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From 1989 to 2004, we lived in the heavily-forested
country outside of Grass Valley, California, a historic and beautiful small community in the Sierra Nevada foothills
between Sacramento & Lake Tahoe.
Now we live in Reno, Nevada... we still go back to Grass Valley often to see our daughter,
Kelly, and her family, to visit our church and friends there, and to be in the tall pines and greenery.
We've learned to love the high desert area in Reno and go often to the mountains and forests
which surround us.
We've
become active in the Reno MG - All British Car Club and enjoy activities with the members... great
driving, great food, and great companionship.
entrepreneur exec consult Barnes auto car customer relation manager grand child kid personality
profile assess test interaction communication personal develop self improve business opportunity health home work job 1950
Ford 1968 Mustang 1978 MG MGB
Green, Forested, Hilly
Grass Valley, California
Home for 15 Years in the Foothills of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains
| Tall pines and fall colors at our house |
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| Bank Street from Mill Street |
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| Uphill on South Main Street |
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Gold in Them Thar Hills!
Gold was discovered in 1854 on the McKnight farm in a large bowl shaped
grassy valley surrounded by foothills densely-forested in tall pines. As often happened in those days, the farm
was overrun by "49'er" miners moving north from the original "diggins" near the Sutter Lumbermill site about 50 miles
south (and, despite what your history book said, NOT in Sacramento). Within just a couple of years, the resultant town
of Grass Valley had over 5,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in the new State of California. Many of the
original buildings from that era still exist in downtown on Mill Street (our "main" street) and Main Street (intersecting
Mill).
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| Downhill on North Main Street |
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| Looking down Mill Street |
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| South Main St. from Auburn St. |
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| On Dog Bar Road to Grass Valley |
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The Miners Were Rugged Individualists:
At first, mining was a highly individual sort of thing, with thousands of rugged men coming from virtually every
State and most other countries. They lived in tents at first - in our bitter cold and rainy winters (which have between
60 and 100 inches of rain per year, far more than Portland or Seattle, all of which usually occurs between early November
and late May). Grass Valley now gets about five to ten snows each winter, but, between the late 1860's and early 1900's,
six to 10-foot snowfalls several times per winter were common. It was a harsh life, with many deaths from freezing,
tuberculosis, pneumonia, flu, frostbite complications, and a host of diseases that have been virtually eliminated in modern
times.
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| Grass Vallley: Down Mill Street to Main |
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| Fall colors on North Main Street |
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| Our old Packard dealership, recycled as a store |
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Hydraulic Mining Started the Environmental Movement:
The first miners either sluiced water from streams, used pans to find the gold in place, or dug into ancient gravel
deposits and strained loose gold out. These methods were collectively known as "placer" mining. As the "placer"
mining ended, due to the thousands of miners overruning the area, hydraulic mining evolved, using gigantic hoses which shot
a stream of water as much as a half-mile against hills and cliffs to break down the rocky soil. This was highly effective...
for the miners - but a disaster for anybody downstream. The resultant lawsuits by farmers and ranchers in the Sacramento
Valley, thirty or so miles away, resulted in a decision by the early California Supreme Court that was the nation's first
environmental ruling.
| The old Union newspaper building |
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| Joe and a quartz gold stamp mill |
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| Wells Fargo Bank |
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| Typical fall colors |
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Deep Tunnel Hard Rock Mining Took Over:
When all the surface and immediately subsurface deposits had been mined out, quartz gold was discovered at deeper
depths. This required a completely different type of mining: Deep tunnel mines with elevators and mule-drawn carts.
The Empire Mine - the world's largest gold mine for over 50 years - had hundreds of miles of mines at many levels, extending
down for almost a mile underground. Huge pumps kept out the natural spring water that would have filled the mines quickly.
This type of mining took huge capital investments, resulting in, initially, only the very wealthy being able to float a company...
then consortiums of such people... then corporations. The fiercely-independent miners of the past started service businesses,
opened stores, became brewers, opened brothels, or just drifted away.
| Our art deco Del Oro Theater |
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| Joe in front of the Library |
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| The old Nevada County Bank |
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Hard Rock Mining Changed Grass Valley Dramatically:
This deep tunnel method of extraction was known as "hard rock mining" and very few people in the U.S. knew how to
do it... nor were interested in learning. Miners were imported from the Cornwall area of England... and each of them
told supervisers about their "cousin Jack" who also knew how. "Cousin Jack's" came over by the thousands - leaving a
heritage to this day in the names of restaurants, stores, jokes, and our famous Cornish Christmas festivals during November
and December.
The mines of Grass Valley produced more gold than any other mining area in the
world for almost a 100-year period. Mining continued in Grass Valley as a major corporate activity until 1954, when
the price of gold didn't support the cost of extraction. The mines were abandoned and eventually flooded. With
the present value of gold, it would be worthwhile to initiate extraction again, but the overwheming task of pumping the
billions of gallons of water out have proved daunting to the largest of investment groups.
