Shasta Springs, California, 1953

My first memory of Shasta Springs was in 1953 when I was a 5 year old. It was an amazing part of my new life as a Californian with my Dad and Mom. We had moved to the San Diego Area and I had just finished kindergarten (so maybe I was six because I might have turned 6 in the spring and ready to start 1st grade. We had moved when I was 4 from Seattle where I had been born and grew up until 4 on my Grandfather's 2 1/2 acres of land in Lake Forest Park in the Seattle Area. I had been to a public school in Vista California and then El Cajon California when we moved to a bigger house and yard for me to have room to run around in with an apricot tree and my next door neighbor, Danny Barsox and I would often sit up in the tree eating apricots and watch the rooster running around next door in the next yard over. He was 5 too like me.

The summer of 1953 my father who was an electrician wanted to donate his time to his church "The Saint Germain Foundation as free electrician. (I think they paid him a stipend for doing this while we stayed in Shasta Springs while he redid a lot of the Electrical there and at the Amphitheater in the little city of Mt. Shasta, (also owned by the church) where the church put on the "life of Jesus" pageant in an open air theater at least once every year usually in August.

So, walking out of the car and seeing Shasta Springs was quite an experience for a 5 year old. Imagine it was 1953 and Dad was going to basically set me free within certain parameters for 6 weeks time with other boys there often with their parents too for the summer to wander the trails and byways and to walk by the springs. People likely wouldn't do this with a 5 or 6 years old but then in 1953 you were already expected to pretty much take care of yourself, even when you were a little insecure in meeting new people then. I was pretty shy.

The movie "Stand By Me" sort of typified what summers 1953 until 1960 were like for me. I still consider Mt. Shasta to be my spiritual home on earth.

But, I also enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery and the 1200 acre to 2000 acres of what constituted then as the Historical Shasta Springs.

1. Shasta Springs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shasta_Springs   Cached
   

   Shasta Springs was a popular summer resort during the late 19th and early 20th centuries on the Upper Sacramento River in northern California. It was located just ...

2. Kenneth R Clark's Shasta Springs Resort Album

   shastasprings.com/Resort   Cached
   

   presented by Kenneth R. Clark . Mt. Shasta was the Centerpiece of Southern Pacific's Route of a Thousand Wonders. The forest, and rivers full of trout and salmon ...

3. SHASTA SPRINGS - SnowCrest Inc.

   www.snowcrest.net/photobob/shspring1.html   Cached
   

   shasta springs (page one) the buildings shown in the following turn of the century photos are all gone now and only their foundations can be seen among the thick ...

4. Northern California Historical Photos

   www.caviews.com/Northern California.html   Cached
   

   Shasta Springs Southern Pacific Passenger Train at ... We have over 34,533 historical California images listed in our database and can provide a computer ...
   
   Here are some photos taken likely around the turn of the century of the beautiful way up then to the resort from the railroad:
   this is found deep into Kenneth Clark's Shasta Springs Resort album with word button above here:
    The cable car is the quickest way to the resort at the top of the hill and the view is spectacular
   
   
   
   
   By the 1950s when I was 5 in '53 they had a really nice enclosed one I think I remember riding in. I think they kept maintaining it until around 1957 or 1960 or around there sometime.
   
   Also, when we drove from San Diego to Mt. Shasta it was a very long two day or a survivable 3 day drive then. Interstate 5 hadn't been put in at all yet. So, the Grapevine over the hills from Los Angeles to near Bakersfield took 4 to 5 hours on very curvy windy roads (hence grapevine).
   
   It took another 5 or 6 hours then as well to drive up from Redding to Mt. Shasta when I was 5 on Hiway 99. You might as well have called it "the grapevine" too as it was such a windy thing and trucks were always crashing coming down it with brake fade. Between ages 5 and 8 one summer my father took me to see the latest Big Rig Crash in Dunsmuir. The only thing holding the semi off the railroad tracks then was huge trees. They must have needed 4 or five huge towtrucks to get that thing out of there.