President Rutherford B. Hayes and his party only spent one day in Butte County and most of that day was taken up by a visit to the mining town of Cherokee. Carriages and wagons wound their way across the valley, past Pence’s Ranch, and up into the hills. A “double-ender” wagon (I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of one) drawn by “six powerful horses” carried the General of the Army (Sherman) and several other gentlemen. President Hayes and his wife, General Bidwell, and the ladies followed in a carriage. They received a raucous and enthusiastic welcome from the citizens of Cherokee.

Cherokee was reached amid the booming of heavy blasts [from the mine], the strains of marital music furnished by a local band, the firing of some anvils, and the shouts of residents and visitors from Oroville, Dogtown, Yankee Hill, and other settlements.

Cherokee was a booming, bustling mining town. I’m not sure of the population in 1880, but it could have been 2000 or more. The Spring Valley Mine employed upwards of 500 men, and the town boasted 17 saloons, 8 hotels, 2 schools, a racetrack, a skating rink, and a brewery.

The distinguished visitors were treated to a banquet held on the picnic grounds. They sat down to a table “teeming with delicacies and fairly groaning with luscious fruits grown in the mountain vineyards,” and served by a bevy of bright-eyed young ladies.”

But minus General Bidwell’s famous casaba melons. Bidwell had sent a wagon on ahead loaded with watermelons and casabas, along with a water wagon to sprinkle the dust. According to Helen Sommer Gage,

When they got about half way there, the dust began and the watering had stopped. The water wagon and the melon wagon had gotten in the wrong road and had gone up towards Paradise instead of Cherokee. The General was very disturbed, and he said “My, my, ladies and gentlemen, I feel badly that we have all of this dust.”

My mother happened to be riding in the carriage with them and she said General Sherman in this drawling voice said, “Well, General Bidwell, don’t feel too badly about it. Because otherwise we wouldn’t have known what wonderful sand we had in Butte County.”

Helen Sommer Gage, Recollections of Early Life in Chico and General and Mrs. Bidwell (1972)

If you drive today on Durham-Pentz Road past Butte College to Pentz Road, you can understand the mistake the two wagon drivers made. Left turn, you are on your way to Paradise, right turn and you are heading to Cherokee. (The name of the original ranch owner was Manoah Pence, but the government changed the spelling to Pentz when a post office was established.)

Coming Next: Gold for the First Lady