HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT
P. O. Box 2001, Ridgecrest, CA 93556
Vol. 22 No. 3 March 2007

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MARCH MEETING: GOING TO SCHOOL IN BROWN, Litha Mattis

The March meeting of the Historical Society of the Upper Mojave Desert will feature Litha Mattis who will speak about going to school in Brown, CA. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, March 20 at 7:30 PM in the gallery of the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest.

Litha Mattis is a modern-day pioneer woman whose early education took place in the Mt. Owens School District. A Los Angeles native, Litha moved to Atolia (just south of Red Mountain) as a young girl where her father worked in the tungsten mine. This was only the beginning of a fascinating life along the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

In 1942 her family took up residence in Sand Canyon since her father had become employed as a patrolman for the LA Aqueduct. Formal education meant a short commute in to the town of Brown, nine miles north of Inyokern - where her living history lecture begins. Please join us for what will prove to be a transcending step back in time.

The HSUMD meets on the third Tuesday of the month. All are welcome to attend. For more information on this or future meetings, call Society President Bill Nevins at 760-375-4764. Ann Roseman

UPCOMING FUNDRAISER EVENTS

March 17. A big yard sale at the USO building, 230 W. Ridgecrest Blvd., on the east side. Hurry down with donations on Friday, the 16th, when volunteers will be on site from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. receiving and setting up. Sale starts at 8 a.m., Saturday only. Even if you don't need items, come and buy a cold "Downtown Delight" root beer!

The four all-steel security doors required for the building entries are being ordered. The $1700 donations for each came from: Jim and Jean Brown, Bill & Debbie Brown Brickey, the Patrick Tharps, the George Silberbergs and Helen McCall.

April 21. The Big Band Express will be "on stage" with their USO show on that April Saturday. Jim McLane lists a Betty Grable leg contest and performances by the Andrew Sisters. WOW! We will be preselling tickets at $20.00, $25.00 at the door. Root beer floats will tempt your palate, as well as other treats. Remember this is a fundraiser for the continued restoration in the building. We promise a nostalgic great evening. Tickets should be available around April 1st at the Chamber of Commerce, Maturango Museum, Radio Station KZIQ and committee members. Call Kathy Armstrong (375-2643).
Kathy Armstrong

UNITED WAY PLEDGES

We have received information from United Way that pledges in the amount of $1559.21 for calendar year 2007 have been received. Way to go Indian Wells Valley!

GRANT APPLICATION MAILED

The application for a grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment fund was sent off in late February in time to meet the March 1 deadline after an intensive effort by Ann Roseman and John Di Pol with inputs from a small committee. The request was for a grant of $55,000 which we plan to match. The review process takes several months, so we will not know until early fall whether we were accepted for a grant.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

Membership renewals for 2007 may be sent to Fred Weals, Treasurer, P.O. Box 2007, Ridgecrest, CA 93556

Please remember the Historical Society in your wills and trusts.

CALENDAR OF HSUMD EVENTS

March 17, 2007 Yard sale at USO Building
March 20, 2007 General Meeting: Mattis April 17, 2007 General Meeting: Patterson
April 21, 2007 USO Show at USO Bldg.:
April 28, 2007 Trip: Boron Open Pit Mine May trip Cerro Gordo
May 15, 2007 Annual Dinner, USO Bldg.
(Details next month)

FIELD TRIPS

The date of April 28 has been confirmed for a field trip to and into the Boron Open Pit Mine. Arrangements are not yet fully complete, but reservations are being accepted by our tour leader, Board Member Jim Kenney. Please call him at 371-2458, leaving a message if necessary. There will be a small fee for this tour and a limit of 20 persons will be observed, due to the bus size for the trip down into the pit.

In May a trip is being planned to the Cerro Gordo Mine Site. Details will be in a forthcoming newsletter.

HIGH DESERT MEMORIES

We were recently contacted by Society member Pat Jones, who lives out-of-state. Pat's family came to Ridgecrest in the mid-1940s, to work on the base. Pat was a young lad at the time, attended school locally and graduated from Burroughs HS. He was recently back in Ridgecrest to attend the Burroughs mega-reunion last year. Pat operates a noncommercial (no advertising) website: www.High-Desert-Memories.Com with pictures and information about the Indian Wells Valley. The purpose of Pat's call was to inquire if he could post our monthly newsletter historical articles on his website. We readily agreed. Many thanks, Pat. John Di Pol

HELP NEEDED FOR SEEP TRIPS

The Sand Canyon Environmental Education Program (SEEP) will have three trips in March (20, 27 ,30) and four in May (2, 10, 15, 18). Help is needed to present materials and guide the students in the historical part of the program ­ at least one person per trip is needed. Give John Di Pol a call at 375-2610 if would you would like to participate in helping give our local youngsters a great experience. Fresh air and congenial companionship are part of the half day experience

HISTORICAL ARTICLE

(Following is an article prepared by our great local historian member, John Di Pol, drawn from his personal library. Ed).

