Valley Vineyard and Winery History is a Story of Immigration and Dedication

I was surprised to learn that our valley was at one time covered with vineyards.

During the Gold Rush, entrepreneurs were attracted to our fertile South Bay Valley so they could produce wine, brandy, and other products and goods, for the influx of immigrant miners flooding into San Francisco. 

As I state on my Wine History page, some East Coast sea captains (who brought miners to San Francisco), migrated to the fertile Santa Clara Valley, where they bought property and planted vineyards to produce the fortified wine and brandy so popular at the turn of the century. The East Coast already had a thriving wine and brandy culture in New England, with some vines imported from Europe, so these captains brought wine making and distilling skills with them, along with a desire to produce spirits for shipment to San Francisco, which was thriving due to immigrant prospectors seeking lodging, food, wine, and a way to spend their new fortunes.

Captain Elisha Stephens (of "Stevens Creek") was one such English immigrant noted for his brandies in West Side (now Cupertino), whose vineyards became part of what is now Blackberry Farm in Cupertino. James Pieronnet Pierce (an Englishman, whose father gave his sons $10,000 to emigrate to America to make their fortunes), was part owner of the Empire Gold Mines in Grass Valley, after building a sea wall in San Francisco. Pierce then moved to Santa Clara where he purchased Enterprise Mill, which he renamed Pacific Manufacturing. What is not noted in area history records, is that J. P. Pierce and Richard Thurston Pierce (his son), were noted as the most important wine growers in the Valley in the 1870's. (A daughter, Frances Pierce, married Lester Morse, son of one of the founders of the Ferry-Morse Seed Company.)

Vitis Californica - UCANR

The French were attracted to the Valley due to economic tumult in France during the Revolution, and the promise of riches from California gold. 

Antoine and Delphin Delmas were early French immigrants who were instrumental in starting Valley nurseries which imported wine grapes from the East Coast and Europe, to replace the disappointing native California grapes, which did not produce remarkable wine, yet attracted the early Mission settlement in Fremont, since those native wild grapes were prolific along Valley streams and hillsides. 

Vitis Vinifera - Cornell

Charles LeFranc, another French Gold Rush immigrant, bought land for his New Almaden Vineyards, and is considered to be the father of commercial wine production. Philippe Prudhomme, Pierre Sansevain, John Auzerais, and others, also immigrated to the area and were considered to be fathers of local wine production and grape importation, during the Valley's wine heyday.

Many early imported vines came from New England and were of the Vitis Vinifera variety. The early "Black St. Peter's" version of this varietal was identical to Zinfandel, and was widely planted or grafted onto the Vitis Californica root stock. By 1860, it was considered to be the premier California wine grape, and in 1858 Delmas won awards for his "French Claret" made from his grafted Black St. Peter's grapes.

Leland Stanford (Public Domain)

The French Prune, Apricot and Cherry orchards of Blossom Hill are well known, yet Stevens Creek Boulevard, Branham Lane, Delmas Avenue, Pierce Road, Naglee School, Portal School, and other familiar roads and landmarks, are named for early vineyard owners who also excelled in other aspects of civic life. 

Like those men, Leland Stanford was another early vineyard owner. 

Stanford's ancestor, Thomas Stanford, emigrated to America in the 1700's and settled in Massachusetts. Leland Stanford, Sr. was born in New York where his father was a farm owner. He became a lawyer and practiced in New York and Wisconsin, until his law library and offices burned in a fire, and he decided to join his five brothers out West in California.

Jane's family would not allow her to move West with Stanford, so she remained in Albany, New York.

Stanford opened a store for miners in Placer County and became Justice of the Peace, then helped organize the Sacramento Library Association (now Sacramento Public Library.) He rejoined Jane in Albany in 1851, but found Eastern life too dull after life in California, so Stanford and Jane moved to San Francisco in 1856, where Stanford joined Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntingdon, the so-called "Big Four," in creating the Central Pacific Railroad, incorporating in June 28, 1861.

That same year Stanford was elected Governor in California, served for the required two years, then became involved in the Pacific Union Express Company, which would eventually merge with Wells Fargo and Company, where Stanford was elected Director and would serve almost consistently in that role until his death in 1893.

