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The Mono (Monache) Native Americans at Huntington Lake Basin

Due to the severe winters and deep snows the upper mountains were used by the Indians only during the summer. Their winter residence was at lower altitudes where the climate and conditions were more favorable. During the summer a single family or people from several villages would use the trails to travel from east or west or vice versa to visit, for ceremony and trade, to hunt game and to search for pine nuts and plants which they used.

Alp-crossing animals of every kind fell into use of the same trails. The more rugged and inaccessible the general character of the topography of any particular region, the trails of these animals were later followed by the Indians, the early white explorers, the pioneers, the cattle men and the present day traveler. The trade routes included crossing over Mammoth Pass, Mono Pass and the Piaute Pass. The trails were the Shaver Trail from the North Fork of Stevenson Creek to the South Fork of Tamarak where it became the Mono Trail into Pitman Creek just below Dam #2 at Huntington Lake, and up and over Kaiser Pass to the higher elevations.

The Indians choice of sites in their travels were governed by nearness to a stream or spring; presence of open sandy levels where maximum sunlight was available; closeness to meadows; presence of granite outcroppings for bedrock mortars to grind acorns; relation of site to main trade routes or trade junctions. The Indians returned to these locations every year in their travels.

Game in the mountains was one of the chief attractions for food, but it represented as well an item of trade, as in skins. It was said that salmon came up the main San Joaquin and was prized by the Paiute especially. Using a plant that would stupefy those who fed upon it caught the fish caught in the streams. It was easy pickings.

Items of Trade

Western Mono traded and received from the Paiute rabbit skin baskets, moccasins, rock salt, red and blue paint, sinew baked bows, jerked deer meat, nuts from the Sugar Pine, the Pinon, basket water bottles, baskets, obsidian, mountain-sheep skins, sleeveless buckskin jackets, leggings of fox skin and unfinished obsidian arrowheads.

Paiute Indians received from the Western Mono acorns, willow bark baskets, bead money, manzanita berries, buckskin, clamshell disk and tubular shell money, canes for arrows, acorn flour and tobacco.

When Huntington Lake was a valley without a reservoir it was used as a Rancheria settlement up into historic times by the Indians from the west. This was substantiated by findings of sites of every stream entering the valley and findings of heavy obsidian at the bottom of Huntington Lake when it was drained in 1956.

The Cousins of the Basin

The Indian Clans that frequented the Basin were Owens Valley Paiute that basically lived on the eastern side of the Sierra. It was not unusual for triblets to be formed from one specific tribe. The Western Mono, also known as the Monache/Nim (Northfork-Auberry settlements) lived on the western side of the Sierra. It has been told that they were related to the foothill Yokuts and the Yosemite Miwoks. The Paiute's and the Western Mono intermingled for centuries, intermarried and traded with each other for certain needs. Their customs and traditions were similar and their language was only slightly different.

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The Forest Reserve Goes On

In 1905 the Sierra Forest Reserve, centered in California, extended from the north, just below what was Yosemite National Park, eastern Mariposa County, east extending into Mono County, south into Madera, Fresno Counties and further south to Tulare and Kern counties. It encompassed almost 5,050,000 acres. In 1908 the acreage was increased to over 6,660,000 acres.

At about the same time, the arrival of the hydroelectric age coincided with the creation of the Reserve. The land managers at the time realized they would have to deal with private individuals and companies who wanted to utilize government resources to generate electrical power for the growing public in the State of California. At that time, there were no established procedures for this new and revolutionary use of the waters from the West side of the Sierras.

Charles H. Shinn, the first Forest Supervisor, suggested to Gifford Pichot to develop a simple procedure of licensing the hydro projects, as many applications were made to the Forest Service. Shinn felt that the hydro projects had to be managed so that "broader demands of higher civilization for the outdoor life" would not be overlooked.

Under Shinn's "watch" the Sierra Forest supervisor had taken the misaligned Service, turned it around, gave it a direction and a mission. His enthusiasm instilled a love of forestry and a prudent direction in land management in the men that worked under his guidance. He established fire lookouts, trails, bridges, supported the use of an insect specialist to help determine the direction of land management concerning invasive species damaging trees.

The Sierra Forest entered the 20^th century when the horseless carriage was used to inspect the public lands affected by the Forest Homestead Act. Not long after, a normal pickup truck was equipped with fire tools and other equipment. The Forest Service realized that wildfires devastated timber, a renewable resource. Rank and file rangers were trained to be firefighters. Shimm realized that every mountain fire established the need for "more trails, bridges, high lookouts, telephone lines and ranger camps: and the necessity of solving the brush problem." The need for accurate maps was of the utmost importance. A number of lookouts were the "first" eyes for the telltale signs of smoke. As the fires ravaged the lands, "worthwhile" fire crews were trained; these were the "hotshots" of today's firefighters. Since the fires burned indiscriminately, with little regard to people or property, it was wondered by the men in the field if the Service had thought of using planes or dirigibles to spot forest fires. The "new age" had arrived.

The rangers found that their jobs were taking on more responsibilities. To accompany California's population growth, rangers were issuing more special use permits for grazing, timber sales, recreational cabins and organizational camps. As monies were collected, Congress passed a law that in part returned timber sale receipts to the rural counties for roads and schools. Those communities were dependant on the receipts, as they provided the services to the public who frequented the Forests.

Recreational use started on the upswing in the Forests. Sunset Magazine took note of writings by Charles Shinn and sent editors to the high country to see for themselves the vistas he spoke of. Different California newspaper editors did the same. The public took note. The Sierra Club brings large numbers of their membership to the Sierra Forest, packing in on horseback. Cabins were built by foresighted facilities; organization camps were popular to Southern California residents and well-to-do San Francisco born youngsters. Boy Scout Camps were underwritten by Lucy Stern, the heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune, to teach self-esteem and self-reliance to young men. The American public had begun its' love affair with the Sierra and it's partnership with the Forest Service.

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Gifford Pinchot: The First American Trained Forester

“The fact that forestry was new and strange and promised action probably had as much to do with my final choice of it as my love for the woods….Action was what I craved.”

Gifford wasn’t sure what a forester actually did, the only thing he knew for certain was that foresters spent a lot of time in the woods. When Gifford arrived at Yale University in 1885, he found plenty of action. He earned respect on the football field and school politics, but also in the science courses of botany, geology and biology, which served to be a good preparation for a forestry career.

Pinchot’s grandfather Cyrille and his family had abruptly left France in 1815 after supporting the Bonapartist cause, which had tried to reinstate Napoleon to power in Paris.

His father had been a wealthy business man in France and upon settling in New York City, Cyrille entered the mercantile business. Becoming wealthy in his own right in a very short time, he left New York and purchased a large amount of farmland in Pennsylvania, started a business again and built a home. He had no intention of leading a provincial life in the countryside. He intended to exploit the land and achieve a level of prestige similar to that his family had in France. Farm products, tibmer and other goods were shipped to the cities on the East Coast. Politics also played an important role in his interests, along with the development of friendships and contacts for the family’s advantage. His son James (Gifford’s father) also turned out to be a financial success and turned his attention to “gentrifying” the properties he owned as a result. Because of a very advantageous marriage, James felt the additional affluence and social connections raised his awareness of the social function of the cultural elite and allowed him to indulge his philanthropic impulses. This marked him as a “man of means and standing”. This stature and his wife’s strong personality influenced their children’s lives significantly in their chosen professions and passions.
Gifford’s father was among the first Americans to express concern about the dwindling forest. He had profited by timber harvest and had seen in Europe where wood was less plentiful, that the practice of forestry had been put to use so that the forest could renew itself. He knew that forestry practices were unheard of in the United States, but if another generation of Americans were to enjoy the resources of the forests, that approach would have to change. He saw his son’s love for the woods and suggested a career in forestry. Gifford didn’t need much encouragement. Attending Yale University was the beginning of his life-long love affair with “the woods.”

Gifford graduated from Yale with a small number of other foresters. Book learning wasn’t enough. Shortly after graduation he left for England and France to meet with a number of European professional foresters. He realized his knowledge was limited. In London, he secured an introduction to Sir Charles Bernard, then head of the Forest Department of the India office. Britain had established a model forest service and forest reserves because of its colonial control of the vast south Asian subcontinent. He wrangled letters of introduction to two German-born foresters who would shape his early development as a forester, Dr. William Schlich and Dr. Dietrich Brandis. Throughout his development, Dr. Brandis played a significant role.

