From P. G & E Progress, Feb. 1947
. . .Forest Hill was added to the PG&E family by the construction of 8 3/4 miles of transmission line from Weimar and celebrated the occasion around its very first electrically lighted Christmas tree, which was put up in the main street. By means of local extensions, electricity came also to the neighboring old-time towns of Michigan Bluff and Yankee Jims, plus several lumber mills and ranches. Service began with 160 customers in Forest Hill, 17 in Michigan Bluff and 13 in Yankee Jims.
THE NAMING OF BAKER RANCH, on the Foresthill Divide
The following information comes from the family of Charles W. Fink, (Auburn
Pharmacist) and is substantiated by family records.
Charles W. Fink’s family first came to Placer County in 1863. His
great-great grandparents, the Barrows family purchased land from the Baker
Divide Mining Company. It was located 4 miles north of Foresthill. They
named their ranch, Baker Ranch in honor of the Sierra pioneer Col. Baker.
Their grand-daughter, Vera Eliza, Charles mother, inherited quite a few
acres and what is now known as the Baker Ranch Hotel area from her
grandfather. Her husband died and she was left with the dilemma of raising
three children and very little cash. This was right after the 1929 crash.
Before her husband died in 1932, they had purchased a home Plymouth. She had
the house taken down and hauled to Baker Ranch and built the Baker Ranch
Hotel. The Hotel fed and housed miners, hunters and fishermen. She also
contracted to feed the boys at the CCC Camp. She built additional houses at
the ranch and rented them out. At one point she even ran a small grocery
store. She added to her acreage by buying relatives out.
FIRING THE ANVILS
Excerpt from Auburn A Century of Memories
published by the Placer County Historical Society1988
Memories of Floyd Locher
When I was a small kid, I don’t know how I came to be still awake at 12
0'clock, midnight, this one New Year’s Eve, but . . .they the church bells
and fire bells would all ring at midnight. This night, which was the first
New Year’s that I can remember, some tremendous explosions started going off
in Old town Auburn at midnight. They told me they were firing off the anvils
down in the blacksmith shops. . . .they would string along a light string of
black powder for a fuse, and light that some way, and that would cause an
explosion when one anvil was upside down on top of the other one.
. . .Then some guy would get a red hot iron out of the blacksmith forge and
at arms length he started this string of black powder and everyone got out
of the way. When that reached the charge, which was between the two anvils,
it would explode and the bigger the anvils were the louder and harder the
explosion.
Ed note: according to Buzz Eckenburg, who was raised in the logging camps on
Washington, they would fire the anvils there too. He said that the large
anvils weighed about 300 lbs and the small one about 150 lbs. Each had a
small hand-sized depression in the top for some black smithing purpose and
the powder was poured into that depression. . .
Sprinkler Wagons
by Virginia Fleming
from Auburn, a Century of Memories
published by The Placer County Historical Society
. . .The main highway through Auburn was a dirt road past our Auburn Union
Grammar School (now the Civic Center), they tried to keep it as well
graveled as they could. There were these big granite stepping stones at the
crosswalks, about two feet long and a foot wide, and they were heavy and
thick. They probably came from the quarry in Rocklin. Those were the cross
walks, 2 rows of them. One for one foot and one for the other. Back then it
got a little muddy in the winter time, and a little dusty in the summer.
In the town of Auburn, we had sprinkler carts, with a big tank, drawn by two
horses. At intervals in town there were these places to fill the watering
tank. . . .there was a watering tank right on the corner near our house near
Sands Mortuary (Chapel of the Hills). It was a big pipe, and it had to fill
from the top of the tank. It was always an interesting project to run down
and pet the horses while they were filling the tank.
Excerpt from an interview with Lutie Dorer by Norman
McLeod.
Lutie was born and raised in Humbug Canyon above Foresthill. He was 22 at
the time of this fire.
. . .I was on the fire that started in 1924. It started in Deadwood, (See
Placer County Gold Camps at Foresthill Divide Historical society website)
and came down. They stationed us at Bullion and that night they started
putting the first fire line around there. All of a sudden, there was a big
roar up on the hill and they said, GET OUT. It jumped across above us. We
just did get out of Bullion and here came the fire, up and over the hill .
My uncle, Bob Hughes, had an old Chevrolet touring car, about 1919 model. He
tried to get out, but a steep hill stopped him. The fire was right in the
back of us, so he had to leave the car and it burned up. So they stationed
us then at Chicken Hawk. That was where there were maybe 400 or 500 of us
and we finally built a fire line down to the reservoir (now Sugar Pine
reservoir), then down over the hill by the Elliott Ranch, down to the
Pioneer Mine, then Humbug, up the American River and up the American Eagle
to Westville and that’s the only way we stopped it. . .