Sal Manna's blog

Did you know that the 1960s “Big Valley” TV series was inspired by a woman rancher in West Calaveras? Or that both the first and the most famous olive orchards in the entire region were in Wallace? How about Capt. Messenger during the Civil War or Catts Camp or the San Joaquin & Sierra Nevada Railroad or the area’s connections with Charles Darwin and Old Ironsides?

Do you know that the first California native to become an admiral was born near Valley Springs? Or that Wallace was named after the older brother of one of the most famous naturalists of the modern era? Or that a poet-soldier of the Civil War was a Burson postmaster?

Articles related to Calaveras County in “California History,” the scholarly magazine of the California Historical Society published quarterly since 1922, are rare. But the lead essay in Volume 85, Number 4, available this month, not only partly concerns West Calaveras but was written by local author Sal Manna, President and Founder of the Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History, and monthly "Something From Nothing" columnist for the Valley Springs News.

The Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History thanks everyone who helped make the inaugural Valley Springs Train Times such a tremendous success, including all of our vendors, and especially Mike and LeAnn Jurek, Dave Valladao, Linda Belli, Valley Springs Area Business Association, Valley Springs News, Sheng Chi Kung Fu, Toy Train Operating Society, Recreational Railroad Coalition, E Clampus Vitus, The Train Gang, Never The Same, Patricia Jackson & Jason Smith, The Paul Wood Express and Joe Doris, Calaveras Gunfighters, Glenn Wasson, Bill Renwick, Bill Claudino, Russ Thomas, Dann

One hundred and twenty-three years and one day after the first train of the San Joaquin & Sierra Nevada Railroad pulled into Valley Springs, the town will celebrate that event with a rededication of its historic train depot, a huge model railroad layout, and more. The Valley Springs Train Times event at the intersection of Highways 12 and 26, on Saturday, April 26, 2008, free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., is sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History (SPWCH), the Valley Springs Area Business Association and the Historic Valley Springs Train Depot.

Judith Marvin, Julia Costello and Sal Manna have written the "Northern Calaveras County" volume in the Images of America series for Arcadia Publishing, released August 27, 2007. The book is filled with some 200 vintage photographs spanning Burson, Wallace, Valley Springs, Jenny Lind, Campo Seco, Paloma, San Andreas, Mokelumne Hill, Mountain Ranch, West Point, Rail Road Flat, and more. To obtain a copy, please send $23.95 (includes sales tax and shipping) to the Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History (SPWCH), PO Box 714, Burson, CA 95225.