Gifford toured a number of forests managed for the renewable resources of wood and game. He enrolled in a French forestry school and also met with the woodsmen who managed the forests; he was finally getting the firsthand experience he needed. Silvaculture classes taught him how to grow and harvest trees efficiently. On trips, he measured and selected trees to be cut and then he marked them accordingly. He learned how to master the woodman’s trade, working with an axe and saw. In a letter written home to his parents he said “as I learn more of

Forestry, I see more need of it in the U.S. and the great difficulty of carrying it into effect.”
In 1890 he left from LeHavre on a German freighter bound for New York, realizing “he was half-trained, yet was ready enough and willing to try with knowledge I have now.” His lack of sustained training would haunt him later, but he hoped he could make up that balance in drive and ambition. He was ready to go. His mother and father were already making connections with high level individuals in Washington D.C. to secure a position for their son in the Division of Forestry. The wealth of his family enabled him to pursue his dream.

“Here was my chance…to prove what America did not yet understand…trees could be cut and the forest preserved at one and the same time. I was eager, confident, and happy as a clam at high tide.”

“Without natural resources life itself is impossible. From birth to death, natural resources, transformed for human use, feed, clothe, shelter, and transport us. Upon them we depend for every material necessity, comfort, convenience and protection in our lives. Without abundant resources prosperity is out of reach.” Gifford Pinchot

Gifford Pinchot was back on American soil. Spending time with Charles Sargent, Harvard botanist and director of the Harvard Arnold Arboretum, he soon learned that “forestry was an elastic concept, stretching to meet the distinct social contexts, cultural matrices, and political environments in which it was introduced.” This was confirmed in Washington, D.C. while meeting with members of the Departments of Agriculture and Interior. He soon came to the conclusion that he was the man “to make the cause of forest and resource management popular.”

Gifford decided to go West; it was part professional in organization, part personal in exploration and he had been hired to report on prospects of forestry in Arizona and California by an East coast land company. A self-described tenderfoot, Pinchot was overwhelmed by the vastness of the West and the beauty of such wonders as the Grand Canyon. At the trip’s end, he soon found “that there were limitations to what foresters and forestry could accomplish” as he admitted the land he had been commissioned to explore was not suitable to developed forestry.

Returning East, he investigated an extensive property owned by George Vanderbilt in North Carolina. The Biltmore mansion was under construction with thousands of acres set aside for a park that needed reforestation. Gifford was approached by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (of New York’s Central Park and Boston Gardens) to join in the large-scale experiment of reconciling nature and culture at the Biltmore Estate. His career was launched.
Biltmore was an experiment. It was at that site that in 1893, extensive lumbering was managed according to the principles of scientific forestry. It produced the first-ever below-cost timber sale and established the fact that the axe was indeed a tool that could destroy but also could revitalize a forest and create balance, a fact that Pinchot often referred to in the ensuing years. By cutting selectively, he explained to loggers, a forester could keep the right mix of old and young trees. Too many old trees would coke out new growth, but they were needed to seed the next generation and ridding the forest of diseased trees made for a healthier forest. Gifford’s other interesting advice was to clean up the scrapes after cutting, so there would be less fuel for forest fires. George Vanderbilt was so impressed with Pinchot’s methods he set up an exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair, where thousands of Americans would hear about forestry for the first time.

Building on his reputation, Gifford approached a number of wealthy Eastern land owners offering his services as he had for Vanderbuilt. He soon became known in prestigious circles and suggested creating a commission that would examine the nation’s forests and would then suggest a management practice that would ensure healthy and sustainable lands. The Commission advised then President, Grover Cleveland, to set aside more forest reserves for the growing nation. Westerners balked at this idea and thus delayed putting forest lands aside. Gifford once again went West, documented his findings and reported in the newspapers and magazines. His stories advanced the cause of forestry and land management. As he returned East, the head of the government Forestry Division had vacated his job which presented the well-qualified Pinchot the position he sought, that of protector of the nation’s forests.
In 1898, as Gifford became the Chief Forester, he realized that the department had been bogged down too long in bureaucracy with little time spent in the field. He felt he needed to make the Foresty Division one of influence and decided to educated the public on the ground. Through his example, his staff worked tirelessly, made sound recommendations to benefit both private and public forests. The public took note; he soon enlisted young fellows from different universities in the summer of 1899 to become rangers and whom he planned to train as foresters of the future.

When Teddy Roosevelt became President in 1901, Pinchot had already become one of his most trusted advisors. The two ame from similar backgrounds, wealth and prestige, but they also shared a passion for the outdoors. Roosevelt felt confident that Gifford would be his partner in the fight to save American forests.
“The care of the forests is the duty of the Nation.” Gifford Pinchot

Gifford took on the battle. With Roosevelt as his partner, “Conservation” began to be practiced and the term widely known. The Westerners were cajoled, grazing issues were often solved when Gifford would venture West and resolve the conflicts through his explanation and teaching of land management practices. He still pursued the idea of additional Forest Reserves, while continuing support of the use of resources needed by the public.

Other individuals spoke out in favor of his thoughts; one was naturalist John Muir. Gifford had met him while on the Forestry Commission and had felt an unspoken alliance. Muir at the time felt he could support forestry, as it seemed to promise the survival of trees. The two occasionally traveled and camped together out West. When Gifford took on the position of Chief Forester the web of mutuality would begin to unravel, as Muir began to feel that forestry and preservation of wilderness were incompatible.

The ties between the two wilted further with the discussion of the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite Park for the benefit of the greater San Francisco area. Pinchot acknowledged the “material benefits and public health…took precedence over the cause of wilderness preservation.” Communications between the two soon ceased as the heated discussions escalated and the subject became highly visible in the San Francisco area and Washington, D.C. Regardless of the opposite view points and outcome, conservation became a familiar word as the public became engaged in the management interests of public lands.

Back in Washington, Roosevelt supported many of the reforms Gifford put forth. In 1905 with the president’s help, the Division of Forestry finally took over the management responsibilities of the public forests, moving it from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture and being renamed the U.S. Forest Service. Two years later, the name Forest Reserve was changed to National Forests.

Forestry schools were supported at Yale, Biltmore, Cornell, Stanford, at the Universities of Minnesota, Maine, Michigan and many more. Forest Rangers were schooled in building bridges and trails, fighting fires, scaling and harvesting timber, surveying and making maps. Forest Products Laboratory in Wisconsin became destined to be a leader in the field of research in wood utilization. The support of fish hatcheries increased the recreational pursuits by the public, along with recreational residence lots that were carved out of the existing forests to give the public a rustic experience as cabins were built. Potential hydro-power on public lands was being pursued by private interests to produce electricity. State forestry departments became partners with the Forest Service in fire protection in 1911.

Gifford’s term as Chief Forester ended in 1910. His interests turned to family and politics after he left office. He would become known as a progressive thinker, distinguishing himself as a politician and supporting social causes. He loved his varying interests, but in the end, he always felt he was a forester first and forever as he continued supporting conservation through his “wise use” forestry principles.

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Beginning of the Forest Service, Early California

Before the Sierra Forest Reserve arrived on the scene in the 1890's, the mountains, meadow and timberlands of the Sierra Nevada where available for the taking. It was similar to the gigantic fire sale-a big give-away.

Under a variety of land acts that were designed to encourage western settlement thousands of acres of public land were transferred to private ownership in one of the greatest give-away the nation had ever known.

The Homestead Act, the Mining Act of 1872, the Timber and Stone Act of 1876, the Swamp and Overflow Act encourages many of the abuses. As the depredations increased so did the calls for reforms. Citizens began complaining, seeking protection for the ravaged watershed of California. In 1890, the California Board of Forestry petitioned Congress to act.

While the creations of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 did not stop the abuses, it set in process one of the most far-reaching reforms in the annals of American land policy, eventually leading to the creation of the Forest Service.

For the first four years little was done. As much as anything, the Sierra Forest Reserve was a reserve in name only. When the U.S. Army Cavalry was enlisted to post the boundaries of the reserve, Capt. Parker, the Acting superintendent of the Sequoia, observed that the notices were torn down immediately and the trespasses continued. Against this mounting background of abuses, some congressmen and other concerned citizens began urging that the reserves be transferred to the Division for Forestry within the Department of Agriculture.

In 1896 the Forest Reserve Commission including Harvard botanist Charles Sargent, pioneer forester Gifford Pinchot and environmentalist John Muir visited the California reserves as part of a nationwide tour. The commission also proposed two new reserves for California, which included the Tahoe and Stanislaus forest reserves.

In 1897, Congress passed a measure in June of that year known as the Organic Administration Act which provided the forest guidelines under which the reserves were to be managed and which provided funding and staff for the reserves.

Shortly after the creation of Stanislaus Forest Reserve and four other reserves in 1898, Hermann ordered a "re-adjustment" of the administrative territories in California. Charles Newhall was placed in charge of the reserves in Southern California and Special agent Benjamin Allen was directed to hire a corps of rangers who could patrol the northern reserves from their ranches. The actual number of rangers hired during that first summer is not certain A handful of historians have cited the "original 60" rangers as those identified in the Official Register of Officers. The first rangers were handicapped in numerous ways. There were no standards or examinations as to their qualifications. Uniforms, badges or identification as a federal officer had not been issued. Some of the early hired folks were local people; cowboys, loggers, or those who had some familiarity with the nearby forest lands. No one had any training in forestry. Considering the low pay and short season, some people wondered how the service ever retained anyone.

