One of my favorite high school history teachers, Jerry Zottola passed away November 24, 2013, at his home in Hiouchi. He was born in the Bronx, New York, July 12, 1924. He graduated from Grants Pass High and served in the Navy as a radioman during World War II. After leaving the service, Jerry attended…

Born in Brooklyn, New York, October 24th, 1870, Tasker Oddie lived in East Orange, New Jersey, where he attended school. From the age of sixteen to nineteen, he lived on a ranch in Nebraska. After returning from Nebraska he engaged in business in New York City. During this time he attended night law school, from…

Doesn’t it seem as if the people with the most problems are often those who are most thankful for what they have? Facing a crisis tends to make us appreciate the things we take for granted. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in ‘Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community,’ — “We pray for the big…

In the winter of 1620, Pilgrims, traveling by sea, settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts, for religious freedom — a desire to worship God and live according to Holy Scripture. But the country they found was bleak and uninviting, with several inches of snow already on the ground. Of the 102 passengers aboard the ship, the Mayflower,…

The ‘Queen Christina’ ran aground off the coast of Del Norte County on October 21st, 1907. The steamer had sailed from San Francisco, Saturday, the 19th, for Portland, Oregon, with a cargo of wheat. Build at Newcastle, England, in 1901, she displaced 4,268 tons, had a beam of 48 feet and a length of 360 feet. At…

Three men rode up to the First National Bank in Winnemucca on September 19th, 1900, and they left with nearly $33,000. The trio reportedly included Butch Cassidy along with Wild Bunch member Kid Curry and another man, whose never been never identified. It would be the last holdup by the famous gang, which later had…

One hundred years following incorporation, a 204 page document was presented to the board of supervisors in July 1957, recommending Crescent City’s charter be dissolved. It went on to ask city services be turned over to the County of Del Norte. The board turned down a motion that would have called for the election of 15…

‘Corky’ Simms passed away November 17, 2013, at his home in Klamath after a three-year battle with cancer. He was born on January 10, 1935, at Kapel, on the Klamath River, to Doris Roberts and raised by Hector Simms. After his service in the United States Marines, he returned home to work as pile driver,…

While researching the Century Airline crash killing two people when it slammed into Castle Rock and burst into flames during March of 1980, I learned about a crash that began while 21-miles above the Mohave Desert. On that Tuesday, December 10th, 1963, the jet was being test-piloted by Colonel Chuck Yeager. A newspaper report from…

In the later part of my junior year in high school the re-examination of the President John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassination was nearing its crescendo. While everyone in class was being forced to read such books as “Lord of the Rings,” or “Ragdoll,” I was working my way through three books on the conspiracies surrounding JFK’s…