California’s Pioneer Mountaineer of Rabbit Creek

This book describes the life of John Thomas Mason, dubbed California’s pioneer mountaineer of the town of Rabbit Creek, which was renamed La Porte in 1857. Mason and his family moved to Downieville in 1880.

John Thomas Mason’s meanderings in the out of the way places of the Western wilds. A short sketch of his ancestry, starting with the famous French explorer, La Salle, who was in the Great Lakes territory of American in 1669. Mason crossed the plains in 1851, and, to 1930, had spent 79 years in the Rabbit Creek region and Sierra County. Together with facts—curious, furious, funny or fine—of this rough and rich country in early days which have been little heard of or else forgotten.

Table of Contents

John Thomas Mason, 13
Fifteen Feet of Snow at Rabbit Creek, 17
Miners’ Meeting at Spanish Flat, 18
Growth of Rabbit Creek, 21
Largest Nugget Found at Downiesville, 25
Professor Edward Vanderwort, 34
Naming of the Mining Towns, 35
Fortune Made in Dried Apples, 37
California Stage Company, 38
Rowe’s Circus, 41
The Grand Christmas Ball (poem), 43
Barbers and Bathtubs, 47
Volunteer Fire Department, 48
Slick Jim the Bad Man (poem), 49
A Couple of Unfortunates, 52
Rabbit Creek a Mecca for the Chinese, 53
Young Mason Starts Working, 55
The Big Fire, 61
Three Auerbach Brothers, 63
Zenith Year of Rabbit Creek, 64
Feed Houses, 65
An Episode in John Mason’s Life, 66
Later Days, 71
Surprises Due in Mining, 72
Last Minute News, 73

Source

Dressler, Albert, California’s Pioneer Mountaineer of Rabbit Creek, Downiesville, CA : Mountain Messenger, 1930.

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