Lloyd Tevis, mentioned below in relationship to the Tevis/Novitiate vineyards above Lexington Reservoir, was one of Stanford's partners at Wells Fargo. Tevis was also a partner in Haggin and Tevis, a somewhat controversial San Francisco law firm. Haggin was an interesting pioneer from Kentucky who came to California during the Gold Rush to join Tevis, who was also his brother-in-law, in San Francisco. His family estate in Kentucky was ironically, near Lexington.)

After profitable railroad pursuits Stanford became enthralled with wine-making after travel to France, bought agricultural property, and planted vineyards not only in near Menlo Park, but in Tehema County.

The old Stanford Winery today.
Cahill SF image (Photo no longer online)

Stanford's property near Menlo Park, nicknamed "The Farm," not only had 900 horses, but a vast 158-acre vineyard which produced 60,000 gallons of wine per year.

The old town of Mayfield, now where California Street sits in Palo Alto, was once the home of 13 saloons. Stanford wanted the entry gates to his new university to reside on Stanford Avenue near Hanover Street, if Mayfield residents would only vote to "go dry."

Mayfield residents rejected Stanford's offer, so Stanford asked Southern Pacific Railroad owner Timothy Hopkins, the adopted son of Mark Hopkin's widow, Mary Hopkins, to purchase 700 acres of private property North of the university, and sell off small lots. This community became known as University Park and was later incorporated as the town of Palo Alto. 

Jane Stanford was also active in local efforts to have Mayfield became a hub of the "dry town movement" designed to ban saloons within the city limits. The Menlo Park-area vineyards were converted after his death by Jane Lathrop Stanford, however the winery building was preserved. Stanford's old brick winery is used for shops and restaurants, on the West edge of the Stanford Shopping Center complex.

The Governor Stanford Engine
(Public Domain)

We do not have a Wine History Center in Santa Clara Valley to remember these early winery and vineyard owners, despite the fact that wine and vineyards were the bedrock of our early economic history, and these men were notable for so many other civic accomplishments. One of those notable men was Henry Naglee.

General Henry Morris Naglee was particularly interesting in regard to our early history, since he was a Civil War Veteran who was also active in the Mexican-American War which ended in 1848. 

Naglee bought land in East San Jose in 1852 and planted vineyards on returning from his last campaign, after travel to Europe where he visited Cognac and studied brandy production. From his efforts to produce a clear brandy from grafted, high-quality Riesling, Pinot Noir, and Charbono grapes, San Jose became a center of brandy and fortified wine production.

Henry M. Naglee
(Public Domain)

Naglee won numerous awards for his "white lightning," not because it was like French brandy, but because it was considered to be excellent even by 1940, when remaining bottles were tasted by local experts. 

He allegedly invited a group of pro-temperance teachers from San Jose Teacher's College (Also called "The Normal") to tour "Naglee Park," in 1883, then served them lunch with lemonade laced with his clear brandy, causing some of the teachers to require assistance in mounting home-bound carriages. (1)

His daughters sold off much of the estate after his death, and there was eventually a monument in his memory erected in Saint James Park.

Naglee was quite a character and more information about him has been documented by local historians, notably, Charles L. Sullivan, Jack Douglas and April Halberstadt.

Because Phylloxera and The National Prohibition Act (also called the Volstead Act) had such a devastating effect on Santa Clara Valley vineyards and wineries, the vines were lost to inter-planted fruit trees, and the valley turned towards stone fruits for economic survival. Only a few hearty vine growers and wine making families held out during Prohibition, along with the Novitiate, which produced sacramental wine for parishes in the state. Of those, Paul Masson, Pellier/Mirassou, Kirigin, Martin Ray, along with Guglielmo and others, still retain historic vineyards.

Also of interest are the Tevis vineyards and the Swiss Chalet-style mansion which were located on 1,071 acres above what is now Lexington park and reservoir, now part of The Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District's Bear Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.

The Tevis vineyards and mansion were acquired in 1906 by Dr. Harry Tevis (son of the millionaire entrepreneur and 1872 Wells Fargo Bank President, Lloyd Tevis.) Photo's of the estate may be found in the Novitiate Collection at Los Gatos Library.