HOW IT WAS (Part One)

Preface: This article is about the early life of Ellen Elizabeth (Snodgrass) Cooper who grew up on the family homestead in the nearby Sierras and also lived in the Indian Wells Valley. It is a few "snapshots" gleaned from Ellen's autobiographical manuscript which covers the period 1913 to 1954.

William Snodgrass was born in 1864 in West Virginia. In 1881 he and his two brothers came to the Puget Sound area in Washington and set up a business building ship parts. He married Catherine Champ in 1894. A son died in infancy, but four daughters survived: Lauretta, Effie, Pearl and Alta. William's health suffered from the constant rain. In 1912 the family moved to Long Beach, California and settled near the fish canneries. Ellen was born in 1913. The first six years of her life the family lived in a tent house.

In 1919 William and a friend, George Porter, went north looking for an area to homestead. They heard about land being available in Kennedy Meadows country in the Sierra mountains opposite Little Lake, CA. They went up to take a look. Found two choice sites: George Porter filed on a clear, cold spring called "Windy Springs" and William Snodgrass filed on site in a nearby long canyon (now named "Long Canyon") with a creek running through it and lined with cottonwoods. The family moved up in early 1920, with a covered wagon, a couple of burros and a Jersey milk cow. They spent the first year in a tent.
Cap Pasquale was the first settler in the area in 1918. Later in 1920 several other families settled in the valley below the Snodgrasses: the Hawkins, Colemans, Hunsingers among others. Coleman and Hunsinger brought up a sawmill, packed in piece by piece, to provide lumber for settler's houses. Long Valley trends north to south ending at Sacatar Meadows, which turns west into Kennedy and east to the head of Sacatar Canyon. From there the Sacatar Trail runs down Little Lake Canyon to Coso Station, a depot on the Mojave to Lone Pine railroad. The settler's supplies and staples were ordered in bulk from Los Angeles, arrived by rail at Coso Station, then brought up the Sacatar Trail, 18 miles by pack strings. Vegetables were grown in their gardens and there was plenty of meat in the mountains. All the Snodgrass girls were taught early how to shoot and take care of their guns. They regularly hunted for deer and were responsible for "bringing home the bacon". There were no medical facilities in the immediate area. The nearest doctors were in Lone Pine, Trona and Randsburg. The nearest phone was at Little Lake. Mrs. Porter helped people who were sick.

A schoolhouse was built in the central part of Long Valley. The Snodgrass children rode their own burros the two miles to and fro. A minimum of 9 pupils was required to open the
school. The single teacher was boarded by different families. Family vacations were taken in late summer with a pack trip with friends up to Trout Creek for a week or two of camping and fishing. The Snodgrass children on occasions went down to Coso Station where Mr. Thelan had built a pack station and post office in 1925. On one trip Mr. Thelan took all the children down the dusty road in his Model-T car to the small town of Brown. A great outing!

As the familie's children graduated from the local grade school, many moved to the "outside" to continue their education or get married. In 1928 the Snodgrass family moved to the Barstow-Hinkley crossroad and set up a service station. Ellen neither continued education nor married. In 1929 - the Great Depression started. The gas station failed and the family moved to Inyokern. In 1930 - Ellen's mother worked as janitor at the little Inyokern school and dad William went to work on the W.P.A. Sister Effie and her husband Chet Smith went back to the old homestead in Long Valley to set trap lines in winter for furs. Ellen went with them. (Note: The road up Nine-Mile Canyon was built by the Great Western Barium Mines Company in 1928. This road continued north up to Kennedy Meadows and Long Valley). Tough going through the winters of '30, '31. Trap lines not much success. Much snow. April '32 - they had to pack out on homemade snowshoes and with two burros went down the Sacatar Trail to Coso Station.

John Di Pol

Postscript: Part Two will conclude this article in next month's Newsletter.