Our first town was Doyle, a lonely little place of half a dozen buildings forty-eight miles north of Reno. Beyond here we entered Long Creek Valley, our road climbing short, sharp pitches and winding about sandstone bluffs with stretches of heavy sand here and there. However, the country soon showed much improvement; there were well-tilled fields and frequent ranch houses, some of them surrounded by green lawns, beautified with flowers. Orchards were common and we saw many apple and pear trees loaded with luscious-looking fruit. The road through this section was fair, though little had been done in the way of permanent improvement. There is only one long grade and when we reached the summit of the hills which it surmounts, we saw a circular valley before us with an irregular hazy-blue sheet of water in the center. Somehow we had pictured the northeastern lakes in our minds as rivals of Tahoe in beauty and color, but never was greater delusion than in the case of Honey Lake, which lay before us. It is a shallow, characterless expanse of shimmering water set in the midst of a great basin surrounded on all sides by naked hills. The shores are flat and marshy and entirely devoid of trees. It is redeemed from complete unattractiveness by a narrow ring of fertile and highly cultivated land from one to three miles wide that completely surrounds it, sloping upwards from the shore line to the hillsides. Fronting the lake at frequent intervals are fairly prosperous-looking farmhouses in the midst of poplar and walnut groves. Cattle raising appeared to be the chief industry, for we saw many herds grazing in the green meadows around the lake. The name, they told us, came from the honey-dew which gathers on the grasses in the vicinity. The lake was alive with wild fowl—ducks, mud hens, herons, and pelicans—but the frequent “No Hunting” signs apprised the sportsman that he was not welcome here. The road runs entirely around the lake, but we chose the west side through Milford, which was fair though very dusty; in wet weather it must be practically impassable for motor cars. In winter there is much snow here, the temperature going sometimes as low as fifteen or twenty degrees below zero, and the lake usually freezes quite solid. Like all the lakes of this section, it is said to be gradually receding, due to the drain of numerous artesian irrigating wells.
Fifteen miles beyond Honey Lake we came into Susanville, where we planned to stop for the night. We had no very pleasant anticipations, to be sure, for the town was rated at one thousand people and we were resigned to put up with primitive accommodations without complaint. We experienced a pleasant surprise on entering the St. Francis, a well-kept hotel where we found all modern conveniences. We narrowly missed being shut out because we failed to make reservations and we saw other would-be guests turned away later in the day.
Susanville is the capital and metropolis of Lassen, a county of vast extent but scant population. Here and in Modoc, the county to the north, the soil is of volcanic origin and Mt. Lassen, the only active volcano in the United States, is just beyond the hills to the west. Serving as a center for such a wide tract of country, the town naturally outclasses places of a thousand people in more populous sections. It has better stores, theaters, garages, and hotels than are usually found in places of its size. The most pretentious residence stands at the head of the main street, a large, crotchety building which they told us was the home of the chief saloonkeeper, who runs a palatial bar down the street. North and west of the town the hills are covered with a magnificent pine forest—a favorite haunt, a local sportsman informed us, of deer and other game. He also told us that we would find a good road through the forest to Eagle Lake, some fifteen miles to the northwest, which he declared the equal of Tahoe for scenic beauty. We had arrived in the town shortly after noon; there was still time to drive to Eagle Lake and the car was ordered forthwith.
We had proceeded but a little way when we came upon a force of men working upon the new state road which is to connect Susanville with the Pacific Highway at Red Bluff, a distance of about one hundred miles, making this country far more accessible to the motorist than at the time of our visit. Three or four miles out of the town we turned from the highway into the forest, following an excellent mountain road which climbs a steady but moderate grade for a distance of twelve miles. On either hand towered gigantic yellow pines, many of which were devoid of branches for a height of nearly one hundred feet. It was clear that a fire had swept through them not so very long ago, destroying the smaller trees and shrubbery and giving the forest a wonderfully cleaned-up appearance. It had apparently done little damage to the big trees, though some of the trunks were charred to a considerable height. Some distance beyond the summit we saw the lake far below us, gleaming in the low afternoon sun and reminding us of a great gem set in the dark pines that crowd up to its shores. It was too late in the day to get much in color effects, but we agreed that Eagle Lake, lovely as it is, has no claim for comparison with Tahoe. The shores of the lake abound with curious caves extending for miles underground, some filled with perpetual ice and others through which icy winds continually roar. Many have never been fully explored and some of the strange phenomena have never been satisfactorily accounted for. The lake teems with trout and bass, affording far better sport for fishermen than the more frequented waters and its shores, still in their native wildness, offer ideal camping sites. Returning to the town, we saw a wonderful sunset through the pines and from occasional points of vantage caught long vistas of wooded hills stretching away to the crimson sky.
The northbound road out of Susanville climbs a barren hill range with grades up to fifteen per cent and there is scarcely a downward dip for over seven miles. Not a tree or shrub obstructs the view from the long switchbacks and we had a magnificent panorama of the town and Honey Lake Valley and the far-reaching wooded hills to the south and west. The road, though unimproved, was excellent and as volcanic rock is the base, it is probably good the year round except when snow prevails. It was not so good beyond the hillcrest; boulders began to crop out, making the descent to Merrillville pretty rough. At the summit we ran into a fine forest of yellow pine, which continued for several miles. We then crossed stony, desolate hill ranges—one after another—alternating with basin-shaped valleys. In one of these valleys, thirty miles from Susanville, is Horse Lake, an ugly, shallow sheet of water three or four miles long with barren, alkali-encrusted shores. A notice was posted by the roadside warning passersby that the water of the lake is poisonous and it certainly looked like it. The soil of some of the valleys looked as if it might be fertile if well watered, but the greater part of it was strewn with ragged volcanic rocks. There were occasional miserable little huts, apparently long deserted, which indicated that at some time a settler had endeavored to wring an existence from the inhospitable earth, and had given up in despair. A few of the more persistent were still engaged in the struggle, but there was little indication of prosperity.