Finally, in 1905, after several unsuccessful efforts, the Transfer Act made its way through Congress; the Sierra and 37 other reserves were moved to the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Forestry. The move brought major changes to the long-ignored forest lands and signaled a new era of land management. For starters, the reserves were placed under the direction of Gifford Pinchot, one of the early advocates of land conservation and forestry. He possessed a vision of what was needed to be done. No longer would the reserve be "locked up". Instead the resources were to be managed and utilized in a prudent and responsible way.

Pinchot placed the rangers under Civil Service, requiring each prospective ranger to take a written test and demonstrate job-related skills. These included riding, shooting, packing stock animals and understanding the use of an ax and shovel. The most trying requirement was interesting: a ranger had to know how to cook a meal in the field and then eat it. Training and motivation of rangers were needed for them to work on their own; under the most difficult conditions, the days could be long.

Charles Shinn was one of the most progressive Supervisors. As a visionary, he foresaw massive recreational use of the national forests, and called for a system of trails and other facilities to accommodate those who would be coming to the forest. He felt to best manage and protect the forests there would come a time that scientific training and specialists' would play a big part in forest and resource management.

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Sierra Summer School

The Fresno State Normal School had been established in 1911 and was renamed "Fresno Teachers College" in 1921. By an act of the state Legislature the name "Fresno State College" was adopted in 1935. In 1985, it was incorporated into the State University system and is now called "California State University, Fresno."

In 1914, the site of Big Creek was welcoming a large group of girls from Fresno State Normal School. Fifty young women arrived on July 3. The few local engineers employed at the Big Creek hydroelectric project were more than excited. David Redinger, an individual who was closely associated with the Big Creek Project for many years, was one of those young men. As he states, "It certainly put us on the que vive." I guess that means their best behavior.

The quarters occupied at Big Creek for that first session consisted of several of the rough buildings such as bunkhouses and mess hall remaining from 1912-1913 construction. Such primitive accommodations did not encourage continuation of the project. By 1916 a site had been selected at Huntington Lake near the Huntington Lake Lodge, which had been built in 1915, where the school flourished each summer until 1926, when it moved to a permanent base, on a forty-acre tract adjacent to Lakeshore on the north side of the Lake. At that location the school had continued each season with an enrollment of 250 to 350, until war conditions prevent its operation in 1943, 44, and 1945. The sessions had always been very popular in such an environment.

It was amazing how much work was found so close to the Big Creek project headquarters after the arrival of the summer school group. On one occasion, David Redinger along with a few other young fellows coming in from long-term surveys done in the field ran into some of the young ladies. They had tried to avoid any meetings as they were a bit dusty and dirty, but as it would happen they couldn't avoid a meeting. The gals they ran into were happy to treat the poor fellows to wonderful breakfasts and dinners, prepared and served in one of the old bunkhouses. "It shouldn't be difficult for anyone to understand how such treatment affected us, after having had no meals prepared by such lovely hands for nearly two months", according to Mr. Redinger. It was the ruination for one such member of the Fresno State College group who was the head of the Home Economics department, because about three years later, and after much persuasion, she became Mrs. David Redinger.

One of the many special guests who spoke at the School was Orland Bartholomew. Orland was a Southern California Edison "stream gauger", or what is known today as a hydrologist, measuring the flow of the streams and rivers of the watershed in the early 1920's. He is best known for his ambitious and adventurous feat of the Mt. Whitney to Yosemite Mid-Winter Expedition of 1928-29. Orland settled down after that trip at Huntington Lake as a Forest Service fireguard and ranger from 1932-1952. He was often asked to share his knowledge and understanding of his mountain by many people who sought him out. Bart became a recognized authority on the natural history of the Sierra Nevada.

Many young folks met their future husbands and wives at the Sierra Summer School. Many have continued to come to Huntington Lake for years after the school was closed.

Ed Boles wrote an article for the "Caravan" in May 1947. "Deer dash through the classroom.the most beautiful woman student is called "gooney".. it was a crime for one person to pass another without a word of greeting. Natural surroundings seem to be conducive to better-than-usual presentation of material by zoology instructors. The habits of animals are easier to explain in the natural habitat than in a regular classroom.In short is was a favorite "summer school" of many students, who continued to return to the mountains with many fond memories for years to come."

This was the Sierra Summer School at Huntington Lake

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Huntington Lake Camp for Girls

Huntington Lake Camp for girls was founded in 1923 by Ruth M. Heyneman, who was a member of a prominent San Francisco family. Her father, M.H. Heyneman, was a pioneer wool dealer, with the family being included in the first Social Directory of the City of San Francisco. She was a graduate in 1917 of the University of California, Berkeley. She was trained as a nurse and served with the Red Cross.

"Lady Huntington" was a name given her by the people of the area because of the respect and admiration they had for her. She had hiked with the Sierra Club and founded the Camp for Girls to get them to know and love the mountains as she did. Many of the young ladies were from the East Bay area: Piedmont, Berkeley and San Francisco. She felt young women should be self reliant with high moral character, but be equally at home in the mountains or in town.

Mrs. Edwin H. Walter was a counselor at the Camp before becoming Assistant Director in 1925. Another close friend was Mrs. Herbert Lyttle. With the untimely and unfortunate death of "Lady Huntington" (by suicide), Mrs. Walter and Mrs. Lyttle were her heirs to the Camp. For the next ten years they operated the camp together and for the final ten years before the Christian Brothers purchased the camp in 1954, Mrs. Walter was in sole command.

At the time the La Salle Christian Brothers purchased the Camp there were 89 girls attending the camp along with 21 counselors. In addition there was help from students at Stanford University to take care of various chores, such as managing the horses at the Camp's stables and numerous instructions in a variety of outdoor sports.

The program was on a very high level. There was instruction in many areas such as swimming, boating, water sports, pottery, nature study, archery and horsemanship. At the end of the season some girls would elect to go out into the Sierra on horses and camp. The girls had tents for their accommodations, but the tents were only used for changing. They slept on cots out on the platforms in front of the tents. Lady Huntington's ideal of being self-reliant was evident in all aspects of Camp life.

Mrs. Walter and Mrs. Lyttle built the fireplace located at Toadstool Hill as a memorial to Lady Huntington after her death. It still remains today high on the hillside on the seventeen acres that comprise Camp LaSalle. Lady Huntington's ashes were scattered over the lake after her death. Her spirit remains forever.

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Huntington Lake Steam Laundry

About 1924, Arthur C. Bradley, a laundry owner in Fresno, was asked by the Southern California Edison Company and the Forest Service to establish a laundry at Huntington Lake. The work on the tunnel between Florence Lake and Huntington was then in full swing and Big Creek was a boom town. Most of the workers were bachelors in need of laundry service, and SCE was in need of service for linens for its Huntington Lake Lodge. The company brought guests up to the mountains to view the hydroelectric project.

The following story was told by June Bradley, Art Bradley's daughter-in-law, and checked out by Art's son, Bill Bradley for accuracy (as far as they could):

"The Forest Service told Mr. Bradley he could locate the laundry on any site he chose. It had to be close to the main road of that time and he chose Dowville Tract as the most convenient place. He told me he came up several times to look for a site and finally decided on our present lot which was not within the original area surveyed for cabin sites. "Squatters" were there, he said, with lumber and supplies stacked about and a corral for horses. He thought they were probably prospectors.

The Forest Service allowed Art Bradley to take enough land for the laundry and other necessary buildings. Bill said his father was permitted to throw out stakes in all directions for the property he wanted and the Forest Service surveyed Lot 28 into the Dowville plat.

The Forest Service told the "squatters" to leave because their wasn't enough water for their activities. Art said they were furious when they learned a laundry was being established on the land they were denied.

Art had the water problem solved (if there really had been a water problem). He dismantled a redwood tank in Fresno and brought up the stoves which he reassembled on the site. One of the metal banks of the tank could be seen up the hill for years after the laundry's demise. The Dowville water system was then much smaller and simpler than now. To keep his neighbors from complaining about the water he was using he used water at night to fill the tank. Bill said the tank was large and he remembered swimming in it.

The building for the laundry was on the hill above our present cabin next to the steam boiler. The boiler was fired by slabs of fir bark that Art obtained from Harry Allen's Huntington Lake Lumber Company. He learned how to do this when he was a young man working at the Shaver Lake Lumber Company where he became head fireman shortly before his 18th birthday. The steam from the boiler ran to a donkey engine with a big drive wheel that drove the machines. Bill recalled these included two pony washing machines with wooden wheels which were on a sort-of porch on the laundry building. A one-roll flat work ironer and one or two steam presses were there, too. All of these were brought up the steep old Cascada Grade, probably under the direction of Art himself, who had great talent and ingenuity in moving heavy machinery.