Tevis Clubhouse Dining Room 1917 - Los Gatos Patch

Dr. Tevis purchased the property from James C. Flood, owner of the 1871 stock brokerage firm, Flood and O'Brien. Flood was a colleague of Leland Stanford and one of the so-called, silver "Bonanza Kings." 

Flood's $100,000 investment in Virginia City, Nevada Comstock mines, eventually netted him, his partners and his investors over $150,000,000 from silver and gold, or approximately $3,000,000 per month for each year the mines were in operation. 

Dr. Tevis sold the property to the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos, who then built Alma College on the site in 1943. Alma College was the first Jesuit Theological Seminary on the West Coast and Governor Jerry Brown was once a student there. 

The Tevis Mansion burned down on New Year's Eve night, 1970 and the property was sold to a Hong Kong casino owner in 1989, when it was slated to be developed as a gold course. According to historical records, Novitiate wine from early Tevas vineyards was used to try to douse earlier fires on the property.

Wine and Immigration - Partners in early vineyard life

The story of our Valley's wine industry exists side-by-side with the stories of immigrants who came to California, not only to follow the Gold Rush and it's related industries, but to escape from wars, revolutions, famine, ethnic repression and extermination, and capture the promise of a better life. That story continues today, although the industries now have changed to a more diverse economic culture.

"Californian Burgundy"
Yosemite Poster  by
London Wine Merchants

Development of the local Wine industry at Old Almaden Winery in 1852, created a cultural phenomenon in the Bay Area allowing our region to become a Mecca for food and wine lovers, wine retreats, wine and cooking weekends, Wine and Art festivals, wine tasting tours, and wine history, just over two centuries since the first Mission grape was harvested for sacramental wine at Mission San Jose, now located in Fremont. 

With the addition of Native American, South American and Pacific Rim cultures, plus their traditional foods and new ethnic markets, we have a solid immigrant culinary base with a deep affinity to our local wine culture.

From that shared experience, we have strong local cultural support for organic, sustainable, locally-grown foods, breweries and wineries.

It's hard to believe that some of us are only a generation or two away from our own immigrant roots, while some of us are just beginning our journey as today's entrepreneurs. 

Our wine history shares much of it's past with Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Napa Counties, where Santa Clara Valley families moved their wine making facilities after Prohibition and the housing boom here in the 1950's. If you explore those Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Napa Valley family names, you will see a similar salute to rugged and determined immigrant families who brought their native skills to the wines and vines of California, then stayed on to build civic centers, libraries, hospitals, and community places of pride and service, for today's families.

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For more information about California Wine History, please see my Wine History Page and explore the wonderful books by Charles L. Sullivan, who taught a Wine History course at De Anza College for many years, and who was honored by the Wine Literary Foundation in 2008 for his exhaustive and intelligent work as a regional wine historian. 

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(1) Historic San Jose: Tales of Naglee Park, Second Revised Edition by Jack Douglas: A project of the Campus Community Association. (Page 23, "Naglee Brandy" Chapter.)
Published by Campus Community Association, c. 2001, ISBN 0-9668707-2-7
(Articles originally appeared in the Campus Community Association newsletter.)

---C. D. Bright, SiliconValleyLibrarian.org

Horrible Haiyan: We are all Filipino in Silicon Valley

My father was a Navy veteran stationed in East Samar during WWII. He had fond memories of the people he met there, and of their generosity and hospitality.

Philippine Cultural Dancers: Kadena Air Base, Japan.
Photo: Senior Airman Nestor Cruz: Wikipedia Commons.

When he was not censoring mail, my father planted a large vegetable garden near his Quonset hut and shared his produce with the Guiuan Peninsula residents whom he befriended. 

They also shared their native culture and foods with my father, who was a gregarious butcher by trade, and an amateur chef by avocation, when he could pry my mother out of her kitchen back home. 

Many years later, at every holiday family gathering, my father spoke fondly of his time in the Philippines and the wonderful people he met there, entertaining our family with his many stories and memories. 

I became curious about our Filipino heritage here in Silicon Valley, when I realized that Guiuan, where my father was stationed, was hit by the recent Typhoon Haiyan and its destructive storm surge, which caused so much devastation in that region. 

