Colusa County, CA History

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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Geography of Colusa County.
 
CHAPTER I.
 
        COLUSA COUNTY is situated in the central western part of the wonderful 
Sacramento Valley. To be not only an integral but unequaled portion of this 
granary of California is among her distinctions of pride and her guerdon of 
prosperity. It is bounded on the north by Tehama County, on the south by Yolo 
County, on the east by Sutter and Butte Counties, and on the west by Mendocino 
and Lake Counties. There is a stretch of sixty miles from its northern to its 
southern limits, and that, to use a homely expression, it is about as "broad as 
it is long," is evidenced by its width, which, at its greatest extremity, is 
nearly fifty miles across. It contains, in round numbers, two thousand eight 
hundred square miles of territory, one thousand five hundred of which are 
situated in the Sacramento Valley proper, and in point of possession of number 
of acres of land, it ranks twentieth among the counties of the State. The 
Sacramento River, on its east, after running north nearly twenty miles, with a 
right-angled detour to the west of some twenty-four miles, again resumes its 
eastern boundary and flows north To the west are the Coast Range Mountains, 
running nearly due north and south, with summits of snow occasionally 
interspersed among tall elevations or level ridges of perennial verdure rising 
between it and the Pacific Ocean. In this broad, bounteous basin, whose eastern 
limits are traced by an "exultant and abounding river" on the one side, and with 
its western verge buttressed by mountain chains on the other, reposes the banner 
wheat county of the State, and one also which, in a few years, will scarcely be 
second to any in horticultural productions. This remark is not designed as even 
the faintest suggestion of prediction, since further on in this work statistical 
data will be furnished sufficient to justify the statement.
        A glance at the map of Colusa County shows clearly that its water 
supply, in the form of living springs or creeks, is most abundant. Apart from 
the consideration as to how some of these may be utilized for irrigation 
purposes, they have done much and will do much more in aiding in the settlement 
of the territory through which they flow. In journeying through the western part 
of the county, no one is exposed to any inconvenience from want of water, as 
these streams, clear and sparkling, and refreshing to both sight and taste, are 
met with everywhere at very short intervals. Receiving their nourishing supply 
chiefly at the base or higher foot-hills of the Coast Range, they seek the 
plain, making their waters a blessing as they flow, reeling off miles and miles 
of their ribboned freshness, causing the farm­houses scattered over foot-hill 
and plain to look restful and inviting in their surroundings of trees of ash, 
sycamore, walnut, or oak, of fruit-trees, vines, and shrubs, or broad pastures 
of alfalfa. Wherever these streams meander, their banks, which are frequently 
from an eighth to a quarter of a mile wide, and from ten to fifteen feet deep, 
are covered with a generous growth of light forest trees, around which it is no 
uncommon sight to observe the clematis or convolvulus climbing, the latter so 
attractive, with its large flowers, white and handsome. In these streams various 
kinds of fish are to be found, among which the trout, carp, pike and catfish 
lure the angler to cast his line in their deep pools or shady shallows.
        The most prominent of these living streams are the Stony, Bear, Elk and 
Grindstone Creeks. Stony Creek heads in Snow Mountain and drains a large area of 
the eastern slope of the Coast Range; it then flows northeasterly to the 
northern boundary of the county, finally emptying itself into the Sacramento 
River seven miles below the county's northern limit. In the summer season in 
some years it fails to reach the river, being filtered through the extensive 
gravel deposits of which its bed is formed. Bear Creek, which flows through the 
fertile Bear Valley for a distance of ten miles, has its source also in the 
mountain range to the westward and empties into Cache Creek. Elk Creek, with a 
similar source in the range north of Mt. St. John's, courses through some very 
romantic scenery in its windings east and north before it finds its outlet in 
Stony Creek.
        In some places it has worn smooth passages through great ledges of high 
rock resembling more the operations of the engineer than the incessant force of 
a turbulent stream. Grindstone Creek is another of these streams. It rises near 
the north­western corner of the county, and, stealing southeast, is merged into 
Stony Creek. It derives its name from the fact that the rock through which it 
flows is manufactured into grindstones. Besides these creeks just mentioned, 