It's hard to believe it now - looking at the densely-forested areas in and around
Grass Valley - but by the late 1800's there wasn't a tree standing within a 10-mile radius of the town. The rapacious
needs of the mining industry for wood fuel resulted in the complete denuding of this beautiful area. There were
neither any environmental concerns nor laws during that era. The oldest trees in all our current dense forestation are
barely 100 years old.
| The famous old Holbrooke Hotel |
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| Old service station, now a store |
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| Fall Trees in the City Parking Lot |
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The Grass Valley Area's Economic Decline in 1990:
When we first moved to this area in 1989, it was not a healthy economic climate. Grass Valley Group, the leading worldwide
market-shareholder in the high-end video editing business, was the local "success story. Even though it had all
the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBS, CNN, TNT, TNN, etc., as well as most European networks) and virtually all large production
TV studios in government, education, medicine and relgion as customers, stiff competition from Sony and other overseas suppliers
with lower labor costs were putting intense pressure on the firm. It had shrunk from 1800 employees to 1200 by
the time Liz went to work there in 1991 (by the time she left in 1999, the company was down to 275 employees). The downturn
in the economy following Desert Storm in early 1990 hit this area particularly hard, resulting in a 10-year economic stagnation
until early 2000. About every other storefront in downtown Grass Valley was boarded up, and many of the newer shopping
centers outside of town were looking pretty bad, as well.
A Significant Resurgence: Since
mid-2000, the area has re-birthed itself. Our downtown is alive and vital. We've been discovered and become a
major tourist destination. We have a huge number of high-end specialty shops, antique shops and emporiums, and general
"cutsey" stores. It's not necessarily what we would've chosen, but we're all very happy to see stores and businesses
thriving. We don't like the increased traffic snarls from tourists who absent-mindedly gawk at the specialness and beauty
of our town, but we're glad to be healthy again. And we've had a plethora of both small businesses and high-tech spin-offs
from people were were laid off from or just got tired of watching Grass Valley Group's management flounder and fritter
away opportunities and people. We've got a beautiful new high-tech business park, Whispering Pines (which really is
located on a tall hill covered with tall pines).
The Best Benefit - An Unusually High Quality of Life:
A very small portion of the population of this area are natives. About 1/3 have moved here from Southern California;
about 1/3 from the San Francisco Bay area, and maybe 1/6th from other locations... this means that around 5/6ths of the people
who live here do so because they WANT to live here! We have our share of problems in the county, but far fewer
than most anyplace we've visited or even heard of. People are warm and friendly. Everywhere we go, we see people
we know (something that virtually never happened when we lived in the South San Francisco Bay area). The schools are
small, with small class sizes, excellent staff and administration, and very strong in getting parental and community involvement.
We have numerous alternative and charter schools (i.e., Lianne's creative student's program in grade school junior high and
her independent study program for high school). Our annual County Fair was rated by one of the national magazines
as one of the ten best regional fairs in the world! It's held in our beautiful Nevada County Fairgrounds... in the midst
of a pine forest. We have major multi-day music festivals here that attract musicians and attendees from all over the
world: The 4-day World Music Festival in July, the 2-day Celtic Festival in August, the 4-day Bluegrass Festival
in June, and a host of others. We have numerous community theatre groups, and a great variety of restaurants.
Government is small and much closer to the people. We have a very high percentage of well-educated "telecommuters" who
work out of their homes several days per week. We basically have people who live here because they love living here...
and that makes for a great place to live.
| Near Main at Mill St. |
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| Main St. near Mill St. |
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| South Main Street |
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See Our Current Home In
Surrounded by High Mountains &
Close to Lake Tahoe
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See a variety of Classic Car and modeling WebRings & websites at the
Entry Portal - just click on the picture or the underlined
link above.
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| Click to go to Website |
Here are some truly
great scale models - I have almost 200 of these in my own collection (from the small 1:43 to the authentic 1:32 to the very
detailed 1:24 & the huge 1:18 size)... and now I'm offering them to others.
We specialize in highly-authentic - yet reasonably priced - models [1:144, 1:132, 1:72, 1:50, 1:43, 1:32,
1:24, 1:18, and other scales]:
Cars (late 1800’s - modern), pickups, highway freighter
trucks, fire trucks, buses, motorcycles, construction & excavation equipment, airplanes (fighters, bombers, & civilian),
ships (naval, passenger, & transport), military (tanks, tracked, jeeps, humvees, figurines, & other), other types
of vehicles, general transportation-related (buildings, gas pumps, signs, & figurines), trains & railroad paraphernalia,
display cases, hood ornaments, watches, clocks, automobilia, and many other items.
| Liz on Board a Plane |
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Want to browse this site more? Click a link:
| Barry at Vail, Colorado |
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