The Mormor Stories: The Stagecoach Stop

Road travel in my lifetime has been so insular: you get into your car and drive, stopping only to gas up, eat, or sleep. But 100 years ago travelers relied on the kindness of strangers along the way, from help getting unstuck to bed and board in a family's home. It's difficult for me to imagine the level of blind trust in strangers that was required of a person making such a trip, or of the families taking strangers into their homes. (At the end of Mormor's narrative I have a short story to tell, so stick around.)

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When my parents first moved out to the ranch at Camp Grant my mother quickly found out that it was used as an inn and was the first night's stop for the stage on the road to San Francisco. The Redwood Highway along the south fork of Eel River was not yet built, though there was a one-way road (trail) to the various ranches along that part of the river. (This served your great-grandfather's place, Neil and Karen.) Also the road over the hill from South Fork to our place was not yet complete, therefore the stages had to ford the river and come up though our pepperwood grove to reach the house.

My dear mother never knew on three nights a week whether she would have just the family, the hired man, and the stage driver for supper, or a whole car full of people to feed, bed down, and serve an early breakfast.

About this I recall several things: how busy I was helping Mama make beds, setting the table, and doing the everlasting dishes afterwards without any conveniences to make it easy.

Also I remember one stage in particular -- a high, seven passenger black Packard that I believe was driven by a Mr. Smythe. When it was raining sometime the stage would get stuck in the pepperwood road, so my father would go down with the team and some boards to pull it out. Often I went along to report back to Mama how many to feed that night. Papa would be paid $1 for getting the stage going again, and Mama got $1 from each passenger for two meals and bed -- imagine!

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Mormor was my mother's mother, and the events of this story took place nearly 100 years ago. But my father's mother's home, here in the Valley at about the same time, was also a stage stop.


(Photo stolen from the Wells Fargo blog)

Their ranch in north Chico was the final stop for stagecoaches bringing wealthy people from San Francisco to Richardson Springs, a spa retreat in the hills just north of Chico. San Francisco is about 160 miles from Chico, and the Valley is very hot and dusty, so you can imagine the shape the passengers were in when they reached the ranch. Wealth and position likely dictated that these elegant passengers dress up, not down, for their trip; living in San Francisco, they were probably freezing when they left and were wearing warm clothes (a huge mistake for the Valley, then or now).

(Photo stolen from this site)

Richardson Springs was quite close to my great-grandparents' chicken ranch, so the passengers were almost there and didn't require a meal or lodging, but they certainly must have needed cold water and a privy stop. My grandfather sold eggs to the resort, which the stage driver picked up at this stop. Those eggs represented important income for the family, who were dirt poor.

Richardson Springs Resort burned down in 1921, and while it was rebuilt and continued to operate for years, the depression and World War II hurt the hotel's business considerably. There was to be no chicken egg gold mine for my great-grandfather, and the family remained dirt poor for a few more years.

Two different parts of my family tree with very similar life experiences.

Comments

[Alias Liz Jones]

I do love your Mormor stories. I have an aunt that is 90 years old. She is a walking history book.
I love to hear her account of things.
I love your window into the past. Thanks for sharing.

[Raz]

Those people look like they've been superimposed on top of the wagon... that's how many there are!

Plus, lovin' the Indian.

[Rick's Cafe]

"Butt" County CA, with a picture of a mostly naked Indian.

Sex in advertising even back then.

[yeah, Butte is probably pronounced with a long U - but that doesn't follow the rules nor would be as much fun]

[Chesapeake Bay Woman]

You're lucky you have these stories documented for posterity.

Up until the mid-1970's, we had our milk delivered in glass bottles and my grandmother went to a local farm to buy eggs. (My other grandmother had her own chickens and sold the eggs at the country store she ran.)What I remember about that egg place was the smell...not very appetizing.

I can't imagine wearing the heavy outfits of the time in that heat and inhaling the chicken smell (if in fact yours had a smell, I know ours sure did).