My father would have been so sad to learn that descendants of the families who were so kind to him when he was so far away from home, had been so impacted by this recent natural tragedy. Likewise, the year before my mother died, she was brought bowls of pancit by visiting Filipino members of her former work community in Northern Silicon Valley. It had become one of her favorite foods from their potlucks at work. 

I am dedicating this column to Filipino families in our valley, who are now are suffering such tragic losses and challenges in grieving, locating or aiding their families back home, and who by extension, have been so kind to me and my family, among others they have touched in our community. Their tragedy is our pain, and we will stand by them until their suffering is eased.

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The first permanent settlement of Filipinos in the United States was comprised of escaped sailors who had been pressed into service on Spanish galleons. 

"Manila Village" Barataria Bay, Louisiana:
Wikipedia Commons.

These escapees settled in "Manila Village" (Barataria Bay, Louisiana) around 1763, although Filipinos were said to have arrived earlier in Morro Bay, California, on Spanish galleons, sometime around 1587.

Migration to the United States began after the Spanish-American War, when the Philippines became a territory of the United States and Filipinos were exempt from immigration laws.

Many early Filipino residents of California were agricultural workers, yet some were students (primarily men) sent as “pensionados,” through a Philippine Commission appointed by President McKinley in 1901. The commission scholarship program for student immigration was active between 1903 and WWII. 

Filipino American Veterans at the White House,
May 2003: Wikipedia Commons.

During the war the United States Navy recruited Filipinos, who were by that time subject to an immigration quota of only 50 persons per year, due to the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which named them “aliens.”

After the war, The War Brides Act of 1945 and Alien Fiancées and Fiancés Act of 1946, allowed 16,000 Filipina war brides (and one groom) to come to the United States to be married. 

Many early nuclear families were located near Navy, Army, and Air Force bases, where some Filipino communities still reside today.

The Luce-Celler Act of 1946 allowed 100 Filipinos to immigrate to the United States and petition to become citizens each year, to prevent them from being barred from entry once the Philippines gained their independence from the United States. (The act also allowed 100 Indians to immigrate annually as well.)

For a wonderful online collection with San Francisco photos of Filipino life in the 1950’s, please see The Alvarado Project Exhibit: Through My Father’s Eyes.

John C. Gordon Collection: SJSU Special Collections

From 1965 and into the 1990’s, the Family Reunification portion of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 allowed many highly skilled and educated Philippine natives to enter the United States.

Filipinos provided the US with a high proportion of health care professionals, and Filipino nurses were highly sought after by other countries, since there were nursing shortages both in the US and worldwide.

Like many other cultures, Filipino Americans were subject to early prejudice, which caused them to settle in what were called “Little Manilas,” communities centered around larger urban cities, which would eventually disperse in later years. In California, Filipino Americans intermarried more and clustered less than in other areas of the country, and seemed to own more businesses.

AWOC/ UFW leaders Larry Itliong & Philip Vera Cruz.
Photo by Tim Biley: Wikipedia Commons.

Some Filipino American agricultural workers were very active in the early farm worker movement in Northern California. 

Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, co-founders of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which had already mounted a grape strike in Delano, merged with the National Farm Workers Association founded by Cesar Chavez, whose NFWA group walked the picket line in solidarity with AWOC workers.

The merged group became known as the United Farm Workers Association, whose goals were to increase their impact in achieving a shared vision of equity and respect, and to obtain unemployment insurance for farm workers. UFWA later evolved into a farm workers’ union under the AFL-CIO, and was renamed the United Farmworkers Union.

The work of Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, when allied with Cesar Chavez, benefited all Filipino groups and opened many doors for later generations. Filipino American’s today maintain above average higher education rates, with most students gaining a Bachelor’s degree and advanced degrees in the fields of education and information technology, and in all health-related fields. The American Medical Association reports that Filipino Americans are the second largest group of foreign-trained physicians in the United States.

Likewise, Filipino Americans are the second-largest Asian American group in the United States (after Chinese Americans) and generally enjoy a longer life expectancy than most other Americans.

