Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A Forgotten Spirit Remembered Part 2

Continued from Part 1

Residents of Cottonwood, California donated their artifacts to their new museum, along with the cases to display them in. Eventually covering three rooms, these eclectic exhibits included paintings like Frank Adams’ famous painting of Major Pierson Reading’s adobe house, memorabilia from a local young Army flier who died on a training mission in 1931, doctors’ prescriptions from 1901 to 1910, a collection of rocks and minerals loaned from Shasta College, and a variety of antique machines.

The town was proud of its museum. But this shining star’s life was short-lived. Located at the end of Front Street in an area with no street lights. it was an easy target for vandals. Late one dark night in 1981, a group of robbers broke in. Stealing what they could, they left destruction and rivers of shattered glass in their wake.

Broken-hearted, too sad to think of rebuilding, Cottonwood residents left the wrecked site vacant for years. Eventually the building was purchased and moved to Front and Brush streets where it now serves as a real estate business.

A Forgotten Spirit Remembered

Sprawling across two counties, the town of Cottonwood California has a colorful past. Founded in 1852 following the expansion of gold mining in the northstate, it grew with the development of the lumber industry. Front Street’s extraordinary width was specifically created to allow horse-drawn wagons to load lumber and then turn around.

Cottonwood’s history is full of interesting tidbits. In 1870, for example, the middle fork of Cottonwood Creek sported lush Chinese gardens. The town even had it’s own horse racing track, originally on Fourth St. It later moved to Trefoil Lane where the PG&E substation now sits. The town’s first newspaper, the Shasta County Index, which stood just east of where Holiday Market, a well-known fixture on Front Street, is located - started in 1885.

All this and more was recorded and elegently displayed in the early 1970’s in the Cottonwood Museum. Located in the old Southern Pacific building on Front Street, town residents bought the building in 1972, around the time of the building’s 100th anniversary. The Museum opened the following year.