121 years ago

Full-page ads for the new coming city of Northern California, Amedee, located in the heart of the Honey Lake Valley, boasted a fine hotel with 60 rooms and plans for a bath house utilizing the famous boiling springs making Amedee the “Health Resort of the West.”

71 years ago

Sheriff Olin S. Johnson, civilian defense coordinator for Lassen County, said the area would be ready for a blackout in case of a bombing raid by enemy aircraft coming into the area targeting Shasta Dam or Hawthorne Naval Station.

66 years ago

Vehicle owners of Lassen County who have not received their 1947 license plates and registration cards are asked not to worry and to refrain from writing letters to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Although the plates are being mailed out as fast as they are made, it will not be possible to produce all the 1947 plates by April because of the steel shortage.

30 years ago

Lassen County Sheriff Ron Jarrel criticized the proposed elimination of the criminal justice courses at Lassen Community College. College President Warren Sorenson’s proposal to cut 100 courses next year contained the loss of 31 criminal justice classes.

Jarrel later commented that coordination with Butte College could provide the courses required by law enforcement personnel if necessary, but could limit their progress in certain fields.

20 years ago

On Wednesday, Feb. 3, President Bill Clinton declared a major disaster in California, thus triggering the release of federal disaster funds to help individuals and local governments recover from the effects of severe snowstorms, mud and rock slides and flooding that struck a wide area of the state during January.

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the president’s major disaster declaration makes federal relief funds available to affected residents and local jurisdictions in 10 counties including Lassen, Plumas and Modoc.

15 years ago

A new Lassen Historical Museum is top priority for the Susanville City Council.

“Let’s get a project done and give those people something to work out of,” council member Lino Callegari said last week, “instead of a building that’s ready to collapse.”

A $23,000 Forest Service Economic Recovery Grant paid for architectural design and a master plan for the new museum. The council accepted those plans in October of 1996.

11 years ago

The California Attorney General’s office will appeal the overturned death penalty of Benjamin Wai Silva, who was convicted of a gruesome 1981 murder in Lassen County.

Lassen County Attorney Bob Burns said, “I don’t think the AG’s going to lay down and die on this. They’re going to fight the decision of ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. You know the ninth circuit is the most overturned federal court of appeals.”

Silva was convicted of the abduction, robbery and murder of Ridgecrest resident Kevin Thorpe in Madeline. Silva, Joe Shelton and Norman Thomas kidnapped Thorpe and his girlfriend, Laura Craig, college students who passed through Madeline on their way to Oregon returning from break.

Five years ago

Just when most of us were busy dipping another crispy tortilla chip in that big bowl of chunky guacamole and waiting for legendary rock stars Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to kick off the halftime show at Super Bowl XLII, a Susanville resident was hard at work making sure the show’s opening moments came off without a hitch.

As Petty and company cranked out the opening bars of “American Girl,” Susanville resident Suzi Blackwood was leading the charge at the front of a Gibson Flying V guitar that pierced the glowing heart-shaped stage in the middle of the darkened stadium with a dazzling blast of pyrotechnics.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Blackwood said.

One year ago

`U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the Burney-Hat Creek Basins Project will receive a substantial grant under the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) program.

The CFLR program is part of an accelerated restoration strategy under way on national forests and grasslands across the nation. Its overarching goal is to increase the pace of restoration on national forest lands and create jobs in forest-dependent communities.

The Basins Project, envisioned by the Burney-Hat Creek Community Forest and Watershed Group (BHCCFWG), is slated to receive $605,000 in funding in 2012. The project focuses on 369,000 acres of Burney and Hat Creek watersheds and the communities dependent on this landscape. It involves public and private land and a diverse collaborative partnership group.