east, a fringe of mountains on the west, and a streak of green rice fields along the Trongh and extending out onto the plains in the Maxwell country. One incorporated city of the sixth class, Colusa, and seven unincorporated towns or villages contain that part of the population which is inclined to be urban in its tastes. These towns are Princeton, Grimes, College City, Arbuckle, Williams, Maxwell and Stonyford; and I shall take them up more in detail a little later on. Sites, Lodoga, Leesville, Sulphur Creek, Venado, Berlin, Colusa Junction, Delevan and Sycamore are very small places, all of which, except Colusa Junction and Sulphnr Creek, have post offices, and most of which were at one time more pros- perous than they are today. The winds of fate, which blow busi- ness and population from one town to another, and sometimes play strange pranks with bustling communities, have left these little places to one side of the enrrent of life, where they dream in quiet somnolence. This may not be altogether true at present of Sulphur Creek, which is undergoing a boom just now, owing to the greatly increased price of quicksilver.
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· General Statistics
Colnsa County contains 1080 square miles of territory, or 691,200 acres, divided into 750 farms averaging 920 acres to a farm. Of this land, 450,000 acres is well adapted to agriculture, 30,000 acres is rather rough foothill grain land, and the balance is grazing or mountain land. There are 1140 miles of public road, 40 miles of which is paved with concrete. In 1905 there were six miles of irrigating ditches watering 500 acres. Now there are 150 miles of ditches watering 35,000 acres.
The assessed valuation in the county is $15,594,796. There are in the county 19,732 cattle, 12,744 hogs, 3,244 mules, 4,459 horses, 28,084 sheep, 147 goats, and 1,116 dozen poultry; and there are 34 veterans exempt from part of their taxes. (I am giving the statistics as I find them on the assessor's rolls.) I have given the statistics on the various industries in their proper chapters, and they need not be repeated here.
County Officials
This county is blessed with as fine a set of county officers as could be found anywhere. It is many years since we have had any kind of scandal arising from malfeasance in office, and from present appearances it will be many more years before we have any. The present officers are Ernest Weyand, Superior Judge; T. D. Cain, County Clerk and Recorder; C. D. Stanton, Sheriff ; E. R. Graham, Treasurer; J. F. Rich, Anditor; Adam Sutton, Assessor; Miss Perle Sanderson, Superintendent of Schools; J. W. Kaerth, Surveyor; Alva A. King, District Attorney; Ed. W. Tennant, Tax Collector; J. D. MeNary, Coroner and Public Ad- ministrator; P. H. Northey, Sealer of Weights and Measures; C. J. Wescott, P. V. Berkey, G. B. Pence, Roscoe Rahm and W. W. Boardman, Supervisors; Dr. C. A. Poage, County Physician; Dr. G. W. Desrosier, County Health Officer; Dr. Norman Neilson, County Veterinarian; Luke R. Boedefeld, County Horticultural Commissioner; Mrs. Edna White, Superintendent of the County Hospital; Miss Louise Jammé, County Librarian; and S. J. Car- penter. Deputy Game Warden.
The justices of the peace of the county are John B. Moore, Colusa ; C. K. Atran, Arbuckle; J. W. Crutcher, Williams; J. H. Lovelace, Maxwell; G. T. McGahan, Stonyford; Mrs. Edna Keeran, Princeton; and O. M. Durham, Grimes. The constables are W. W. Walker, Colusa; Oscar Hoernlein, Arbuckle; H. A. Christopher, Williams; W. J. Ortner, Maxwell; G. S. Mason, Stonyford; C. M. Archer, Princeton; and George Ainger, Grimes.
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Colusa
Colusa, the county seat, is the only incorporated city in the county. It is situated on the river about midway of the eastern border of the county, and has a population of 1,582, according to the census of 1910; and it has grown but little since then. The extensions, Goads and Coopers, one at either end of the town, bring the population up to about 2,000.