there are several others of minor note, such as Walker, Willows, Cortina, Fresh 
Water and Sulphur Creeks, but which play no very important part in enriching the 
limited country through which they pass.
        Allusion has already been made to the "trough," it being a stretch of 
land depressions which form reservoirs for the reception of the flood-water. 
Into this "trough," which lies between the west bank of the Sacramento River and 
the higher plain, the land gradually elevating itself as it recedes from the 
trough, the river overflows, and in the winter season is mingled with the water 
from the foot-hills. It is a natural catch-basin, is about two miles in width 
and twenty-two in length, and is remarkably fertile in some places. Large sums 
have been spent in endeavoring to reclaim the land from the annual overflow.
        Fully one-half of Colusa County lies in the Sacramento Valley, but in 
the foot-hills and low mountain gaps and canons are valleys of extensive area, 
though differing more or less in acreage. Located at a higher altitude than the 
plains to the east of them, they are as attractive for their temperature as they 
are remarkable for their productiveness. In point of natural beauty, they are as 
gladdening to the eye as the homes which are scattered over them are hospitable. 
Whether one surveys them in the winter season, when mantled with living green, 
or in the mid-year months, when "summer reddens and when autumn beams," when the 
fields are russet, and wheat, barley, and oats are waving and bending in golden 
billows of assured plenty, when the air is musical with steam thresher and 
harvester, they possess a charm to lure one to make his home among them, and of 
which even the recollection of having once witnessed is most pleasurable to muse 
over.
        The largest of these valleys is Stony Creek, being about forty miles in 
extent, and stretching from the Black Buttes, ten miles west of Orland, to the 
forks of Stony and Little Stony Creeks.
        Indian Valley, so named from the multitude of Indians who inhabited it 
in an early day, is in the western central part, among the beautiful foot-hills.
        Antelope Valley lies in the rolling foot-hills, due west of Colusa, 
Williams and Maxwell; Bear Valley, in the southwestern part of the county; Fresh 
Water Valley is a continuation of Antelope Valley; and Little Stony Creek 
Valley, an extension of Indian and Stony Creek Valleys. As these valleys are 
merely mentioned here to aid in exhibiting some of the physical divisions of the 
county, they will be treated separately in another chapter in this book.
        The mountain ranges consist of the Coast Range on the west, which 
extends from the Golden Gate to beyond the northern limits of the State, and 
runs almost due north and south. In the western central portion of Colusa County 
is the low range of hills almost parallel with the mountains, and which undulate 
at their base with uneven stretches of rich arable and pasture lands. At 
intervals these hills are completely separated from their connection with the 
mountains by the devious course and wide indentations made by Stony and Bear 
Creeks. These hills, varying in altitude, sometimes reach the height of one 
thousand five hundred feet. Of the Coast Range the highest mountains, which loom 
up above the foot-hills and plains, are the Snow, Sheetiron, South, and St. 
Johns. The three first named have an average altitude of six thousand eight 
hundred feet, while the more pretentious St. Johns looms up but four thousand 
five hundred feet. These summits can be observed in distinctness of outline, no 
matter from what part of the county the eye may seek them out. Only Snow 
Mountain is dowered with a mantle of eternal white towards its summit, standing 
out in spotless relief among its brown-clad sister peaks, crowned with its 
"convexity of silent snows," an ever-present suggestion of the sublime. This 
range, as it looms northward, rises higher and higher, till the strained eye at 
last rests in awe or wondrous delight upon that fabric of enchantment piled to 
heaven—Mt. Shasta. To adequately portray the grandeur of Mt. Shasta, or even 
vaguely reflect the emotions when gazing upon it, has been the ambitious but 
despairing task of poet and artist.. Words will ever fail to afford even a 
meager conception of Mt. Shasta to him who has never gazed upon this lone 
majesty of mountains, which, high above its host of subject foot-hills flanking 
it around in humble vassalage, rises above them fourteen thousand four hundred 
feet. The canvas of the painter, also, has confessed itself powerless to limn 
out its stately magnificence and ever-changing surprises of contour and 
chromatic splendor. One feels himself spell-bound in admiring its unstable 
vistas and symmetry of stupendous outline. Both the poetic and devotional spirit 
seems quickened within him on beholding it, as if he would fain address it 
thus:‑
 