There were a number of buildings including the laundry on the site in those days. There were four tent colleges, separated for men and women employees. The living room and bedroom of the old cabin were there (the old kitchen built around the tree came later). The cooking was done in a small frame cookhouse with a wood stove. The employees ate there.

Bill believed his cousin Jack Smith, then a very young man, who later was a fullback on the Fresno State College football team, took charge of the boiler while Bill's mother managed the laundry while Art continued the plant in Fresno.

Bill said there were about six employees in the laundry, some of whom were Art's relatives, always looking for Uncle Art to give them a job. One of the problems with the employees was in a mountain situation such as they, they thought they were on vacation instead of a real job. Also sometimes the employees would get so sunburned down on the lake on Sunday that he or she couldn't work on Monday. Minnie Bradley probably nursed the sick ones.

So despite all the hard work in establishing the laundry, it ran only 2 or 3 years, actually 2 or 3 summers. The employee's problems proved to be too much trouble. Also, the Big Creek road was improved so that it became more practical and profitable to process the work in Fresno and truck it up to the lake. The Bradley's continued to do this for many years. In the early days before the road was built on the other side of the lake, laundry was delivered to customers, including Black Foxe Camp, by boat."

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Civilian Conservation Corps in the Sierra Forest, 1933

In the spring of 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt realizing the toll and devastation the Great Depression had created in the United States looked around the country and launched his New Deal.

On March 31, 1933 the President signed the Forest Unemployment bill passed by Congress for the recruiting of civilian conservation corps (CCC) to carry on forestation on National and State lands. The Corps prevented soil erosion, worked on fire and flood prevention improvements, maintenance and repairs of roads and trails in forest and parks, and other like activities.

For this work the President authorized to hire men at $1.00 per day, plus maintenance and clothing in camps. According to Lone Edwin Thompson, a young fellow from Clovis who joined the CCC at 19 years of age, "we were paid $30.00 a month; Mom and Dad and family got $21.00 and I got $9.00. Bull Durham and Golden Grain Tobacco was 5 cents a bag, which lasted me a long time." Will Rogers, noted "wise man" of the time, commented, "Glad to see that reforestation and employment bill pass. We got to have a lot more forest and trees otherwise these cigarette burners won't have anything to burn up."

Two amendments added to the bill in the House of Representatives provides that "There shall be no discrimination in selection of the unemployed because of race, color or creed, and permit's the President to use money provided by the bill for the purchase of land for camps, improvements, etc. According to tentative plans, 20,000 men will eventually be enrolled for work in the National Forest of the California Region."

The corpsmen began construction or roads, bridges, trails or sometimes their own housing. On the Sierra, CCC camps were located at North Fork, Auberry, Trimmer, Bass Lake, Sugar Pine (abandoned logging camp by Shaver), Usona, Batterson and Lisenby.

In 1935, in the Huntington Lake area, projects included work on the Rancheria Campgrounds, along with a trail on the north side of the Lake and additional repairs on the Stump Springs Road. Lonie Thompson recalls, "We also worked on a walking trail to Twin Peaks above the timber line, just above the 9,000 foot mark and were called back to fight a couple of fires that summer. We ended up at Trimmer that winter as the snows came."

During the years the CCC was in operation, thousands of young men learned work skills that would last them a lifetime. One of the crack companies was the Camp Trimmer 1986^th Company, F-224. It was organized at Fort Knox, Kentucky, but quickly moved to its first camp at Chiquito, in the Sierra forest. The Company had an enviable record, being presented with the pennant for excellency the first summer of it's existence by the District Commander. It had occupied six California camps. During the first summer the Company built roads, fought fires and constructed a large steel and concrete bridge across the San Joaquin river. In 1934 they built a bridge over Big Creek and Dinkey Creek.

Although the Company was first comprised of Kentucky boys, they were transferred out during the first summer and replaced with experienced miners and woodsmen, from the Sonora gold mining region. After the end of their service many of the young men found other satisfying careers, everything from educational pursuits to horticulture and forestry superintendent.

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Orland Bartholomew 1899-1957, A Sierra Mountain Man

Orland Bartholomew's solitary winter assault of Mount Whitney and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in the middle of winter was a heroic feat. Here he explored the Sierra's in what could be called "the most ambitious and adventurous feat" completed by one man, during the early part of the last century.

This rugged Sierra range is the dominant physical feature of Central California. It is a natural barrier along the eastern boundary of the state. It rises quickly from the fertile flatland of the San Joaquin Valley to the foothills, and then rapidly rises to form a network of peaks and spires interspersed with rising rivers, soft lakes and deep canyons. It can be gentle with a soft rain, quiet with the first snow or hostile with hard winds. It is like a woman; it often masks its many moods, especially in the higher altitudes of the High Sierra. Don't ever underestimate its dominance.

Most of the early mountain men shared a respect for this mountain range and its dangers. Bart along with close friend and fellow stream gauger, Ed Steen, spent the entire summer getting ready for this incredible undertaking. Through efforts of friends, a sponsor, San Joaquin Travel and Tourist Association of Fresno was to underwrite the journey. Due to unforeseen circumstances, after placing food caches at 25 mile intervals along a planned route, Ed was unable to participate in the journey, as the planned financial sponsorship failed to materialize. He felt other commitments needed his attention.

And so, Orland Bartholomew was the only man ready to test these natural barriers under the most difficult conditions, the solitude of winter.

It was Christmas Day in 1928 that "Bart" glanced at the mightily towering peaks of the Sierra Nevada just outside Owens Valley. He was on his way to the irresistible call of a very ambitious ski trip to be taken by one man. Over three months later, on April 2, 1929 after tremendous odds and obstacles he reached the ranger's cabin at Tuolumne Meadows.

The mountains had been kind. Bart has taken over 400 photographs of the Sierra winter and kept a diary in which he kept records of animal and bird life, snow conditions and temperatures. As an early hydrographer working for Southern California Edison as a stream gauger, Bart realized the importance of the winter snows for the farms in the San Joaquin Valley, below the Sierras and it being the source of the newly developed hydroelectric energy. It was a tremendous achievement and a heroic journey. A similar expedition was not attempted until many years later. Truly, Orland Bartholomew was a "Man for All Seasons."

Excerpts from Bart's Diary:

December 31, 1928, a week after he started his journey: Rock Creek, Elevation 10,800 feet. Minimum temperature 12 degrees, Average depth snow 2 ft., Calm.

January 9, 1929. Whitney Creek at timber line, elevation 11,000 feet. Strong winds, it upset me twice on the way up the creek.great chunks of crusted snow are hurled in the air for hundreds of feet.loose snow twirls away upward.

February 15, 1929. Pinchot Pass, minimum temperature 18 degrees, average snow depth 4 feet.

March 2, 1929. Minimum temperature 17 degrees, cloudy, slopes were icy.

April 1, 1929. Donahue Pass, minimum temperature 14 degrees, 9,500 feet elevation, weather cloudy, saw birds and numerous animals. Travel was excellent.

Bart continued his love of the mountains by becoming an expert on natural history of the Sierras. He began working for the Forest Service in 1932 as a forest ranger and fireguard, stationed at Huntington Lake. He worked with the agency until 1952. During that time he was a favorite figure at Huntington Lake and Sierra Summer School and was often stopped by visitors to be asked many questions about his beloved mountains.

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Edward Steen, 1902-1998

Another mountain man who was so much part of the Sierras was a fellow stream gauger, Ed Steen. Ed had intended to be Orland "Bart" Bartholomew's partner on the 1928-1929 winter trek in the Sierras, but could not be a part because of financial reasons. He worked the two months of that summer with Bart, placing the many food caches across treacherous passes. He loved to go to the top of the peaks, with Mt. Ritter being his favorite mountain.

Ed started working for Southern California Edison in 1920 as a stream gauger where he met Bart. The work was hard with long days. He continued in that position until 1927. He felt the work was for younger men by then. He often worked removing snow from the cabins in the winter at Shaver Lake.

In 1930 he met a young gal by the name of Doris Weilheimer at Shaver Lake. Ed was thirteen years older than Doris, so they didn't marry until she was eighteen in 1933.

Doris started coming to Shaver as a teenager, coming to stay with her grandmother, Margaret Edmunds, who had a cabin built in Musick Creek, built by Bretz Lumber Company for $120, for the "bare bones" basic necessities. Doris remembers coming to Shaver the day after school let out for the summer and going home to Fresno the day before school started in the fall. She loved the mountains, spending the summers playing horseshoes, cards, eating, walking, sometimes just listening to the wind in the trees. She remembers have 22 "big" trees on the third of an acre lot that surrounded the cabin, but because of a beetle infestation in 1960, all the trees had to be removed. She, her friends and family cleared out the bottom of the hill below her cabin and made a croquet court where they played croquet for hours.

