Sierra College & Litton Trail Loop Hiking & History Tour

This self-guided tour was created for the 2023 Sierra Writers Conference. The conference theme celebrates the 20th Anniversary of Sierra College Press and the first publication of Standing Guard: Telling Our Stories, a beautifully photographed and formatted remembrance book about Placer County Japanese families, many of them fruit farmers, who were incarcerated during WW II.

After researching the Litton Hill land, people, and plants, it was noteworthy to learn that the Nevada County Campus of Sierra College shares WW II, fruit growing, farming, and publishing history with its Rocklin sister site.

Below, you will find tour components that include videos, podcasts, maps, and music.

Explore and enjoy the journey!

Download Interactive PDFs, with live links, to take on the go.

Phone Recommended Media PDF – podcasts, maps, and a time travel playlist

Large Screen Recommended Media PDF – videos & maps

Prior to the Gold Rush

Litton Hill Farming Families – 1850s – 1930/40s

podcast | newspaper printing history

Sierra College Campus Walking Tour – 1950s – 1990s

podcast | campus map | koi fish documentary | koi fish custom art | Gerald Angove interview

Writers Conference Materials

Campus Walking Tour-related writing prompts

Sierra College & Litton Loop Trail Sights

podcast | map | time travel playlist

Recent Sierra College Nature Observations

More Sierra College & Litton Hill Resources

Resources for Sierra College & Litton Hill Tour

Articles

Charles V. LittonHistory of talent and innovation in Nevada County: Grass Valley video industry | The Union (2014)
Grass Valley Hospital is Sold to Electronics Firm | The Sacramento Bee (1953)
Sierra College to assume property under eminent domain | The Press Tribune (1993)
Richard NoellDeath by Rail Car (1915 – page 8)
James Hughes Disposes of Orchard Property | The Union (1922)
William F. Prisk, Early Union Editor |The Morning Union (1893)
Robert Ross RoadRoss Helped Establish Local Campus of Sierra College | The Union (2005)
Sierra College celebrates 20 years in Nevada County (Interactive Timeline) | The Union (2016)

Videos & Reference Books

ANNOTATED NEVADA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INTERVIEW

Gerald Angove, Sierra College President 1975 – 1993

0:04:20 – 1940s Hughes Road. 0:04:45 – Golf course caddy & fish bait
0:10:27 – Hills Flat community, gas plant, and Nevada County Narrow-Gauge Railroad
0:42:02  – Pollution and Lake Olympia
0:48:00 – 1975 President of Sierra College
0:49:00 – Twelve-year legislative process to build Nevada County Campus
0:49:40 – Nevada County Campus
0:50:16 – First phase of NCC Construction

Printing Press History

0:02:07 – Washington Press

Koi Fish Documentary

Briar Patch Supporting Local Farmers

Playlist Links

Precious Waters – Carlos Nakai
Yuba – Mary Youngblood
The Singing of the Travels – The Folksongs of Britain (Cornwall)
Six Jolly Miners – The Folksongs of Britain (Cornwall)
Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy‘s Chowder – George L Giefer (Ireland)
President Grant Newcastle – Angus Chisolm
Mule Train – Frankie Laine
Railroad Boomer – Bud Billings & Carson Robinson
Joplin  – Maple Leaf


Places to Visit

HISTORIC CEMETERIES

Boundy – Newcastle Cemetery 
Hughes – Pine Grove (Nevada City) & Odd Fellows (Grass Valley)
Noell – Odd Fellows (Grass Valley)
Ross – Rough & Ready Historic Cemetery
Worthington – Pine Grove (Nevada City)

MUSEUMS

Nevada County Historical Society

Nevada County Narrow-Gauge Railroad Museum

Georgie Porgie – Arnold Johnson
Glow Worm – Dawn of the Century
Foxtrot – Michael Jary
Nature Boy – Nat King Cole
Simple Melody – Bing Crosby
Dating Game TV Show Theme Song
Dr. Who TV Show Theme Song
Sun Song – Nick Castro
Black or White – Michael Jackson
Cover – Patrick Patrikios

Custom Hiking & History Trail Art

Backtracking “If you build it, they will come.”

 There’s been a movie line running through my mind like an earworm since I finished Crossings: A Chinese Odyssey on Donner Summit. The line is, “If you build it, they will come.”

David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries

 I repurposed it from a baseball diamond in a cornfield to maps and roads; footpaths, wagon roads, sail and overland maps, railways, highways, and high-speed jets.

 

Humans really can move mountains if we put our attention to it as the recent article How the Transcontinental railroad forever transformed US points out.

The Chinese railroad story called to me because the marginalized people who accomplished this herculean task deserve to be known and recognized for their contributions.