                                                                                 
                           "Thou dost make the soul
                                                                                 
                    A wondering witness of thy majesty; 
                                                                                 
                   But as it presses with delirious joy ,
                                                                                 
                   To pierce thy vestibule, thou dost chain its step,
                                                                                 
                   And tame its rapture, with the humbling view
                                                                                 
                   Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand 
                                                                                 
                   In the dread presence of the Invisible,
                                                                                 
                   As if to answer to its God, through thee."
 
        But not in this spirit alone may the Colusan gaze upon its high zone. 
Mt. Shasta is to him more than an object of reverent wonder or theme of 
rhapsody. He can salute it, without inspiration, for its material gifts. It is 
to him an indulgent benefactor and friend, since from its side the Sacramento 
River, which waters his fields or bears the product thereof out to the world's 
highways, takes its rise. Though distant from Colusa, the county seat, some one 
hundred and sixty miles, and, lying therefrom in a nearly northern direction, it 
can be observed on any clear day from almost any part of the county.
        Of soils there is a variety, and it can be truthfully affirmed of them 
that there is only an insignificant percentage which is not productive of some 
crop or other. In tilling the soil, every year brings fresh surprises to the 
agriculturist, and these are usually agreeable ones. It is true that in certain 
soils, where his efforts have been necessarily tentative or experimental, owing 
to his ignorance of its capabilities or adaptability, he has met, in a few 
instances, with failure; but, undiscouraged, he has tried the sowing of other 
seed in the same soil, and was afterwards so pleasurably and profitably rewarded 
by the experiment as to elicit the joyful expression, "It is wonderful what this 
soil will produce !" or, "It is good for something, and will yield big after we 
have ascertained what the something is to which it is adapted."
        Anyone at all conversant with the progress of agricultural development 
in Northern and Central California, is aware how slow and discouraging was the 
process in its early stages. Every step toward success has been made in the 
teeth of the most hostile criticism and doleful prophecy from the knowing ones. 
Every improvement made in cultivation, every salutary lesson in seed or soil 
adaptiveness, has been acquired by careful study, at much expense, along new 
lines of agricultural and horticultural thought, and almost in defiance of all 
previous theory and practice. In fact, they are discoveries.
        Absorbed in the breathless pursuit of gold, the early miner or 
adventurer became impressed with the worst features which his untrained 
observations could furnish him concerning both the condition and possibilities 
of California soil. He looked across the great plains of the San Joaquin or the 
Sacramento, saw them, perhaps, under a hot sun, when the luscious wild grasses, 
wild oats, or wild clover had lost their inviting verdure and succulence as 
well, and from his heart disdainfully pitied the few pioneer ranchmen settled 
thereon, who had the hardihood to try to make a home there. California to him 
was productive of nothing but gold, and when that was exhausted, then would come 
the retreat and stampede back to the East, where "they know how to farm." It 
required some years to convince this class, among whom were multitudes of 
farmers, that barley and wheat could be profitably raised on this "baked soil" 
or that "winter mire." Now that the marvelous harvests of a few years had caused 
him to gingerly concede this much, he again sought refuge for his Cassandra-like 
prophecies in his self-opinionativeness, by sapiently proclaiming that the soil 
yielding its fifty or sixty bushels of wheat or barley was good for nothing 
else, and would soon exhaust itself. It could not raise fruit, he morosely, 
contended—no kind of fruit like that which sometimes hung in mellowness and 
plenty on the strained, aching, autumnal branches of the old farms "back in 
God's country." The wiseacre and croaker, representatives of a large class, all 
of whom are not underground yet in Colusa County, wanted "another sign," and it 
was shown them, very much to their discomfiture. When, after a few years of 
intelligent industry, of persistent efforts to make the acquaintance of the soil 
on the part of the perplexed farmer, his despised lands had brought to maturity 
such wonderful plums, pears, apricots, and peaches as neither the croaker nor 
his grandsire had ever deemed possible, the baffled vaticinations of this dismal 
oracle of sullen stupidity should have made his tongue vouch for his vision. But 
they didn't. Then, when golden oranges, tender prunes, sweet figs, and varieties 
of grapes unequaled in the valley of the Guadalquiver or in the sun-lands of 
fair Provence, were found to grow as if indigenous, in astonishing rapidity and 
generous plenty, there was left nothing for the croaker to do, it would 
reasonably seem, but to admit his errors and acknowledge with a good grace that 
he was now only too glad to mingle his congratulations with those whose skill 
and patience and stubborn faith in works had made these marvels possible—and it 
is needless to add that the croaker then and there made his submission. The 
effects of his conversion were truly astonishing. He who had formerly and for 
years dispensed his dismal discouragements to his farmer neighbors; who had 
squatted in a shallow furrow, and would neither cultivate it nor permit anyone 
else to try it, is changed in heart and in faith. So strong a sway does the zeal 
of his new conversion exercise over him that his sneer and arrogant pity over 
experimental farming have given way to a credulity almost boundless enough to be 
infantile. He will now champion the soil of Colusa County as capable of 
producing anything that was "ever raised out-of-doors." In fact, we opine, it 
would not be difficult to convince him that chicken-feed could be grafted on any 
barnyard chanticleer and produce a sufficient supply of provender to render 
every chicken self-sustaining, provided the experiment were made in Colusa 
County.
        On the plain lands of this county, or those extending from near the 
river to the foot-hills, is found a diversity of soil, such as adobe, clay loam, 
gravelly loam, red clay loam, and alluvial gravelly soil, the latter being 
notable for the success with which it is planted to fruits and vines, and 
particularly in the cultivation of the raisin grape. In the foot-hills is 
chiefly an adobe earth of great fertility, covered with a natural growth of wild 
oats and clover, as were all the valleys in early times before they yielded to 
the plow of the settler. In the northern central part are the Black Buttes, 
elevations of semi-mountainous prominence, broken into ridges or furrowed by the 
waters of Stony Creek, which rise to a height of six hundred feet, and are 
covered with a rich soil almost to their top. The red gravelly land, which was 
in former years looked upon with discredit by many, is found in various parts of 
the county, and has proved to belie its appearance and previous record in other 
countries, since it has now convinced everyone that it is equally remarkable in 
the raising of cereals or of fruits.
 
SOURCE:  "Colusa County", Justus H. Rogers, Orland, CA, 1891