Colusa was established in 1850, as we have seen in a preced- ing chapter. It grew slowly but steadily for the first forty years of its existence; but more recently it has not grown much, having added only about two hundred fifty to its population in the past twenty-seven years. The town was incorporated in 1876, and got electric lights in 1900; but there was no other marked change in its existence till 1909, when it woke up and made progress in strides that must have startled its old inhabitants. On August 31, 1909, the electors of the town voted bonds in the sum of $50,000 for a new water-works, and a like amount for a sewer system; and then the town got caught in the wave of progress that swept over the state in 1910 and the years immediately following, and improve- ments came so rapidly that it was hard to keep up with them. The water-works and sewer system were finished in 1910 and began operation; the steam laundry, which had been fighting shy of the town because there was no sewer system, came in 1910, and a second steam laundry came at about the same time; the Colusa Business Men's Association was organized in 1910, and for a time was very active; a second picture show, the Gem Theater, was opened in 1910; and the Colusa County Bank remodeled its build- ing that year. In 1911 the First National Bank building and the O'Rourke building were put up, and the town trustees ordered sidewalks down in all parts of town included in the "fire limits." In 1912 the Gamewell fire alarm system was installed, and J. M. Phillips began in June to sign up contracts for street paving. Market Street was paved up as far as Eighth that fall, the work beginning on October 23. The next year, 1913, the paving on Market Street was completed, Fifth Street and parts of Sixth and Jay were paved, a swat-the-fly campaign and general sanitary cleaning up was begun and vigorously carried on, and the old Cooke water-works, built in 1870, was bought by the town and put out of business. In 1914 electroliers were placed on Market and Fifth Streets, and preliminary steps in the paving of Tenth Street were taken. All this time sidewalks were being laid in different parts of town, and moral conditions were being greatly improved, so that by the time the five years from 1910 to 1915 were past,
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Colusa was a different town. In 1917 the people voted $65,000 bonds for a new grammar school, and then decided that that wasn't enough and voted $20,000 more. Principally under the direction of Dr. E. S. Holloway, one of the finest school buildings in the state has been erected. This year the fire department got a new anto chemical engine and placed itself in the ranks of the best-equipped fire departments in the state.
Colusa today has three good banks, the Colusa County, the First National and the First Savings; three general stores, J. J. O'Rourke, H. D. Braly & Company, and Mrs. J. S. Malshary; a woman's store, the Scoggins-Sartain Company; three groceries, the Hankins Estate, Stowe & Padgitt, and H. R. Putman & Sons ; two lumber companies, the Colusa Lumber Company and the Gren- fell Lumber Company; an art and china store, B. A. Pryor; a harness store, the Colusa Harness Company, owned by Mrs. J. O. Mason; a furniture store, the Jacobson Furniture Company; three hardware stores, Messick & Kirkpatrick, G. W. Tibbetts, and B. H. Mitchell; a farm machinery agency, the Colusa Implement Company ; a men's clothing and furnishing store, Brown & Com- pany, of Marysville; two drug stores, Oscar Robinson and J. R. Cajacob; a millinery store, Miss Hattie Boggs; three ice-cream parlors and candy stores, George W. South, Miss Fannie Burrows, and J. R. Joseph; a stationery and candy store, George A. Finch ; three cigar stores, G. J. Kammerer, Baum & Minasian, and Moore & Severson; a bakery, Montgomery & Walker; a plumbing estab- lishment, the James Roche Estate; an electric store, Doren Rus- sell; two butcher shops, Comfort & Hongland and Johnsen & Richter ; a tailor, S. Edmands; fifteen saloons, E. P. Jones, J. H. Busch, L. A. Moore, B. H. Probst, Milde & Class, Goldsmith & Gurnsey, Fred Watson, Wing Sing & Company, Roche Bros., Tozai Company, J. L. Erisey, R. L. Welch, W. S. Brooks, John Osterle, and James O'Leary; two second-hand stores, A. Weiss