Knave - The Old and the New - Oro Fino - Miner, Inventor, Farmer - Emigrant Gap - 100 Years of Rails - 'Lots of Talk...' - Judah Gets the Nod - R Street Route - First Locomotive - Oakland Tribune, 31 Jul 1955

I'm leaving out the first few paragraphs, which deal with current politics, and moving right to the histories and stories. Click the clipping below if you want to read what you missed, here. - MF

The Old and the New

Yreka to Fort Jones, 1903 USGS map
georefernced on google maps

It was 82 years ago that Alex J. Rosborough took his first ride over the old wagon road from Yreka to Fort Jones, a distance of 18 miles. "The road wound its way up the canyon beyond the Forest House and on over the low divide to Soap Gulch, so named because of the soapstone found there," he recalls. "From here the road went down Soap Gulch to where it met Moffitt Creek, then followed down a spur of Scott Valley to Fort Jones. The creek meandered on to join Scott River. In those days, just below the summit on the Yreka side, there was a big rock beside the road known as 'Robbers Rock.' [Google Maps street view] It was a made-to-order place for highwaymen, so it's easy to understand why the stage was held up at this spot three different times. Frank Hovey was the stage driver in each instance, which accounts for: his final verdict. 'I'm gettin' kind-a used to it,' Frank said, 'but I don't enjoy lookin' down that gun barrel.' The road was steep and narrow. As soon as travel increased between Shasta and Scott Valleys it didn't take long for the travelers to demand a better road. As a result, the state took over the situation several years ago and built a secondary highway over the mountain. This eliminated the old road in the bottoms of Forest House and Soap Gulches and took travelers, instead, along the mountainside and back into all the little gulches, but crossing the divide at the same place. It made a much easier grade. Once this secondary road was completed, further work on the route hung in the files until last year when state engineers brought in heavy road equipment and sliced a cut some 50 feet deep through the top of the divide. All the rock points on the Fort Jones side were cut away, and all the little gulches filled. It resulted in a wide straightaway along the mountainside, graveled and now oiled. It seems impossible to believe, but when this beautiful piece of engineering work is fully completed a motorist can drive his automobile from Yreka to Fort Jones in high gear. As I drove my car over this wonderful new roadway the other day I looked 'way down on where that old horse and wagon road ran past Dutch Charley's wayside inn, I could close my eyes and almost see the thirsty horses drinking at the watering trough outside the inn, and the long bar inside for the hospitality of travelers. Then I awakened from my trance, and the thought came to me: 'Well, 82 years did it.' I was 8 years old when I took that first ride.

Knave - Morcom Rose Garden - Ghost Town Tour - My Aunt Maxine - Unscheduled Derby - Oakland Tribune, 10 May 1964

OAKLAND is faced with a mingling of anniversaries today. It's Mother's Day - the 50th since President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the event a national observance in 1914. In addition, today marks the observance of Oakland's 30th annual Rose Sunday - an event recognized here since 1934 when Oakland's magnificent municipal Rose Garden was dedicated. Even this doesn't halt the parade. The combined Mothers Day Rose Sunday ceremonies slated for 2 p.m. at the Morcom Amphitheater of Roses will mark the 11th year that Oakland has honored its Mother of the Year - a program that began here in 1954. So there you have it: Mother's Day, Rose Sunday, and Mother of the Year. Very definitely, in Oakland today the roses are for Mother. And that's the way it should be. But we've been looking at the history of Oakland's outstanding municipal rose center and find that 30 years ago there just weren't roses in that area of Linda Vista Park. Or, if there did happen to be a rose or two, they were insignificant compared to the display there today. On May 13, 1934, the Oakland Municipal Rose Garden was formally dedicated by the Board of Park Directors to all Oakland residents. For some years previous the Oakland Businessmen's Garden Club had dreamed of having a garden in this area where many varieties of roses could be displayed adequately so everyone could enjoy their beauty. Work on the Rose Garden in Linda Vista Park began in June, 1932 — the original plan being the design of Arthur Cobbledick, Oakland landscape architect. The first roses were planted in the garden on Jan. 27, 1933, by Mayor Fred N. Morcom, President Homer Bryan of the Park Directors, Dr. Charles V. Covell of the American Rose Society, and B. S. Hubbard of the Businessmen's Garden Club.

The Knave - Oakland Tribune, 20 May 1956

I'm leaving out the first few paragraphs, which deal with current politics, and moving right to the histories and stories. Click the clipping below if you want to read what you missed, here. - MF

Pioneer Lafayette

The Knave: Next Wednesday evening, May 23, the Contra Costa County Historical Society will hold its spring meeting and banquet at the Pioneer Village Restaurant in Lafayette. Judge A F. Bray, society president, will be in charge, and the speakers will be Mrs. William Rosenburg, [Margaret Jennie Bickerstaff Rosenberg] pioneer school teacher, and the Rev. John W. Winkley, amateur California historian. Lafayette is the oldest settlement in Contra Costa County. Elam Brown, its founder, was the second white American to make his residence in the county. Brown arrived at Sutter's Fort on Oct. 10. 1846, with a company of 24 families and 16 wagons which had crossed the plains that summer. He was a native of New York State. After a visit to San Jose he returned to the Oakland hills and spent the year of 1847 whipsawing redwood lumber which he hauled to the San Antonio Landing and shipped to San Francisco. During the year 1847 Brown learned that William A. Leidesdorff was offering for sale his "Rancho Acalanes," which lay in the area east of the Oakland-Berkeley hills. This rancho land had been granted to Candelario Valencia in 1834. The name "Acàlanes" apparently came from the small Indian village called "Akalan which stood somewhere in the vicinity of modern Lafayette. As often happened to the Spanish Dons, Valencia fell into debt and was forced to sell his land. It was acquired by Leidesdorff. Elam Brown purchased the rancho from Leidersdorff in the fall of 1847 and moved his family to the rancho proper on Feb. 7, 1848. He had a small shack built and occupied by the evening of the same day. Later he built a better house of lumber which he had cut in the Oakland hills. This stood two miles from Lafayette on land later owned by Thomas W. Bradley. Later in that same year he moved his home to a site near the Plaza. Since Brown had to haul his flour from San Jose by way of San Ramon he bought a horse-power mill at Benicia in 1849, then in 1853 superseded it with a grist mill built near his home. One of the old millstones was placed in the little Plaza a year ago by the Lafayette Lions Club. The inscription on the stone dates Brown's settlement in Contra Costa as 1846, but this should have been 1848. It was also 1848 that Brown sold 300 acres of his Rancho, at the east end of Lafayette, to Nathaniel Jones for $100. Jones built a house on "Locust Farm," as he called it, in 1848. Benjamin Shreve, a schoolteacher, passing Brown's home in 1852, was persuaded to stay and teach school. He later opened a store and in 1857 applied to the Federal Government for a post office under the name of the French General Lafayette, only at that time it was spelled “La Fayette." Milo Hough built a hotel in 1853; Jack Elston opened a blacksmith shop and sold it in 1859 to Peter Thompson: A church was erected on Golden Gate Way about 1856, thus Lafayette was on its way to become a community. - John W. Winkley.