Not only is Bachelor Valley my home, only 2 miles from Upper Lake, that’s where I got my mail when somebody started rifling the mail boxes for whatever they could find and the mail boxes were closed temporarily. I suppose they found the culprit because, three weeks later, Angie, the post master, gave me the okay to pick up my mail at the corner like always instead of driving the 2 miles to Upper Lake.
Upper Lake is also the nearest city from my farm. The small population of neighbors nearest my farm includes the Native Americans that live near Lake Pillsbury up in the mountain behind Upper Lake.
Upper Lake, like Bachelor Valley, has changed a lot just in the last 50 years. The old post office, which used to be where the Smith’s large family now resides, used to be at the corner. When the Smiths moved in, the post office was decommissioned and moved to Upper Lake. The volunteer fire department building next door to where the post office was, used to house the single fire truck. That’s gone too. I think Fred Smith uses it as an extra garage. The folks have mail boxes across the road for their mail pick-up these days … unless you have a box at the new post office in Upper Lake.
Upper Lake is famous. When you read Nancy Kelsey’s story, “Nancy Kelsey’s Diary” in a “History of Lake County,” a book I wrote and soon to be published, you may recall another name; Mrs. Dewell. Mrs. Dewell worked with Nancy Kelsey to gather the cloth and stitch the lettering for the famous Bear Flag of California. Mrs. Dewell’s husband, Benjamin, was the first man to settle in Upper Lake in 1854.
W.P. Elliot’s blacksmith’s shop in Upper Lake, also part of the history, “Pioneer tales; The Blacksmith,” was the first and only business of any kind in the upper end of the Clear Lake Valley.
By 1887, Upper Lake was almost as busy a city as New York or San Francisco. The thriving center had four general stores, two blacksmith shops, a carriage maker, one saw mill, one grist mill, one sash factory, two good hotels, two livery stables, one milliner and dress shop and a shoe-maker’s shop. There were four Christian denominations represented; each with a church. No fewer than three secret societies had set up for business.
In spite of all this bustle, I was amazed and astonished to learn the whole kit and caboodle of those many edifices, for who wished to imbibe in spirits, had only a single saloon in town available to them. Usually, in most towns, for every church there are an equal, or greater, number of bars and taverns. I wonder if that means the saints and the sinners are competing for our souls? Here, with four churches, it was the other way around. That meant that Upper Lake, in 1887, was mostly peopled by saints.
When I came to Upper Lake nearly 50 years ago, the town had gone to seed. Before I write too harsh an opinion of its state back then, let me say, during the last five years, they have gussied up the town just fine. They have street lights and a grand sign over the entrance to Main Street.
Upper Lake was once the county seat before they moved their offices 10 miles east to Lakeport. The county seat bounced around four times as the fight commenced between elections between Lakeport, Kelsieville and Lower Lake. See “Voting with a Pistol” in my History of Lake County. They used guns to decide the election. That’s all past. We all get along OK now.
Gene Paleno is an author and illustrator living in Witter Springs.