Bay Area, Señior Sisig Filipino Fusion Truck.
 Esque Magazine: Wikipedia Commons.

In the Silicon Valley region, the 2010 US Census reported 105,403 persons of Filipino descent are among the 1,836,911 residents in this area, or 5.73% of the total valley population.

In contrast, the entire San Francisco Bay area (San Francisco and Oakland, South to Fremont) has 287, 879 Filipino residents among 4,335,391 total residents, or 6.64% of the total population in this region.

According to the 2002 US Economic census, Filipino-owned businesses are primarily in the medical, dental and optical fields, and include Filipino-owned restaurants. In Northern California most of these businesses are located in the Bay Area, with Santa Clara County now home to the largest Filipino community in Northern California. (Los Angeles has the largest population of Filipino Americans in Southern California.)

Lloyd LaCuesta, Image: Courtesy of KTVU

Notable Bay Area Filipinos include:

Lloyd LaCuesta – KTVU television journalist and South Bay bureau chief

Diosdado Banatao – Engineer, philanthropist and businessman

Rob Bonta, ASMDC.org

Jose Esteves, City of Milpitas

Rob Bonta (Left) – The first Filipino American California State Legislator

Jose Esteves (Right) – Mayor of Milpitas and former city councilman

The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) Santa Clara Valley Chapter has more information on the history of local Filipino Americans in our valley. 

The Filipino AmericanChamber of Commerce of Santa Clara County also has resources for tapping the wealth of experience in the Filipino community of Silicon Valley.

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To contribute funds to Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) flood relief efforts in the Philippines, please see the list of relief organizations vetted as credible by APALA, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance of the AFL-CIO: http://apalanet.org/apala-blog/yolanda/

---C. D. Bright, SiliconValleyLibrarian.org

Special Effects: Mt. Lassen, Stanford University, and Monte Sereno's Fred Hitt

One of early Silicon Valley's less-known but wildly interesting characters was the brother of Thomas Gabriel Hitt (1874-1958), a London pharmacist and chemist who was nearly expelled from Westminster College for creating fireworks, which he kept hidden under his college bed.

Hitt's firework label 1920

T.G. Hitt left England in 1899 and emigrated to Victoria, British Columbia, where he established Hitt Brothers Fireworks Company with his younger brother, Fred G. Hitt, who later became a Monte Sereno native. 

In 1905 the two brothers moved to Columbia City, Washington, just outside of Seattle, where T.G. bought four acres of rural, wooded hillside. He incorporated his fireworks factory there under the name Strontia and Chemical Manufacturing Company, only to change the name back to Hitt Fireworks Company two years later.

At the new hillside factory, T.G. Hitt could test his fireworks and explosions without disturbing neighbors, who came to refer to the site as "Hitt Hill." His brother Fred eventually moved to Monte Sereno, where he was an avid organist, which will have significance later in this story, but more about that later.

Fred Hitt's home and Pacific States Fireworks Factory, 
Monte Sereno, 1925 (SJ Mercury News)

In Monte Sereno, Fred, an engineer by training, specialized on the more practical side of the Hitt brother's business by producing flares for boats, auto owners, and railway engineers. 

The company also produced flares used to exterminate moles and gophers, as well as a noisy product called "Doggone," which a postal worker could use to discourage hostile dogs.

Fred Hitt's Pacific States Fireworks Factory, 
Monte Sereno, 1940 (HistoryLink.org)

Hitt's bread and butter (in the previously Chinese-dominated fireworks industry) was something called a "Flashcracka," a small, loud firecracker, as well as other smaller firework products like coils of loud caps for cap pistols, crystals which could be thrown into a fire to create a rainbow of colors, Roman candles, sparklers, black snakes, and other affordable novelties.

The Hitt brothers substituted photographic black powder (an oxidizer plus magnesium or aluminum powder) for the potassium nitrate which had been used by Chinese fireworks manufacturers. This change made Hitt's firecrackers louder and more startling than the products of their Chinese predecessors, and allowed the Hitts to further stun and amaze during their pyrotechnic displays. Over time Hitt shared his formula with Chinese manufacturers, who then started mass-producing Flashcrackas for the Hitts. W.E. Priestly, Hitt's cousin, began selling Hitt's fireworks internationally with great success.