Beyond Horse Lake we climbed a second mighty hill range and from the summit beheld the Madeline Plains, a valley far larger than the ones we had passed. This wide level tract, comprising over one hundred square miles, is encircled by volcanic hills which, despite their ugliness and barrenness when viewed near at hand, faded away in the distance in a wild riot of coloring. Lavender merged into purple and purple deepened to dark blue, which finally shrouded the hills from our view. Farming in this valley appeared to be conducted more successfully, though there is as yet much unimproved land and none of the ranch houses or their surroundings showed signs of prosperity. Madeline, on the edge of the plain, is a dilapidated village of a few dozen people and the big yellow wooden hotel seemed out of all proportion to any business it could hope for. Beyond this for many miles the characteristics of the country continued much the same, hills and valleys alternating until we entered the Pitt River Valley, a dozen miles from Alturas. Here the country began to show considerable improvement, which gradually increased until we came into the town.
Alturas, with about a thousand inhabitants, the capital of Modoc County, is a good-looking town with a handsome courthouse of classic design and a modern high school building. It is the only place in the huge county that can be dignified by being called a town—for Modoc, with its four thousand square miles of area, can muster only six thousand people, most of whom live in the narrow valleys between the volcanic hills or on the plain around the shores of Goose Lake. This section is at present quite inaccessible to motorists, but the new highway to be constructed from Redding will do much to put the county in touch with the rest of the state.
Out of Alturas we followed a level and very good dirt road through a fair-looking farming section to Davis Creek at the lower end of Goose Lake, a distance of twenty-two miles. Goose Lake is the largest of the numerous lakes in this section—about thirty-five miles in extreme length by ten at its greatest width. The road closely follows its shores and beyond Davis Creek ascends a steep grade leading up the mountainside overlooking the lake and affording a glorious view of the fine sheet of water. We saw it from many angles and altitudes as we mounted up, each with its peculiar lighting and coloring—all beautiful and inspiring. We paused to contemplate the scene at a point from which nearly the whole lake was visible. It lay beneath us in the low afternoon sun, glistening blue and silver, the hill range running along the opposite shore wrapped in an indigo haze. The waters of Goose Lake have not the dark, changeful blue of Tahoe, but seem more like the azure monotone of the sky, save where the sunlight threw its white beams across it from the west. Its monotony of color is doubtless due to the fact that it is quite shallow, its depth in no place exceeding eighteen or twenty feet, while the average is probably not more than five or six feet. Around it runs a belt of fertile farm land, broadest on the eastern side. There are many prosperous ranch houses at intervals and great numbers of thrifty-looking sheep and cattle grazed in the meadows which run down to the shore. The water for irrigating is largely drawn from the lake or artesian wells near by. This has caused a steady shrinkage in the lake and, indeed, may cause it to ultimately disappear, an event which the lover of the beautiful in natural scenery must earnestly deplore. For we all agreed that Goose Lake and its setting were very beautiful despite its unprepossessing name—and we recalled how narrowly Tahoe escaped being stigmatized as Lake Bigler. A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, perhaps, but it does seem that Tahoe would lose some of its glory if it bore the unmusical cognomen of the disloyal ante bellum governor.
From the summit of the grade we descended gradually through a fine pine forest to Willow Ranch and from there continued through the level farm lands skirting the shore to the village of New Pine Creek just across the Oregon border. Perhaps if we had been able to anticipate the fate awaiting us at Lakeview we should have paused at the rather unattractive wooden hotel in this diminutive burg. In blissful ignorance, however, we dashed mile after mile over a fairly level but dusty road, expecting every moment to come in sight of Lakeview. We had—I hardly know why—a preconceived notion of a picturesque little town overlooking the lake from a pine-covered bluff and a hotel in keeping with these imaginary surroundings, equipped with everything to bring peace and joy to the soul of the motorist after a rough, dusty run. The road left the lake and the lake gradually receded from view, and still no town; not until we had left the northernmost mud-puddle of Goose Lake six or seven miles behind us did we enter the unattractive, straggling village whose name had so excited our anticipations. We entered the principal hotel with serious misgivings and came out of it with the determination to pass the night in the car rather than to occupy the beds that the unkempt attendant offered us. I forbear farther comment because conditions change so rapidly in these western towns; before my book can be published a new management may turn a dirty, shabby-looking place into a clean, comfortable hotel. It has happened in several instances to my own knowledge and it may happen in Lakeview, Oregon.
A friendly native who appreciated our predicament told us that his people would take us in at their ranch house, some distance in the country, if we couldn’t find decent accommodations in the town. He directed us to another hotel, which was full, but the landlady bestirred herself and secured rooms in a private home where we were comfortably taken care of. Our host was an old resident of the section—a local politician, ranch owner, and an enthusiastic hunter and fisherman. He informed us that the principal resource of the surrounding country was cattle and sheep raising, largely on government land, for which the owner of the stock pays a small annual fee. He declared that there was a fine chance for energetic young fellows to do well in this line and cited an Irish boy of his acquaintance who had cleared six thousand dollars on sheep in the two years just past. The recent extension of the railway to Lakeview, giving direct connection with the main line at Reno, two hundred and forty-four miles distant, had given a great impetus to both farming and stock-raising in this section.