Ed started working for the Forest Service as a fire guard in 1934. Ed and she lived at the Forest Service Guard Station by the Musick lumberyard at Shaver for three years, including the winters, after she and Ed got married. Ed was a smart fellow, starting Fresno College in the fall of 1937. He wanted to get an education, which he completed within three years, including attending the Summer School at Huntington Lake. He graduated with honors from Fresno College in 1940. He was accepted by Stanford University thereafter, completing a Masters Degree in Education in 1941. Every summer he came back to the mountains to work for the Forest Service.

World War II interrupted his time with the Forest Service, coming back for one last summer in 1944. The following year he started a business in Fresno until he retired, but every Friday he and Doris would head "up the road" to get back to his beloved mountains.

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Johnny Vistak, a Master Craftsman 1898-1973

John Vistak was born December 12, 1898 in Michigan. As a young man he decided to go West, settling in Fresno as a boarder with the Opalinski family. It was here that he learned the masonry trade for which he became so well known. During this time on his days off from his work, he loved deer hunting and the natural beauty of the surroundings, consequently he became very familiar with the mountains in the Sierras. He was fascinated with all the beautiful granite outcroppings he came across while hunting.

He soon fell in love with the area around Huntington Lake where during the 1930's and 1940's he set up a tent camp in the summers at the Billy Creek Campgrounds. He had married Rose by then and they had one daughter, Rose. Each spring when the snow was nearly melted Johnny set up a white canvas fence about 6 feet tall for his tent, stove and a bear pen, along with his other gear. John would capture a bear cub early in the year and train it to do tricks for the many kids at the different camps. Later he had a pen at Camp Oljato for his trained cub, Baby. When he took his cub home during the winter months, he often wrested with him and sometimes his neighbors complained about the noise they made. They never complained about the redwood tub Johnny made for his pet. There was quite a story in the Fresno Bee about his "adventures" with his pet and who "rowed the Mullin outboard motorboat" across the Lake.

During this time many folks around the Lake became acquainted with Johnny. He soon constructed many fireplaces, rock walls and lined driveways. At this time there was a very large pile of fractured granite, along with granite sand and crushed rock at the end of the Lake. He often used the rock or "tunnel muck" from the Southern California construction of the Ward Tunnel located at the bottom of Rancheria Creek for his beautiful rock creations. He often had some of the young fellows or cabin owners help him build their fireplaces and they all seemed to agree: "Johnny never found a rock he liked that was up hill, it always seemed down-hill and extra heavy". He always told his helpers with his heavy European accent "Don't bruise my rocks." He knew exactly where he would place each and every rock in his creation, Johnny's fireplace designs were easy to distinguish, they were arched with a key-stone set in the middle. Lakeshore Resort's Dance Hall fireplace is one of his many creations along with the Rock Lodge at Camp Oljato, the rock wall at Sierra Summit, the monument for the Ward Tunnel at Rancheria Creek, cabins in Camp Blue Jay, the original lodge at the Huntington Lake Camp for Girls (now Camp La Salle), along with many family cabins and the still-standing Dowville Social Club fireplace at the west end of the Lake.

Johnny died in 1973, after a confrontation with a power take-off of a circular saw and the onset of Parkinson's Disease, but his artistic contributions remain intact at Huntington Lake.

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The Christian Brothers

In October 1982, Brother Alfred Brousseau, FSC, then-Archivist for the De La Salle Christian Brothers' District of San Francisco, compiled a history of Camp La Salle. He dedicated it to Brother Leonard Casper who had served as Camp Director for over twenty-five years and concluded it with "To the people of the Lake who contributed their help and financial aid, and finally, and in a special way, to all the Brothers who attended camp and helped to realize the purpose of it all."

That purpose included rest and recreation for the growing number of Brothers and young men studying to be Brothers during the 1950s, a number so large that the Brothers' Saint Joseph's Camp on the Russian River near Guerneville, in operation since 1914, could no longer accommodate them all. With the expectation that these numbers would continue to increase over time, the decision was made to purchase Huntington lake Camp for Girls in California's Eastern Sierra Nevada, rather than to expand the Russian River property which was already at capacity. . Huntington Lake Camp had been established in 1923 by Ruth Heyneman, better known as "Lady Huntington", "to provide opportunities for girls to know and love the mountains as she did. Mrs. Edwin Walter had been an Assistant Director at the camp since it's founding, and became its co-owner and Director after Lady Huntington's death in 1932. For the final ten years before the camp's sale to the Christian Brother, Mrs. Walter was in sole command. Camp Huntington was considered a rather exclusive camp with carefully selected clientele, in 1953 totaling 89 girls and 21 counselors, with additional help with chores, such a managing horses, some from Stanford students. The fee for six full weeks at that time was $450.00 and the camp offered swimming, boating, pottery, crafts, nature study, archery, and horsemanship, as well as pack trips and camping excursions into the Sierra.

By 1953, Mrs. Walter was anxious to sell after operating the camp for so many years, and she and her husband wished the place to get into the hands of a "respectable party," one that was financially responsible and experienced in the matter of running a camp. Mr. Walter's connections with the Christian Brothers through Saint Mary's College in Moraga sparked the notion of a sale to the Brothers. The asking price for the camp was $75,000 and included all the buildings, tent platforms, tents, beds, dishes, appliances, water system, canoes, rowboats, a speedboat, motorboat, catamaran, and more. The fact that the land that comprised the camp was government land leased from the U.S. Forest Service at a nominal charge eliminated the cost of actually purchasing land.

The Brothers viewed the camp as a "blessing of a major order" that would provide needed respite for the Brothers during the summer months. However, in marked contrast to the Russian River camp, travel to Huntington was difficult and maintenance of the property would involve much more effort, given the significant difference in the weather from that at the River. After much discussion, the Brothers and Mr. And Mrs. Walter finalized the sale of Huntington Lake Camp to the Christian Brothers in April 1954. The property was renamed Camp La Salle, after Saint John Baptist de la Salle, who founded the De La Salle Christian Brothers and their first schools in France in the 17^th century. Many of the camp buildings were similarly renamed over the years.

Conversion of the property from a girl's camp to one more suited to the Brothers was completed by the long-time camp caretaker, Mr. Ton Barry, and many of the Brothers working long hours to ready the camp for its opening on August 1, 1954. Among the renovations were the addition of a sports area and the "Thoughtery", created from an existing camp building, as a place for the Brothers to read and write in comparative solitude. Sunday Mass for local summer residents at the Lake was celebrated at the camp as well, a tradition that continues today.

For many years the Brothers published a camp annual called Hi Brother, High Sierra! The magazine set out the summer schedule of programs and activities, everything from Morning Prayer to canoe races to movie nights, to the work assignments for camp clean up at the end of the summer. Special features during the summer months were the Brothers's Sierra hikes; many of them documented in detail by the hikers themselves, and continue to provide valuable trail notes and maps for camp residents who venture into the Sierras. One such diary records the 1960 helicopter rescue of a priest; another describes the hearty trail breakfast of bacon, eggs and French toast! Several Brothers offered written notes about their participation in local archaeological digs in the Sierras at Huntington Lake from 1955-1961.

Over the years, the Brothers undertook many improvements at Camp La Salle, doing the majority of the work themselves with the valuable assistance of Tom Barry, who retired as caretaker in 1970, after several years at Huntington Camp for Girls and sixteen years at Camp LaSalle. Stories about the Brothers' renovation efforts appear in the camp history, and the remarkable amount of work done following the first summer. Brothers who were highly skilled in construction and engineering oversaw much of the work, and crews of Brothers were involved in much of the major hands-on labor required for camp improvements.

The sometimes-severe winter posed problems for both Huntington Lake and Camp La Salle over the years. Fifteen feet of snow in the winter of 1952 knocked down virtually every building at the girls' camp, most of which were quickly restored. Winter 1969 saw a record 18 feet of snow at Camp La Salle, which destroyed the lodge ceiling, the entire chapel, and heavily damaged numerous other buildings. In Camp La Salle's first 25 years, 1954 to 1979, the Brothers, doing much of the work themselves, building several "hotels", or guest houses, a dining platform, a tool shop, shower facilities, a new lodge with a deck, chapel, library, kitchen, and recreation room, and an all-purpose building, and also fenced in the boat dock and renovated the entire camp water system. Five dozen pine trees were planted by the Brothers in 1974, and today are full grown. The new lodge, built in 1971, contains the massive granite fireplace built by Johnny Vistack for the first lodge built at Huntington Lake Camp for Girls in 1936. Residents in the Huntington Lake area donated the funds to provide furnishings for the new chapel in the lodge, all of which had been destroyed by the heavy snows and water damage in the collapse of the former chapel in the winter of 1969-70.