The image above shows nineteenth-century political cartoonists poking at the railroad monopoly. It’s no joke that it, and many other of our systems, have become monstrous.

 The bigger issue I grapple with now is the systems we’ve established and how to backtrack from there. 

Those of us living in developed countries exist at an apex of technology and structures designed for easy living (and buying). But we are also at a point where most of us understand this way of living is not sustainable. 

Just this last year, we saw Congress avert economic devastation when the national railroad workers threatened to strike. Stronger-than-ever storms are shredding housing and infrastructure and in California, Earth-scorching firestorms and drought are constant worries.

Established infastructure is fragile and revealing weak spots.

A Barbara Kingsolver book I read recently provided an idea I’ve latched onto for backtracking some of my own contributions to Western culture’s ever-expanding quest for growth.


In the book, a middle-aged woman, Willa, grapples with dissatisfaction after a lifetime spent following the rules and doing what’s expected. Along with supporting adult children, a grandchild, and an aging parent, her historic home is falling to pieces around her.

 

Willa’s epiphany comes when she releases ‘American Dream’ ideas about family constructs, retirement security, and wealth. Once she does, the solution to her house problem becomes obvious. Not to reveal spoilers, but with Gen. Z guidance,  part of her land is repurposed to serve community needs.

In her book, Kingsolver demonstrates ways to reformulate ingrained expectations. She gives examples of how to reduce one’s lifetime footprint, leaving the world different and, hopefully, better. 

“If you build it, they will come,” happened with the railroad and other developed living, transportation, energy, judicial, and healthcare systems. Now we must work to change collective expectations and redesign the way we live on planet Earth.

Rough & Ready Cemetery – Filling in the Plot

Self-Guided Tour

Plan a visit between sunrise and sunset hours.


14474 Stagecoach Way
Rough & Ready, CA 95973


Select your preferred audio or visual media and travel back in time with a Randolph Flat family where you’ll learn about living with a handicap, problems with open mine shafts, women’s voting, love, and loss.

While visiting the cemetery, please demonstrate abundant respect for the Stagecoach Way neighbors, for those at eternal rest, and for their stone markers.

Download the single-page tour sheet PDF that includes GPS coordinates, a topographic map, and all tour links.

The podcast features period music and folk songs. (Same narration as the video.)

Soundcloud Podcast

Video includes
U.S. Census records, newspaper articles, and emotive video clips.
(Same narration as the podcast.)

YouTube video

“It was a perfect day to be out in person and in reverence for those hard working ancestors that came before us. The creative historical podcast was so interesting I had to watch the u-tube video.”

Mary Jo Curtin



Randolph Flat area
Images photographed from the big maps at the Searls Historical Library in Nevada City
https://nevadacountyhistory.org/searls-historical-library


Jenny Lind mining claim
Images photographed from the big maps at the Searls Historical Library in Nevada City
https://nevadacountyhistory.org/searls-historical-library

Bertha Cleveland mining claim
Images photographed from the big maps at the Searls Historical Library in Nevada City
https://nevadacountyhistory.org/searls-historical-library

Letter to Living Descentands:

Dear Clendenen and Cleveland descendants,

The self-guided tour media was produced by a genealogy volunteer for educational purposes only. All of the support documentation is available on Ancestry in a public tree named, “Filling in the Plot – RR Cemetery.”

While researching and pulling together public domain elements for this presentation, you were always in our thoughts.

There are so many relatable and engaging aspects of this story, it is sure to spark conversations and make Nevada County history even more memorable for its residents and visitors.

EXTRA

Create your own Cemetery Story (article) How-to Research in Three Steps (at bottom of page) – Full Circle Living and Dying

Links mentioned in the audio and video presentations:

 Jack London short story  –  PDF |  audio recording (YouTube).

Research Resources:

Find A Grave
Ancestry
Family Search
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Newspapers.com
The Grass Valley Daily Union archives
Doris Foley Library
Searls Historic Library

Referenced Nevada County Cemeteries 

St. Canice Cemetery
634 – 636 W. Broad St.
Nevada City, CA 95959

Pine Grove Cemetery
100500 – 18049 Red Dog Rd.
Nevada City, CA 95959

New Elm Cemetery
Kidder Street
Grass Valley, CA 95945

FullCircleLivingDyingCollective.com
http://followingdeercreek.com/

Free History Talk at the Rough and Ready Cemetery

Join me on March 26th at 1 p.m. for a free history talk where I will be presenting the story of the Clendenen and Cleveland family of Randoph Flat. 

The first members of this family traveled to California by overland trail. The last generation had radios at home and women who could vote.

Readings from the Grass Valley Morning Union and other newspapers will illustrate the happenings of their lives.

Click here for details and to sign-up.

 

Georgetown & Volcanoville

History and Hiking

Learn the history, then hike through where it happened.

