Western Ingenuity Part 1

The Wild West. The name conjures up romanticized pictures of wagon trains, outlaws and wide-open spaces.

Shasta County figured into the fabric of the Wild West, though in a different way. Pioneers from across the country came to our area in the 1850’s and 1860’s, settling around the Shingletown area. Surrounded by small farms and ranches, Shingletown began as a well-traveled stagecoach stop and trading post.

An early pioneer family was the Aldridge family, headed by William and Mary Ann Aldridge. Raised in North Carolina– practically neighbors with Daniel Boone – the patriarch and his wife, son William and daughter Martha, soon followed Boone to Kentucky. With the promise of 640 acres of land by the federal government, the family again decided to move. With a brief stop in Missouri (where William married Mary Jane “Polly” Greenburg), the Aldridges braved the Oregon Trail out to the Oregon Territory.

Wanderlust struck again, however, this time to William. Moving from their family homestead, by 1862 he and Polly settled on a 160-acre ranch in the Shingletown area.

Life was hard for those early settlers. With a family that eventually included 14 children, money was extremely scarce. Raising first cattle and later sheep, the Aldridge family branched out into other money-making endeavors.