Today, Camp La Salle houses guests in four hotels/guest houses, three cabins, and fourteen large tent cabins and has a professional kitchen staff that provides meals.

In the mid-1960's the Brothers opened the camp to their facilities during part of the summer, and subsequently, the invitation was extended to the Brothers' colleagues and their families. Two weeks in August are exclusively for the Brothers' use, but the camp is available for the employees who work in the Brothers' schools on the West Coast, as a small way of saying thank you for their dedication. The Brothers' annual backpacking trip still takes place at the beginning of August. It's a tradition.

The Christian Brothers currently serving as Director and Sub-director of Camp La Salle also serve as paramedics and volunteer firefighters for the town of Lakeshore. The Brothers are two of the 120 Brothers in the District of San Francisco, one of sixty-two provinces throughout the world. The DeLaSalle Christian Brothers, more commonly known as the Christian Brothers, is the largest order of religious Brothers in the Roman Catholic Church, dedicated exclusively to education, particularly of the poor and disadvantaged. For years, dedicated laymen and women and other religions have worked alongside the Brothers in their schools and educational ministries and are known as Partners. Today, 6,522 Brothers and over 65,000 lay and religious partners worldwide minister to 800,000 students in 1,081 educational institutions in 87 countries.

Camp LaSalle is run by the DeLaSalle Christian Brothers and welcomes guests to Catholic Mass on Sunday's from late June through the second week in August. Mass is at 10 a.m. Phone camp at 559.893.3241 if you need more information or directions.

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS

The De La Sale Christian Brothers were founded in Reims, France in 1680 by John Baptist de La Salle, who was canonized a Saint in 1900 and named by the Catholic Church as Patron of All Teachers of Youth in 1950. On April 30, 2001 the Lasallian Family around the world celebrated the 350^th anniversary of DeLaSalle's birth. Saint LaSalle's impact on education has been profound and lasting. His Christian schools were established in the late 1600's to answer to the serious need for the Catholic education of the children of poor and working-class families. Born into a wealthy and influential family of Reims in 1651, and ordained a priest in 1678, DeLaSalle put his own talents, resources and advanced education tat the service of these children, renounced his wealth and his position as Canon at the Cathedral of Reims, and formed the first community of Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Despite resistance from ecclesiastical and education authorities, who resisted the creation of a new form of religious life and the Brothers' innovative methods of education and gratuitous school for all. The DeLaSalle Brothers created a network of quality schools throughout France that featured instructing in the vernacular rather than in Latin, group instruction rather than instruction of individual students, integrating of religious instruction with secular subjects and well-trained teachers with a sense of vocation and mission. In addition DeLaSalle founded technical secondary schools and weekend school to educate laborers and older students, as well as homes for troubled youth. As the reputation of the Christian Schools spread, wealthy families, as well as the poor, sent their children to be instructed by the Brothers, who charged nothing, accepted no gifts and allowed no distinctions between social classes. DeLaSalle's Conduct of Christian Schools continues to serve as a guide for teachers inspired by the Lasallian educational tradition of "touching the hearts of those entrusted to their care." Profound reverence for each student as a unique person and child of God remains at the center of the Christian Brothers' educational ministry.

The District of San Francisco is part of the Brothers' worldwide Institute, and was founded in 1868 in San Francisco, when Archbishop Joseph Alemany invited the Brothers to come to the West from their established schools in the East and take over the management of Saint Mary's College, which had been founded by Alemany in 1863 and is now located in Moraga, California. Today, the San Francisco District includes the entire West Coast of the United States, the College, ten high schools in California, Oregon and Washington and more, which involves over 9,000 students. The dedication is alive and well, with Huntington Lake as a respite to renew the Brothers' vigor and vision.

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Loran Martin, A Huntington Lake Original

June 1, 1938, I started working for my Uncle, A.C. Mudge, in the dark room of his photo studio in the back of the Lakeshore Post office, printing and developing postcards and amateur films. I also worked in the gift shop at the Lake.

Uncle A.C. established a photo studio at Camp Edwards in the Lakeview Tract about 1915. The site today is the Lakeview Cottages at the West end of the Lake. My mother's first trip to Camp Sierra, below the town of Big Creek, was via stagecoach to visit her cousin, Ethel Mudge. The stagecoach had turned over below Shaver while the driver was trying to avoid a downed tree.

Leaving Los Angeles at 3 a.m. and heading for Huntington Lake in a 1927 Model A Ford was quite an undertaking for me at the end of May. Four flat tires later (which were patched and aired-up by a hand pump) and many hours late we arrived at Lakeshore Resort. Mother (Iva Joy Martin) and I came to Lakeshore at the invitation of our Uncle to work in the Post Office and gift store. We lived in two tents that were pitched where the north end sewer treatment plant is now. Mother's job was to help Aunt Minnie and Uncle A.C. in the kitchen, gift shop and post office. My main job was to cut and split wood. I did this with a 6-foot crosscut saw and a double-edged axe. I also printed and developed post cards, films and helped out in the post office when the mail came in. When Fresno Sierra Summer School was in session, we had two windows and the parcel post window opened. The lines would be 10 to 15 people long every day. It was my job to deliver the Special Deliveries. I got paid $.09 for each delivery. I felt real special when I could take a special to "Petty Coat Lane". It was the girls' only tent area in the middle of the Summer School campus. There were a lot of pretty girls then.

As time permitted, Uncle A.C. would take his Graflex camera, tripod and me, and off we'd go to get good post card pictures. He was in his late 60's and over six foot tall. It was often difficult for me, an L.A. city-kid, to keep u up with him and his long legs. Up we'd go to the mountain ridges, through rock outcropping and trees, to get a view he was looking for. We'd take Huntington Lake from the East or on our way to Twin Lakes; he'd frame the Lake between two trees. I didn't know at the time, but I was in training to take my own postcard photos and that I would remain at Huntington Lake for the rest of my life.

In the summer of '41, Uncle A.C. offered me the gift store and the photo studio. He said he would hold it open until I returned from the War and the service. During the War years, in 1942, mother was appointed Acting Postmaster and also ran the gift shop for eleven years.

After I returned from the War, I took over the gift shop. I named it the Pine Cone Shoppe. There was one entire wall covered with picture postcards. About 90 different scenes were included. There were pictures of Dinkey Creek, Shaver Lake, Tollhouse, Big Creek, dams, streams, Ward Tunnel, Mono Hot Springs, Florence Lake, Lost Valley, Diamond D, and the Boy Scout camps. These were taken by Uncle A.C. and later I added some of my own. We supplied picture postcards to seven outlets in the mountains. Following in my Uncle's footsteps, I would go out and take photos after I had closed up the store.

I often posted a bulletin, inviting children to come along. They would pack a lunch and off we'd go on a hike. One time, on our hike to Rancheria Falls, we crossed over the old wooden bridge below Wad Tunnel. I had instructed them that when we came to a fallen tree to always go around the upper end. Because he had to keep on climbing. It was a steep climb before the trail was built. This time I was leading and stepped on a rotten log and kept on going up the mountain. The next minute the youngsters were screaming and running down hill. The yellow jackets were stinging them. After cold water was put on the stings and a promise of a boat ride to the island, I brought them back to the Post Office and along with a watermelon, we all went on a trip to the island. Phil and Mitchell Bartholomew, children of Ranger Orland Bartholomew, and Larry Thomas were among the number of different youngsters who came along on the hikes.

I believe it was the Fall of '45 that Orland Bartholomew asked if I would be interested in the Winter Patrol job for the Huntington Lake Association. I said I was if he would tell me what the needed provisions were and where I needed to patrol. He gave me a long list and said I would replenish them with fresh meat, bread and vegetables at the Big Creek General Store. I could live in the Dowville Social Club house. I had a crank phone in the cabin to contact the Station Master of Big Creek, Mr. Roy Walker. He worked for Southern California Edison and before that had been Station Master of the SJ&E Railroad that came into Big Creek. He lived in Spring Creek and his wife was the Justice of the Peace. She was one hard, but fair, judge.

I put in 30 cords of wood to provide heat in the cabin. I curtained off the cabin to make it warmer. Sometimes it was wormer outside on sunny days than inside because of the gaps under the windowsills. One time it had snowed a lot during the night. The outhouse was outside and because of all the snow it took me 20 minutes to get out of the cabin. I sure was happy to finally reach that outhouse.

Patrolling in a car when the roads were open wasn't difficult, but there often was a lot of traffic and sometimes it wasn't easy to keep track of all the visitors. The following season I put a rubber hose across the road with a bell and battery so that visitors would sign in. But the next season there were some folks who sometimes visited their cabins in the fall and didn't want other folks to know they were there. Because of this (I guess they thought the visits were of public record) the sign-in program was discontinued. I wonder who their special guests were?