and John Klein; seven garages, Merrifield & Preston, Westcamp & Sparks, Colusa County Garage, Overland Garage, Frank L. Crayton, the Service Garage, and Fred Martin; six barber shops, Ward & South, George St. Louis, J. D. Lopez, Moore & Severson, Niek Churas, and Doc Cramer; six grain-buyers, John L. Jackson, A. B. Jackson, H. H. Hicok & Son, H. G. Monsen, E. P. MeNeal, and Scott Bros .; one rice broker, J. W. Sperry; five real estate dealers, F. B. Pryor, John C. Mogk, J. B. DeJarnatt, B. D. Beck- with, and Campbell & Barlow; two groceterias, one kept by the Scoggins-Sartain Company and the other by the bakery; a tamale parlor, Mrs. A. Pinales; two pool-rooms, G. J. Kammerer and Moore & Severson; a creamery, the Colusa Butter Company; a
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soda works, Mrs. T. F. Phillips; two shoemakers, A. B. Cooper and V. Marovitch; three restaurants, Mrs. L. A. Moore, Kufolias Bros., and the Colusa Cafe and Grill; two cleaning works, H. S. Saladin and J. R. Manville; two hotels, the Riverside and the Na- tional-Eureka; four rooming houses, the Commercial, the Eagle, the Shasta, and the Cooper; a photographer, W. A. Gillett; a foundry and machine shop, T. E. Maroney; a flouring mill, the Colusa Milling and Grain Company; two undertakers, J. D. Me- Nary & Son and Sullivan Bros .; four contractors, W. C. Blean, Henry Von Dorsten, A. P. Staple, and L. S. Lewis; two moving picture shows, the Gem by C. C. Kaufman and the Star by Hilde- brand & Lucientes; three warehouse companies, the Colusa Ware- house Company, the Farmers Storage Company, and the Sacra- mento River Warehouse Company; three blacksmiths, C. W. Young, Anthony & Son, and Martin Thim; two wagon-makers, J. P. Muttersbach and J. R. Totman; a taxi service, W. A. Gillett; two painting firms, L. H. Fitch & Sons and White Bros .; a bicycle repair shop, Clifford D. Brown; two gasoline service stations, J. C. Ohrt and Royal Kenny; a steam laundry, W. H. Graham; an express and delivery service, Ed. Butler ; four draying firms, Tot- man & Cleveland, S. A. Ottenwalter, George Ross, and C. M. Jack- son ; the Union Ice Company; the Standard Oil Company and the Union Oil Company; two newspapers, the Sun and the Herald; three doctors, Dr. C. A. Poage. Dr. W. T. Rathbun, and Dr. G. W. Desrosier; an osteopath, Dr. F. H. McCormack; a veterinarian, Dr. Norman Neilson ; four dentists, Dr. E. S. Holloway, Dr. F. Z. Pirkey, Dr. P. J. Wilkins, and Dr. E. L. Hicok; an architect, Robert L. Holt; ten lawyers, Thomas Rutledge, U. W. Brown, Harmon Albery, W. J. King, A. A. King, Ben Ragain, I. G. Zumwalt, Seth Millington, Sr., Seth Millington, Jr., and Clifford Rutledge. There are also two lawyers who do not practice their profession, John T. Harrington and Phil B. Arnold. The town has schools, churches, and lodges, a Carnegie library, a telephone system and telegraph connection. It had two livery stables, but the encroachments of the auto caused both to quit business with- in the past year.
Williams
Williams is the second town in size in the county, having about 1,000 people. It was laid out by W. H. Williams in 1876; and as the railroad reached it shortly thereafter, it was soon a thriving village. Its churches, lodges, schools and newspaper have already been mentioned in these pages. In addition, it has a sub- stantial bank, electric lights, a water-works, a modern high school, more paved streets than any other town of its size in California,
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a branch station of the Standard Oil Company, two blacksmiths, and a fruit store.
One of the largest department stores in the county is located at Williams, that of the George C. Comstock Company, Incorpo- rated. Entrican & George have a grocery; J. F. Fouch & Son, a drug store; E. J. Worsley, a harness store; J. E. Mitchell, a butcher shop; and T. G. Anson and Joe Lanouette, cigar stores. Ed. Gimblin is a plumber ; the A. F. Webster Company handle real estate; H. H. Rathbun and Mrs. R. V. Lynch sell candy and soft drinks; Al. Hausman has a bakery; and A. B. Levy is a grain- buyer. There are three garages in town, Quigley's, the City Gar- age, and the Central Garage. Its flouring mill was mentioned in a former chapter. It has two doctors, Dr. A. W. Kimball and Dr. Ney M. Salter.
