90 years ago

The Lassen Grain and Milling Company began flour production with a capacity of 50 barrels of flour a day. The newspaper reported when another mill opened in the Honey Lake Valley before the year ended, the two mills engaged in “grain wars.” Each mill was determined to capture the biggest share of the highly competitive flour market.

65 years ago

County landlords had to register at the courthouse under the laws stated in Maximum Rent Regulations. When the Sierra Army Depot opening was announced, a ceiling was placed on county rents after it was declared a Defense Rental Area.

40 years ago

Governor Ronald Reagan approved the Lassen Modoc Resource Conservation and Development Project. This program would allow local governing institutions to initiate the development of area resources in order to benefit local people and economies. The project area included more than four million acres in Lassen and Modoc counties.

25 years ago

During a regular meeting of the Health and Human Services Advisory Board, the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs found the county’s $7,400 a month contract with Lassen Professional Counseling Center to be in non-compliance because of improperly taking fingerprints of LPCC directors and delays in financial statements sent to state officials.

20 years ago

If you want to change a chipmunk into another creature, hopefully one with a little more intimidating reputation, how would you go about it?

As the students of McKinley School learned last week, when you live in America, there’s only one way to make such a significant change — by voting.

The occasion was the Tuesday, Nov. 3 election and the decision to be made was momentous indeed: the adoption of a new mascot and a subsequent change in the school’s identity.

A dozen possible names were submitted and after the ballots were cast, all the chipmunks became bulldogs.

10 years ago

For the second consecutive year, the Lassen County Board of Supervisors has endorsed and adopted a resolution proclaiming a local emergency due to drought conditions.

Lassen County Emergency Services Chief Chip Jackson told the supervisors on Tuesday Oct. 29, that while the drought conditions are not as severe as in 2001, farmers were hit hard because of the lack of rain in 2002.

“We have an estimated crop damage of between 31 and 35 percent,” Jackson said. “What the farm services administration told us was that the House (of Representatives) had gone into recess and did legislation that allows them to come back in on Nov. 12 or before and legislation that was going to the president was tabled, and it looked to us like they were going to close the counties and everyone else’s window to file.”

Jackson told the board last time a situation like the current drought conditions occurred, the House failed to allocate $589 billion.

Six years ago

“What we’re attempting to do is stop a mass exodus from taking place at the sheriff’s department,” Lassen County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Bollinger said last week.

As employees of the lowest paid sheriff’s department in the state, eight of 20 deputies and 10 of 34 correctional officers have applied to other police agencies or the State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, “That we know of,” Bollinger said on Thursday, Nov. 2.

“This is our home; we want to stay,” said Lassen County Sheriff’s Deputy Donnie Watson.

Watson, Bollinger and other members of the Lassen County Peace Officer’s Association are at an impasse in salary negotiations with the county, meaning both sides have put forth offers, but they don’t agree and have called in a mediator to take offers from one side to the other.

One year ago

A wild horse roundup designed to return herds to sustainable levels is now in its second week on northwest Nevada public lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management's Surprise Field Office in Cedarville, Calif.

As of Wednesday, Oct. 26, crews had removed 573 wild horses from three of the five herd management areas (HMA) in the High Rock Complex in Washoe and Humboldt counties, Nevada.

Additionally, 37 wild horses were returned to the Bitner and Nut Mountain HMAs to ensure populations remain at appropriate management levels.