Probably the big question was "How I patrolled in the winter?" It wasn't easy. Orland had given me a pair of five-foot snowshoes and a backpack. He advised me to get skis, poles and shoes. I had to go to Fresno to get these things, except Fresno didn't stock these items. I had to order them from Pasadena. I also had to order a book on "how to ski!"

My first experience was a hoot! I carried my skis (they were 6 feet 6 inches long) and poles up to the top of the Dowville Tract at the west end of the Lake. According to the book, you measured the length of the skis by raising your hand high above your head and figured the length from the palm of your hand to the floor you stood on. With book in hand I picked up the poles and on a dusting of snow, I pushed off. Id didn't take me long to find out what the book means about a "ziti mark"! My skis headed for the biggest tree in the Lowville tract. With that little bit of snow I had to work with, I "got a little bit muddy" and with that, it ended my first ski lesson on the slopes.

Patrolling became routine, I usually got around on my skis. I would pack a lunch and check out the west end Tracts of the Lake, ending up at the "rock House" in the Huckleberry, spending the night. Mr., William Roland Johnston gave me the keys to his well-supplied house, which was located about 4 miles east of the cabin I normally stayed in. The net day I covered Upper Line Creek, Lower Line, Silver Fir, Camp La Salle, Cedar Crest Resort, Upper and Lower Bear Creek, Spring Creek and Upper Deer Creek. I ended spending the night at the Lakeshore Post Office. On the third day I finished up Lakeshore Resort, Lower Deer, the College Buildings, Camp Mirimichi, Oljato, Kern, Gold Arrow and back to Lakeshore. I usually was tired by the time I got back to the Dowville Club House. I patrolled through the winters until 1950. Little Beaver, Dan Cole, took over for a few years, with me patrolling again on snowmobiles a few years later.

One experience I won't forget. That year, the main road was plowed as far as the Cedar Crest turn out. Easter came early and Mr. Roland Johnson drove in to spend the weekend at his cabin in Huckleberry. A storm came in a dropped five feet of fluffy snow. Needless to say, they were "snow bound." Friends flew over and dropped supplies off the next day. That night I received a phone call from Mr. Walker asking me to go check on them. I stated out the next morningl I got as far as Willow o' Wisp, sinking into the drifts every step I took. I had to beat the sticky snow off my snow shoes each step I took and it had taken me four hours to get to that point. I had to turn back. I phoned Mr. Walker and told him I would try again the next day. I made it all the way in that day to Mr. Johnston's cabin and found the men to be in good shape. Now the question was how to get them out. There were a pair of snowshoes and skis over the hearth. I gave Mr. Johnston my snowshoes and his friend the pair from over the fireplace. I took the skis, which didn't have any bindings, but had a slot in the center tip. I improvised with leather straps from a saddle and tied my feet to the skis. Both men took a bottle of Seagrams for fortification in their hip pocket and we all took off. We didn't make it down the main road before both bottles were broken into. Not being used to snow shoes, me having improvised skis and all of us with wet pants didn't make for a very enjoyable trip. We finally got to the Dowville Club House in the late afternoon, wet and tired. Hot soup helped warm us up and a hot fire dried them out. I called Mr. Walker, who said he would have a car waiting for them, halfway up the hill from Big Creek. I was happy to know it was "down-hill". They took off and left the 1945 Ford Coupe for me to drive until they came back in June. It was an experience to remember.

Living at Huntington for most of my life I remember many of the pleasant things. Everything from Mr. Dave Redinger while living in Dowville, bringing me oranges and his autographed book; the biggest teak I ever had was with Knox Blasingame, I called it a "Buffalo Steak" at his cow came northeast of Willow w' Wisp; trying to ice sake on the lake; working with Floyd Smith building and repairing cabins and unfortunately some sad things. One year we lost a father and son on a fishing trip. The search party found them, but it was too late. That summer the mother/wife asked me to show her the spot at Nellie Lake where we found them, it was very sad, but as I said the happy things are what we remember.

In the summer of '54 while performing my duties at the Post Office, I met a very nice young lady, who was performing her duties as secretary to Mr. Stevens at Lakeshore Resort. (Anne Edwards later married Mr. Stevens after Mr. Edwards had passed away. She ran Lakeshore Resort for many years. The marriage was annulled and she went back to her known name, Ann Edwards). I invited this nice young lady I met to a marsh mellow roast along with some of her friends. We soon saw a lot of each other; soon we were engaged and got married on November 28, 1954. Since then she has been my helpmate, companion, and mother of our five daughters.

In the winter of 1956 I started working for Knute Flint at China Peak and continued until 1960. I did a lot of different things from operating the chair lift and plowing the slopes. At night I would drag the ski runs in a Tucker Sno-cat with 55-gallon drums behind it. One night the drums tried to beat me down the hill. Sliding faster than the Tucker, they ripped the fifth wheel off and stopped the machine. I walked back to the shop and told Tom Davis that I was fired. They didn't fire me, but they did rig up a better drag. In the fall of '64 the Post Office was opened year around and that ended my work at the Summit.

Our family soon grew and I have to say it was a chore to get them all to school at Big Creek. I was the "bus driver", but after awhile there were more children than I could bus in my vehicle. It took a court order to get the school board to get a bus to come to pick them up and get them home in the afternoon. Living in the mountains was an adventure. I bought a snowmobile to continue patrolling, often getting it stuck in the tree wells, bought a snow blower to keep open the road and continued plowing around the area. We had a propane generator for a few years, running it in the evenings and on washdays. Later the Huntington lake Association was able to get Southern California Edison to leave the power on all winter. We often had friends up for Thanksgiving and made a party of splitting and stacking about 8 cords of wood for our winter heat. I also served on the Volunteer Fire Department after Earl Roberts worked to get the Condo Association to build a station nearby. When I retired the Big Creek fire chief presented me with a commendation and a Fire Chief's Badge, of which I was proud to receive.

I retired from the Post Office on October 3, 1983, having completed 30 years of service. We raised our children at Huntington, I finally got to like fishing after I retired (I caught my fish through the Post Office service window while working) and still thoroughly enjoy the warm summers and cool fall air today as much as I ever have at Huntington Lake. The 60 plus years I spent and continue to enjoy are a wonderful privilege here at Huntington Lake.

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Sierra Summer School Graduates

Many young people attended the Sierra Summer School during its' 35+ years of existence. The two disciplines that seemed to attract young people most was the teaching profession and engineering. The following are just two stories of individuals who used the knowledge they learned while at Huntington lake to fulfill their ambitions and pursue their careers.

Joe Maslowski (a relative of Johnny Vistak)
I recall attending the Fresno State Summer School in 1939. I attended the summer Surveying course taught by Professor Herbert Wheaton. There were only 10 or 11 of us in the class. Dr. Morris was the math professor, Mr. Jack taught the actual surveying and Dr. Wheaton taught materials strength and also engineering. The surveying class began two weeks before the regular session, which lasted four weeks. It was an informative class with class projects, but being at Huntington Lake was fun too. One of the projects "point of survey" was College Rock, a landmark above the campus. Hiking wasn't one of the classes, but you had to hike up to College Rock to complete your project, so it was an added benefit. It was one of the happiest times I can recall. It gave me the opportunity to see how beautiful the area was and I later came back with my brother and cousins to hunt and enjoy the area, as I have done for many years.

I used what I learned to help survey the runways and areas for barracks at Hammer Field, Castle Air Base and Lemoore as a U.S. Engineer Surveyor. I was drafted into the service and served from 1943-46. During part of that time I was part of the 1539 Engineer Surveying Company stationed in Paris, France; and on detached service in Spangried, Norway, and again used my education to survey for airfields in an Allied country. After the end of World War II, I returned home to begin my career as a contractor.

Pauline Miller (Attended the Sierra Summer School in 1935)
"A number of my friends from LaCanada School had told me about the State Teachers' College at Huntington Lake, raving about the beautiful mountains, the cool nights and the fun they all had. I received information about the school the summer before. I was a kindergarten teacher at LaCanada at the time."

The session which started June 29, 1935 was in the High Sierra. It ran six weeks and had lots of fun activities at the near-by Huntington Lake Resort, which was run by Mr. Walling. After the session ended, Pauline and friends planned several pack trips into the back country before returning to LaCanada, where she taught for a number of years. She recalls that summer to have been one of the most enjoyable times.

(Sierra Summer School, 1941)

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Sierra National Forest Cattle Grazing Permits
Lester and Elizabeth Bissett
Bissett Ranch

We acquired the SOQUEL Permit in 1943 and bought Coleman Mealley’s cattle. In 1944 we purchased the U.S. Forest Service IRON CREEK permit from Ray and Irvin Murray, also buying their cattle. The permits were just south of Yosemite National Park and east of Fish Camp in Madera County. We headquartered at the mining claim cabin and barn at Hoggem (elevation 8020 feet). To graze the rest of the herd that had previously been pastured on private land, we also acquired the HASKEL permit in 1946. We bought cattle from Henry Ward and acquired his permit near Central Camp, 9 miles NE of the dam at Bass Lake. We grazed these three permits through 1950.