Raymond Hitt

In Seattle, T.G. Hitt and his son, Raymond (shown to the left), were known for creating elaborate sets and recreating famous historical events. Their productions involved extreme and explosive pyrotechnical displays using life-sized, painted replicas of city scenes, plus performances by chorus girls and military drill teams. The grand finale of each event was the conflagration of the entire set, most notably in their more famous recreations of the Fall of Babylon, the Last Days of Pompeii, and the Great Fire of 1889 (Seattle).

News of their propensity for building life-sized, historical replicas, then destroying them in over-the-top firework extravaganzas, traveled to Hollywood, where they were hired to stage explosive special effects for major movie productions, including:

• 1926: What Price Glory: Explosions and fires
• 1930: All Quiet on the Western Front: The explosive battle scenes
• 1939: Gone with the Wind: The famous burning of Atlanta scenes

Likewise, they created astounding and elaborate firework displays for annual Fourth of July events, commercial events, and the grand-opening celebrations for national and international fairs:

• 1909: The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle
• 1915: The Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco
• 1926: The Philadelphia Sesquicentennial
• 1939: The New York World's Fair 

Eruption of Mt. Lassen, 1915 USGS

Notably, Hitt Fireworks also created products for the military during World War II. Those products included parachute flares for soldiers, allowing them to see the ground before landing, plus large-scale smoke bombs to hide military bases and shipyards during the war.

My favorite story, however, most likely because it is a local one and it involves a truly over-the-top idea by the National Park Service, concerns Monte Sereno pipe organ-playing engineer and resident, Fred G. Hitt. First, some background.

Ray Lyman Wilbur was born in Boone County Iowa and was the brother of Curtis Dwight Wilbur, who became United States Secretary of the Navy under President Calvin Coolidge.

While a freshman at Stanford University, Ray Wilbur met fellow student Herbert Hoover, who at the time was working for a local laundry and trying to encourage students to become regular customers. Hoover's wife was a college friend of Marguerite May Blake, who became Wilbur's wife, and the two couples remained lifelong friends.

Eruption of Mt. Lassen 1915, as seen in Red Bluff, CA. NPS

In 1929 after being elected president, Hoover nominated Wilbur (now the President of Stanford University), as the 31st US Secretary of the Interior. (Wilbur was later criticized for renaming Boulder Dam after President Hoover.) 

Wilbur retained a lifelong interest in the welfare of Native Americans. He reorganized the Bureau of Indian Affairs to improve Native American prospects and living conditions.

In 1927 when the California State Park Commission was established by the State Legislature, Ray Wilbur, who was a Bohemian Club, Pacific Union Club, and Commonwealth Club member, was appointed to serve with three other commissioners.

Because of Mt. Lassen's ties with the Atsugewi, Yana, Yahi, and Maidu tribes, it may have been a site of particular interest for Wilbur when it was finally protected by Congress in 1916 as the fifteenth national park, after a series of volcanic eruptions in 1914 and 1915.

Magazine Cover, November 1931
Pinterest, Popular Science

To celebrate the grand opening of the new park in 1931, after roads were finally constructed making the park accessible to the public, something spectacular was needed after Wilbur, as Secretary of the Interior, addressed national and state dignitaries. Monte Sereno resident Fred Hitt was hired to simulate the 1915 volcanic eruption of Mt. Lassen, using fireworks, shells, and TNT, with the help of park service workers and an elaborate series of electric signals.

According to a July 1931 San Francisco Associated Press article which was carried nationally:

"Using tons of powder and chemicals, carried on the backs of mules to an elevation of more than 10,000 feet, a score or more of pyrotechnic experts, wearing gas masks will attempt to duplicate the 1914 eruption of Lassen Peak, July 25. The park, containing 163 square miles and surrounding the only semi-active volcano in the continental United States, was created by Congress in 1916, but has heretofore been inaccessible to the public. A new highway into the heart of the park has just been completed."