This post includes Georgetown and Volcanoville newspaper clippings from 1896 – 1958.

A trails list and links to additional reading and community resources are at the end.

Enjoy!

iPad Users:
Save this
presentation
to your device!

Click here to download the interactive PDF.

Georgetown

Is the Georgetown Hotel Haunted? [FrightFind.com]

White-crowned sparrow | iNaturalist, user radrat
American Booklime | Photo credit iNaturalist, user LisaRedfern

Volcanoville

1896 Chico Weekly
California Sister | Photo credit: iNaturalist, user rawcomposition


1897 Oakdale Graphic

Convergent ladybeetles | Photo credit: iNaturalist, user scotwegner

1909 El Dorado Republican

1903 Marysville Evening Democrat

Emery Rock Tripe Lichen | Photo credit: iNaturalist, user LisaRedfern

Hiking Trails

Quarry Trail
This wide, level and easy, 5.6-mile trail connects Hwy. 49 to Poverty Bar. It follows the route of an old, Gold Rush-era flume – a man-made channel used to convey and harness the power of river water for hydraulic gold mining operations. Part of this trail was later used as the Mountain Quarries railroad, which transported limestone from the adjacent quarry. Elevations average approximately 700’ along the length of the trail.

Stagecoach Trail
Originally a stagecoach line built in 1852, this “moderate up, easy down,” 1.8-mile trail connects the Confluence to Russel Rd. and offers spectacular bird’s eye views of the Confluence Area and the American River canyon. From the Confluence, the Stagecoach Trail begins at an elevation of 567’, climbing to a maximum, ending elevation of 1,256’.

PG&E Road Trail
This “moderate-up, easy-down,” 1.3-mile trail offers spectacular views of the Middle Fork American River, as well as present and past limestone quarrying operations. This trail is best accessed from the Quarry Trail. There is no parking available at the upper end of the trail. Elevations range from approximately 700’ to 1,300’.

Olmstead Loop Trail
This easy to moderate, 8.8-mile loop parallels Hwy. 49 near the Town of Cool on one side and the American River Canyon on the other. It passes through rolling oak woodlands and includes canyon

More Local Links


Sierra Nevada Geotourism

Georgetown

Articles, Books & Blogs

Adventures in History – Trey & Monica Pitsenberger

Legends of America – Volcanoville

Miscellaneous

Mine Data – Josephine & Shields Mine

Georgetown Divide History Facebook Group

1958 Jeep Jamboree photos

Map of Georgetown Divide, El Dorado County showing portions of the Placerville and Forest Hill Divide with the ditches, mines, and other properties of the California Water Company.

University Falls YouTube Video

University Falls is 11 miles east of Georgetown, Ca. About a 3-mile hike down to the falls themselves, the last 30 – 400 yards is pretty steep with a rutted trail.

Publication researched and prepared by Lisa Redfern

Thank You, Black Artists!

National youth poet laureate Amanda Gorman reading her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at the Presidential Inauguration dazzled, and Shonda Rhime’s Netflix series, Bridgerton took me to an alternate reality where I swooned and laughed.

These women grew hope for the year ahead and reminded me what ‘normal’ feels like. Sending heaps of gratitude – keep making more!

Wishing you a joyful Black History Month 2021!

More inspirational Amanda Gorman poetry and music by John Batiste who brings smiles and musical accompaniment to Stephen Colbert‘s monologues.

American Black History Study Resources

“If you don’t know better, you can’t teach better.” – Dr. Bettina Love | Sierra Writers Conference 2021 Keynote Talk

For Black History Month 2021, I’ve curated a YouTube playlist and additional study resources that have been helping to fill gaps left in my public school history education. 

Every video in it is associated with longer documentaries, films, podcasts, and/or books and audiobooks, as well as museums. The last video featuring Stanford Psychology Professor, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt talks about what needs to be done to slow automatic bias within the brain.

Roughly organized along a historical timeline, the video collection includes the following topics; cotton and sugar industries, the New York Times 1619 project, early free Black communities, slavery, Reconstruction, The Lost Cause, lynching, policing, Civil Rights, Confederate statue removal, historic figures, and contemporary work on caste, racism, and implicit bias.

Additional Resources:

Biology: Race is a MythInterview with Alan Goodman, Hampshire Collge Biological Anthropology Professor & Co-editor of Genetic Nature / Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Cultural Divide and Building a New Bio-Cultural Synthesis (PBS) | Video: Cautionary Notes on Using Biology to Infer Identity and Ancestry

There’s No Such Thing as Race (Newsweek 2014)

“Facts – The Civil War (U.S. National Park Service)” Nps.gov.