Arbuckle
Arbuckle, "the home of the almond," has been mentioned a number of times in these pages. It was laid out in 1875 by T. R. Arbuckle, who stimulated its growth by giving town lots to those who would build on them. It is now the metropolis of the south- ern part of the county, having a population of about 700. It is the town that put the "am" in almond, and it reaps a lot of cash from the transaction. It is the home of D. S. Nelson, the almond king; but he is seldom at home, being generally "over at Es- parto," "out in the orchard," or "gone to Hershey." It has three blocks of paved streets and two blocks of paved sidewalks, and is a "fine town for a dentist, but can't get any," according to the report sent me.
Arbuckle has three general stores, two hardware stores, two drug stores, two plumbers and tinners, two restaurants, two real estate dealers, three garages, two grain-buyers, one lawyer, a hotel, a bank, a harness store, a furniture store, a butcher shop, a candy and soft-drink emporium, a bakery, a newspaper, an elec- trie shop, a tailor shop, a feed and seed store, a jewelry store, a lumber yard, a branch station of the Union Oil Company, and a sanitarium. It is the only town in the county having a rural free delivery mail route, an advantage due to the closely settled .com- munity lying about the town. In other places the real estate men do all the lying about the town. Owing to the great success of the almond and raisin industries in its vicinity, Arbuckle will un- doubtedly grow rapidly and substantially in the next few years.
Maxwell
Maxwell was started in 1878, about the time the railroad went through that territory. It was first called Occident; but the name
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was afterward changed to honor an early resident, George Max- well. It has a population of 550. It has a fine new Odd Fellows' hall, a modern town hall, a bank, a hotel, fine school buildings, four blocks of paved streets, and nearly all the conveniences of modern life. Benjamin Smith and the Rochdale Company have general stores; Kaerth & Lausten, a hardware store; Arthur J. Fouch, a drug store; Dave Schwenk, a harness store; Lee Brown, a furniture store; W. R. Yarbrough, a butcher shop; G. I. Stor- mer, a cigar store; James H. Ellis, a creamery; Mrs. Susie Hall, a millinery store; and J. A. Graham, a shoe shop. George L. Harden is a real estate dealer; Henry Kraft and A. J. Reckers are blacksmiths; J. A. Constable, a well-driller; and Lee Brown, a building contractor. There are two garages in the town, con- ducted by Eli Triplett and George B. Brown. The Tribune keeps the people informed on the news of the day.
Princeton
Princeton was a road house in 1851, and if that could be called the beginning of the town it is probably the second oldest town in the county. Its population is 250, but it is destined to take a boom as soon as the Colusa & Hamilton Railroad gets well established. It has river transportation and a railroad with a daily freight service, but no passenger trains; a ferry across the river; a great hope for a bridge, and a fixed determination to have one; and four daily auto stage lines. It has a good bank, honsed in a fine build- ing of its own, branches of the Standard Oil Company and Union Oil Company, a public drinking fountain, a church, a good public school, a fine high school with gymnasium and manual training shop, and a tireless booster for the town in the person of Mrs. C. W. Cockerill.
Ed Barham and the Hocker-Cannon Company keep general stores; E. L. Hemstreet has a grocery; Johnsen & Richter, a butcher shop; D. S. Baker and W. A. Boyes, candy and soft drinks; Melvin Weaver, a bakery; P. W. Feeny, a garage; and D. A. Newton, a hotel. The Colusa Lumber Company has a branch at Princeton. Mallon & Blevins and L. L. Grieve deal in real estate.
Grimes
Grimes is a strong competitor of Princeton for the honor of being the second oldest town in the county-that is, if one house could be called the beginnings of a town. Both towns trace their origin back to 1851, but whether Helphenstine's house at Prince- ton or Grimes' house at Grimes was built first I do not know. Grimes, which was named for Cleaton Grimes and his brother,
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who built on the site of the town in 1851, has a population of 250. It has rail and river transportation; and as it is the center of a very rich territory, it ships a great deal of produce. It has a bank, telephone connection, two warehouse companies, Odd Fel- lows and Rebekah lodges, a church, and schools.