In 1950 we were approached by the Forest Service concerning our three cattle permits at IRON CREEK, SOQUEL an HASKEL. The Forest Service wanted to exchange those three permits for the 235 Cassidy permit, formerly John O’Neil’s in eastern Fresno County. After some consideration, the exchange was agreed to, even though we would be going into unknown territory. It would be a five-day cattle drive from Oakhurst to the range.

The CASSIDY permit was roughly thirty-five miles square, bounded by the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River, Fish Creek, Cascade Creek, Sharkstooth Creek, Frog Lake, Saddle Mountain, Four Forks Creek and the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. There were two cow camps, one at Cassidy Meadow (elevation 5500 feet) about three miles from Miller’s Crossing (elevation 4300 feet) and Rube Meadow, another 7 miles up the mountain (elevation 8000 feet).

Our first year of taking cattle to the new permit was 1951. The cattle wintered in Mariposa County and were gradually moved to spring pastures in the Oakhurst area. The first day’s drive to summer National Forest pasture was from the home place, north of Oakhurst to the Government Corrals at Bass Lake, 5 miles, usually in late June. The next day was up Chepo Saddle road to SOQUEL, then by stock drive to Beasore Meadow, 13 miles. The fourth day was trail, crossing Granite Creek, climbing Cattle Mountain, then descending Cattle Mountain to Miller’s Crossing on the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River, 9 miles. The bridge at Miller’s Crossing had washed out during high water, the winter of 1949-50, which was a reason John O’Neil quit the permit, so the cattle had to swim the high, snow-melt fed 100-foot wide river. After a very difficult crossing the first year, Lester had a 60-foot by four-foot canvas made to string out on wire above the water, so that the cattle could not see the downstream short and just swim back to shore instead of swimming across the river. The cattle had to jump off the rocks up-river from the regular horse crossing. Several years in very high water cattle drowned, mostly calves that were swept down the river and over the rapids. There were a couple of years that the river was too high for too long in the season, to bother taking the cattle in at all. After crossing the river, the cattle were allowed to rest, but the crew would ride another three miles to the cow camp at Cassidy Meadow for the night. The next day, the cattle would be brought to Rattlesnake Lake. From there, the cattle were spread out on the range. In 1957, a high water year, we trucked the cattle and horses to the Blasingame corral on the Kaiser Pass Road above Huntington Lake. From there we drove the cattle over Potter Pass on Kaiser Ridge and down to Rattlesnake Crossing on the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. The next day, the cattle were driven the rest of the way to the Cassidy Permit Range.

The MONO Permit
In 1963 we acquired Knox Blasingame’s former 150 head permit known as the Mono Permit. The area was bounded by the South Fork of the San Joaquin River, Edison Lake, Goodale Pass and Onion Springs and bordered the CASSIDY permit. The cow camp was at China Camp (elevation 7000) about 8 miles from Mono Hot Springs and 3 miles from Edison Lake. There were two cabins at China Camp. The older cabin was used as a tack room and for storage. The newer cabin had a bi wood cook stove with a nice oven and a couple of bunks. Both cabins had been built by the Blasingames’. By horseback, it was a 17 mile ride of four hours from Cassidy Meadow Camp to the China Camp cabin, so hired hands took care of that permit most of the time.

The cattle drive crews varied from six cowboys to 16 in various years. It was a family affair for Lester, Elizabeth and their two children, Roy and Adele. Lester’s brother, Ralph, often helped along with family friends: the Fulmers, Lindsay Wright, Warren Starns, Simonis, Mary Owens Hall, Fred Wass, and Harold Hart, among others.

During the summer grazing time, the family and one or two hired hands tended the cattle, moving them from place to place and putting out salt at salt logs. Lester and two or three hired hands would do the fall gathering. Some family members would usually help with the cattle drive back out over Cattle Mountain. In the fall, the San Joaquin River would only be ankle-deep at the regular horse crossing.

The Bissetts’ had these permits for 16 years with many memorable experiences over the years. The cattle and permits went to Henry Bohna and Tom Cunningham in 1967.

IRON CREEK PERMIT
In 1986 we purchased Bob Freitas’ cattle and reacquired the IRON CREEK permit following Bob’s death. The old Everett Phillip cabin at Long Meadow (elevation 6300 feet) was the headquarters. Since Lester was 73 years old by this time and Elizabeth was 69 years old, they hired herdsmen to take care of the cattle most of the time. The cattle for this permit were driven by trail and by road from the Bissett Ranch on Ben Hur Road in Mariposa County to Bailey Flat, then to Ahwahnee, and from there to Miami Creek near the site of the old Miami Lodge. The next day the cattle crossed Highway 41 at Fish Camp and were then on the range east of Buffin Meadow. In 1999 we sold the 160 pairs for the permit to Scott and Diane Bohna-Crisp and they acquired the permit. This time we held the permit for 13 years.

Contributed by Adele Bissett Bartholomew (married to Phil Bartholomew)

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Gold Arrow Camp
Established in 1933, for boys

H. Manfred Vezie, Camp Director, founded Gold Arrow Camp in 1933 after an exhaustive search of the Pacific Coast for the ideal camp site. Mr. Vezie, an all-around athelete, played varsity football under Knute Rochne on the 1928-1929 Notre Dame University team. After graduation with an AB and LLB, he coached freshman football at Notre Dame and for many years was a member of the coaching staffs at Oregon and Loyola Universities. His coaching experience along with 30 years of Boys Camp work had given Mr. Vezie an invaluable insight and understanding of youth.

The philosophy and aim at Gold Arrow:
“We believe that every boy should have a knowledge, love and understanding of life in the woods. Every boy benefits in his own special way whether it is overcoming fear of the water, fear from a bad experience on a horse, or just not being able to get along with the neighbors.” (Excerpts from a brochure of the camp in 1949).

This Matra is continued today, but it is a co-ed camp, owned and run with the same ideals by the Monkee family.

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Donald W. Adams, a Huntington Lake Pioneer

The lure of the high Sierras is what brought Donald W. Adams to the Big Creek Hydro-electric power project. Born in 1898, he rode the S.J.&E. rail line into the mountains for the first time in either 1918 or 1919, up to Cascada or today what is known as Big Creek. A truck ride down the hill took him to his first job in the time keepers office at Camp 34. He soon was transferred to a position of store keeper at Camp 10 located at the top of the Incline Railroad. He shortly was transferred to Camp 60 located at the east end of Huntington Lake, where today Portal Powerhouse is located. The ensuring years found him working in the upper camps, which were his love.

In letters to his Grandson, his memories of those thrilling days were still clear. He described the pelting of the rain on the tin roofs of the tiny shacks suspended by cables on the steep hillside above Camp 34. He spoke of the roar of the rain-swollen San Joaquin River in the gorge below the camps. I heard in his letters the THUMP, THUMP of the tunnel steel sharpening shacks, the rumble of dynamite deep in the tunnels below and the blast of the cook-shack whistle, along with the whine of the sled runners on deep snow. He also recalled the winter of 1920-21, when stationed at Camp 63, how the many buildings in the various camps were covered by drifts up to 50 feet. He told of how the men traveled in the tunnels they dug out between the bunkhouse to the cook shack, to the time office and to tunnel faces, too.

He left the project shortly after the “break-through” in February 1925. The celebration at Camp 61 was “quite a dilly” as he recalled. “Upwards of a thousand men turned out for a dance at the mess hall. Margie McCarthy, the store-keeper’s daughter, was the only woman (girl--she may have been 17 or 18 years old at the time) at the get-together. She was in truth the Belle of the Ball, although pretty worn down, “come the dawn.”

The love of the mountains prompted him to begin building several cabins near Huntington Lake. He built one which today is still in his family. He started building at the Upper Line Creek tract. He used lumber from Harry Allen’s mill, with rock and sand from the local streams. With the help of his father, he built one small cabin in which to stay the coming winter. After putting in a supply of winter meat (the venison was hung under the front porch where it froze solid), he and his father spent the winter mainly trapping. Supplies had to be brought up from Cascada (Big Creek) before the heavy snows fell. Any resupply required a trip down to Big Creek on snowshoes. It was quite a trip. The years following, he built a few more cabins near by his cabin, which still stands today.

Summers were fun times also. They were filled with fishing and hiking trips in the back country and in the fall they took hunting trips on horseback. He shared all of this with his wife and children, plus grandchildren later on. He instilled in them a love for the mountains and Huntington Lake, which after 80 years and four generations later still persists.
Contributed by his grandson, Don Adams, 2001

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