“What This Cruel War Was Over The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it” The Atlantic. Coates, Ta-Nehisi 

Education, The Lost Cause & Monuments

Lost Cause of the Confederacy  – Wikipedia 

The ‘Lost Cause’ That Built Jim Crow“. New York Times. Gates Jr., Henry Louis (November 2019)

Make It Right (MIR) Project was a multimedia campaign from 2018 to 2020 dedicated to educating the public and strengthening the media capacity of the national movement to remove and replace Confederate monuments and memorials.

“The South’s Fight for White Supremacy” The New York Times. Meacham, Jon (August 2020)

“Texas Mother Teaches Textbook Company a Lesson on Accuracy” Nytimes.com. Fernandez, Manny; Hauser, Christine (October 2015)

Lesson Plans

Abolitionist Teaching Network

Facing History and Ourselves (Lesson Plans) – Facing History’s resources address racism, antisemitism, and prejudice at pivotal moments in history.

Pulitzer Center – The 1619 Project Curriculum 

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

Racism Inserted into Popular Culture

The Birth of a Nation’ Shown” Washington Evening Star

“Romanticizing Confederate cause has no place onscreen” San Francisco Chronicle.  LaSalle, Mick (July 24, 2015)

“Regarding ‘Song of the South’ – The Film That Disney Doesn’t Want You to See.” IndieWire.com, Sergio (February 2016)

Vigilantism

“When Bigotry Paraded Through the Streets” The Atlantic. Rothman, Joshua (December 2016)

 

Recommended Theme Reads – Baby Stealing, Water Ecosystems & Houseboat History

Theme-based reading recommendations; unknown aspects of American history, water ecosystems, and houseboats.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours accomplishes something I relish while reading for pleasure – it taught me something. The story is about a Tenessee baby stealing ring, Depression-era shantyboat culture, and institutional mistreatment of children.

For me, the most intriguing storyline follows a riverboat family from the ‘before’ time. Descriptions of nature knowledge gained while living on the Mississippi River are lush and sensory. It reminded me of the next book on this list.

The heartbreak, terror, and powerlessness suffered by poor birth families taken advantage of while at their most vulnerable and children separated from loving parents, and further – siblings from each other – was worthy of the strong emotions it stirred.

This book strengthened my convictions about the support needed for defenseless populations and about prosecuting those who value money over humanity.

A Secret History of American River People


Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

The “Marsh Girl” is an enigma in the backwater settlement closest to Catherine’s (aka Kya) home.

Abandoned by her mother, siblings, and eventually, by her abusive alcoholic father, the youngster navigates on her own through her teen and young adult years. She becomes an avid self-taught naturalist who delves into life the cycles of the animals and plants in her South Carolina marsh environment.

‘Fear of other’ and class bias causes her neglectful community to turn against her when the son of a prominent family is found dead.

Where the Crawdads Sing will delight natural history readers while highlighting the social and emotional damage caused by indifference and loneliness.

‘Where The Crawdads Sing’ Author Delia Owens Has A Strange Connection To A Real-Life Murder Mystery


Floating Point by Shelley Buck

Shelley Buck’s contemporary memoir gives the reader a viewpoint of life on a houseboat in the San Francisco Bay Area.

You’ll never look at a marina quite the same.

Shelley is a dot.com spouse with a high school-aged son attending a financially challenged charter school. While developing her author career, she seeks out a creative housing solution in uber-expensive Silicon Valley. Her journey takes the reader into a fluid dock community, repairs and maintenance unique to houseboats, and waterfront real estate under constant pressure from developers.

Buck’s canine-loving and nature appreciating observations intermingle with poetic narratives and moments of anxiety as she navigates through her soon-to-be empty nest and approaching retirement years.

If your reading mood calls for nature and water and you’ve got emotional reserves to explore traumatic children’s issues, Before We Were Yours and Where Crawdads Sing are great choices. If you want an uplifting family saga fraught with kids, pets, and mechanical challenges, Floating Point should hit the mark.

Best Wishes for Compelling Reading!

For ten more book recommendations from a historical fiction author/ reader, visit World of Mailman.

Hashtags

#microbooksummary #isolationreads #livingonthewater #quarantinereads  #currentbookread #currentlyreading #evironmentalreads #natureloverbooks #naturereads #naturebooks #ecology #wildlife #naturebookstagram #loneliness #comingofage #abandonment #humanconnection #selfreliance #animalobservation #selftaught #strongfemaleprotagonists #powerofhumankindness

Research Eating

In order to authentically write about a railroad worker camp cook, I had to cook and eat like one.

Below are links to resources I’ve experimented with to get the feel and flavors just right for the railroad camps.

click the image to link to the recipe

*click image for book link* This book was written by a descendent of a Chinese railroad worker. It includes family stories that were passed down through the generations.

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