General stores are kept by Smith & Company and George D. Megonigal; a hardware store, by W. F. Howell; a drug store, by L. V. Nanseawen; a harness store, by Peter Krohn; a butcher shop, by H. L. Houchins & Son; a cigar and candy store, by J. S. Woods; and garages, by M. C. Dillman and Clipp Bros. J. M. Dixon and A. A. Thayer, Jr., are grain-buyers; and J. W. Ask is a plumber and tinner; and there are two blacksmith shops, three building contractors, the Florindale creamery, and the Grimes bakery. Grimes is at present the center of the sugar-beet indus- try in the county. The town leads all the other towns in the county, and probably in the United States, in the amount of money per capita that it put up for the Y. M. C. A. war fund, having subscribed $5,339 in one evening, and considerable since that meeting. Colusa raised $6,200 at its meeting for the same purpose ; Arbuckle-College City, $4,200; and Williams, $4,000.
College City
College City had its beginning in 1871, when Andrew Pierce died and left his land and money for the founding of Pierce Christian College, from which the town takes its name. The first college building was erected in 1874; and from that time on, for about twenty years, College City was a very lively place. By "lively" I do not mean what is usually meant when towns are spoken of as lively ; namely, factories, and a pay roll with a lot of it spent in carousing, bright lights and much noise at night, con- stant shifting of the population, and that sort of thing. College City had none of that. It had a life of its own. By the terms of his will, Mr. Pierce had forbidden for all time the sale of liquor on the premises ; and College City has never had a saloon. Con- sequently it has never had the "life" that has flowed abundantly in other communities; but it was a community of high ideals, and a place to which its people were devotedly attached. When the college closed its doors, about 1894, the town suffered a severe blow; but it has continued to exist, even with the handicap that has killed so many towns : a railroad passing near by and bringing a competing town. Today the population of College City is about 150. It has a good high school, a church, a general store, a har- ness store, an ice-cream parlor, and a blacksmith shop. It is on the Colusa & Hamilton branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and may take on new life when that road gets fully into operation.
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Stonyford
Stonyford is the only important mountain town in the county. It was started by a man with the good old American name, John Smith, and was called Smithville-an equally standard name. In the summer of 1890 the Stony Creek Improvement Company bought the town, moved it half a mile to higher ground, and renamed it Stonyford. The town at that time consisted chiefly of a good flouring mill and a commodious hotel, both of which were greatly improved by the company, which had visions of a great metropolis in the little mountain valley with its enchanting sum- mer climate and its magnificent views. The village now has a population of about 90, and does a considerable business in sum- mer with campers, hunters, fishermen and other pleasure-seekers. It is surrounded by beautiful green alfalfa fields watered from Big Stony Creek, and is an ideal spot in summer. It has a town hall, two churches, a Masonic hall, a hotel, and telephone com- munication. D. J. Westapher and A. R. Bickford & Company keep general stores, and the latter firm handles fresh meat. There are a restaurant, a candy and soft drink establishment, a cream- ery, a blacksmith shop, and a feed stable.
In Conclusion
To those who have had the patience to follow thus far the story herein set down, let me say that no attempt has been made to give this work any particular literary flavor. I have tried to confine myself to a plain statement of facts, especially those facts that would help the reader to understand the tendencies of the times, and appreciate the changes that have taken place in the past, and that are today taking place, in this county of ours. I realize that this is only a fragmentary work. A dozen volumes like this could not hold the history of Colusa County, if it were all written. But I have tried to touch the "high spots," the im- portant points, to the end that those who may in the future wish to know how the foundations of their civilization were laid, and who were the builders of the superstructure, may find some help from the perusal of these pages.
RESERVOIR OF The Government IRRIGATION PROJECT. Glenn So Cal.
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HISTORY OF GLENN COUNTY
By Mrs. Rebecca T. Lambert
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