Niagra Falls Gazette, Man-made Eruption
July 11, 19231, Fulton History

The article goes on to describe two planned man made "eruptions," one to last 20 minutes, with the second to last 40 minutes. Inside the crater Hitt planted 38-inch shells to simulate the heavy smoke of one original eruption, termed "Vulcan's Face," which seemed to form a man's facial features during the 1915 eruption of Mt Lassen. After the two mock eruptions, Hitt planned an hour of fireworks followed by a mock thunder and lightning storm. The AP reporter goes on to state:

"Twelve-pound rockets and 38-inch shells will be employed. Each shell is designed to make 500 lightning flashes, with thunder clashes such as accompany each electric discharge during a natural storm. The red lava overflow from the crater will be simulated by specially devised flares and powder flashes. Fred G. Hitt, the expert in charge of the display, believes...(the effect will have) a fair measure of success. "

But why is Fred's organ-playing notable in this story about Mt. Lassen? According the unnamed AP reporter:

"Much of the firing will be done by electric currents, transmitted by wire from a sufficient distance to give the director in charge (Fred Hitt) a perspective of the entire display. The men in the thick smoke of the crater will place and discharge the huge shells, bombs, and rockets in accordance with a carefully arranged schedule and specific instructions received over the signal wires. To create the lurid glow of a volcano in action, rockets that burn brilliantly for 40 minutes will be set off, 50 at a  time, at frequent intervals. To effect the lava glow alone, 1,000 pounds of flares will be ignited."

At the event, Interior Secretary Wilbur observed:

Fredd Hitt setting charges at Mt. Lassen, 1931
Susanville Stuff

"Governor Rolph and I were on the program in the early afternoon of the second day---just before the fireworks began. These took the form, at 4:00 P.M., of a 'reproduction of typical daylight eruption of Mt. Lassen,' and, at 8:00 P.M., a 'gigantic pyrotechnic display from the top of Mt.  Lassen'---both of which events we (along with thousands of other Californians) viewed from Kings Creek Meadows....their artificial, man-made 'eruption' turned out to be even more spectacular than some of Mt. Lassen's own have been. Clouds of smoke rose from the crater, which was ringed with red fire. At night the peak sparkled with aerial flares, bombs and rockets, and the final phase of the fireworks display simulated a molten lava flow, with wave after wave of red fire rolling over the crater's rim and down the bare rocky slopes."

It seems that Fred Hitt not only played the pipe organ masterfully, but tinkered with and repaired pipe organs over the years. As a result, it's not surprising to learn that Hitt used an old pipe organ keyboard to detonate the simulated Mt. Lassen eruptions and send signals to the gas-masked men in Lassen's volcanic crater, telling them when to discharge their rockets, shells, and bombs, during what was most likely, the most unusual event in California and National Park Service history.

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Many thanks to the Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, The SCHOONER Project, Rainer County Historical Society, and King County Library for material on the Hitt family posted in History Link #3348 at HistoryLink.org

More information on opening ceremonies at Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park can be found in the November 1931 issue of Popular Science. Some issues can be found online through Google Books.

The Memoirs of Ray Lyman Wilbur: 1875-1949 , Stanford University Press, 1960, can be found online through Google Books.

The 1931 San Francisco AP article on the dedication ceremonies at Mt. Lassen Volcanic National Park can be found in online newspaper image records for the Niagra Falls Gazette (pictured) and The Reading Eagle. I believe the image of Fred Hitt was taken from an earlier NPS Museum Gazette article, but it could also have been taken from the Popular Science Magazine article of 1931. I have searched online for provenance but only find it reproduced without clear attribution. There is a 1931 NPS publication which covers the re-creation of the Mt. Lassen eruption and fireworks event at the park's dedication, but it seems to have disappeared from online sources.

More images of the eruption of Mt. Lassen in 1914 and 1915 can be found online through the National Park Service and USGS Web sites.

Heartfelt thanks to Cupertino Historical Society and Rotarian, DougMcNeil, for his slide-talk on Monte Sereno history, with a hope that more about that lovely town and it's notable figures will be preserved and placed online by a future Monte Sereno historical group.

The Reading Eagle of Sunday July 19, 1931, also carried a story on the Mt. Lassen event, which can be found at this link in Google News.

All material was accessed online, July 1, 2013.

---C. D. Bright, SiliconValleyLibrarian.org