The first recorded contact between Indians who lived in what is now known as Del Norte County and white men was June 9, 1828. On that day, the Jedediah Smith party met the Tolowa.

However they were not the first as there had been some previous contact with Russian and Hudson Bay fur traders. But sustained contact between white men and the Indians of present day Del Norte County was very limited until 1852.

The events leading to that extensive contact have their roots grounded five years before as on May 13, 1847, the United States declared war on Mexico. And the following year on January 13, California was militarily taken from Mexico and by February 2, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, officially giving title of California to the United States.

Coinciding with the takeover of California from Mexico was the California Gold Rush which began in 1848. Northern California was not immune to “gold fever,” with the discovery of gold by Major Pierson B. Redding in the upper Trinity River.

The discovery of gold triggered a mass immigration of miners and traders into Northern California. This would change life drastically for the Indian peoples of the area.

Then in September 1850 California was admitted to the Union. That same year the first State Constitutional Convention was held.

At that convention the California Legislature was formed. The new Legislature established Trinity County, which encompassed present day Del Norte County.

Here’s a salute to the passing of the Silver State’s many abandoned mining camps. And while not standing anymore in their original glory, they will still be remembered in another hundred years.

In 1862, Prebel
In 1863, Buster Falls and Lucky Jim Camp
In 1864, Guadalajara
In 1865, Morey
In 1866, Old Camp and Reveille
In 1868, Arabia
In 1870, Alleghany’s Camp
In 1871, Pinto City
In 1872, Yankee Blade
In 1874, Gouge Eye and Hardscrabble
In 1879, Northumberland

Also a hat tip to the miners who lived in those long forgotten shacks, bought supplies in the general stores, and drank in the town’s saloons. And every once in a while those same miners found a ledge or vein that made them rich – and Nevada famous.

Chinese laborers were hired to dig a canal from the Carson River to Gold Canyon to provide a year round source of water for mining in 1856. The’ Reese ditch’ was a $10,000 failure, though.

The northern end of it, where the water was supposed to go, was 43 feet higher than the southern end of it, from which the water was supposed to come.

White American miners resented the ‘Celestials’ because the latter would work for lower daily wages. This made them an economic threat to those Whites who temporarily hired themselves out to other miners.

This had led to hostility and forced segregation in the California goldfields, and the same situation developed in western Utah Territory.

When the Chinese built homes at a trading post on the Carson River and started panning for gold in the river, the Whites referred to their settlement as ‘China Town.’ It was a descriptive name, but it was not intended to be a pleasant one.

By this time next year we’ll know if all the apocalyptic information we’ve been fed through TV shows, movies, news articles, books and the Internet is true or not. This is because according to the Mayan calendar, the world is supposed to come to an end on this date in 2012.

“For two thousand years, the Mayan Calendar has prophesied the end of mankind on a date equating to December 21st, 2012, says Steve Alten, author of Phobos: Mayan Fear, “As that day approaches, greed, corruption, economic collapse, and violence seem to be pushing our species to the predicted brink of disaster.”

Alten’s book is listed as a fiction publication, but in radio interviews he claims it to be based on extensive study and research into the subject. Either way it’s a good read.

And for years we’ve heard rhetoric regarding Global Warming and whether it’s real or merely propaganda to push some other agenda. Lately though, it seems to be at the forefront of apocryphal dialogue.

“Forget global warming. The next ice age could begin any day,” that’s what Not by Fire, but by Ice, author Robert Felix says.

Felix claims we’re looking at another ice age and a possible geomagnetic reversal in the earth’s mantle, meaning what considered north will soon be south. He roots his argument in juxtaposition to those who say the world’s coming to an end through man-caused heat related events.

Then there’s author’s such as John Michael Greer, who proposes in his book, “Apocalypse Not,” the world isn’t going to end anytime soon. In his publication he dispels various “end of the world,” prophecies.

“For almost 3,000 years apocalypse prophecies have convinced people all over the world that the future is about to give them the world they want instead of the world they’ve got,” Greer writes, “All the end time prophecies splashed across the media in every age have had something else in common: every one of them has been wrong.”

Who knows – maybe Jesus is coming and he really IS pissed.

There were a number of newspaper editorials in January 1897, written in favor of the State Legislature permitting boxing. It would do Nevada good, they said.

The 20,000 people, who would come to see a big bout, two or three times a year, would spend lots of money and put new life into hotels and lodging. While they were here, they would see the wonder of nature that is Nevada and investigate our resources.

What’s more —  they might decide to stay.

Times were tough for Nevada. People were hard up.

Mining was in decline and would never again be the driving economic force it once was. Farming and ranching were on thin margins.

The State Legislature quickly forgot that boxing is a brutal sport. They ignored thundering from the church pulpits and they legalized it.

In the first championship fight, held in Carson City on March 17, 1897, Robert Fitzsimmons knocked out Jim Corbett in the 13th round with a right punch and a left uppercut.

From a tribe that was estimated in 1857 to number 500-600 people, the Chilula Indians have been reduced to “two or three families and a few persons incorporated with the Hupa” within a few short years of contacting white settlers. The Chilula are connected with the Hupa and Whilkut Indians.

While they called themselves the Tsulu-la, the “people of Tsulu,” after the name of their home, locally, they were known as the Bald Hills Indians. They lived on and Redwood Creek to a few miles above Minor Creek.

The whites’ trails from Trinidad and Humboldt Bay to the gold camps on the Klamath and Trinity crossed the Bald Hills. And like the other tribes, the Bald Hills Indians suffered harsh treatment at the hands of the incoming migration.

Finally the tribe was rounded up and moved to the Hoopa Reservation and to Fort Bragg. But blood feuds took their toll, and by 1919 the Chilula were nearly decimated.

The U.S. Post Office reduced mail delivery to two days a week in Taylor, Nevada, on January 24, 1886, where the White Pine News was then being published. Isolated mining camps on more than a hundred mail routes in Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona suffered the same fate.

The editor of the paper, W.L. Davis, lambasted the federal government for reducing western miners to being second class citizens, but this was a futile gesture as more frequent mail delivery wasn’t soon restored. Many of the stage lines in the West were subsidized by mail delivery contracts.

On that same January 24, 1886, the White Pine Stage Line reduced to two per week the number of trips it made to Eureka. It appears to have been intervention by Wells, Fargo, and Co. that caused return of the third weekly stage as the company offered to forward all letters left at its office.

The ability of Wells, Fargo and Co., to make a profit in the West seems to have escaped officials of the ‘Mugwump Administration’ of Grover Cleveland.

Why Adam and I were trying to convince our sisters, Deirdre and Marcy, Santa Claus was in the area, checking to see if they were being “naughty or nice,” I haven’t a clue. What I do know is the jolly old Elf was nowhere to be found, so I stepped in.

Knowing where Dad kept his Santa’s Helper suit he’d wear on occasion to the VFW Christmas Party, I put it on. Then I climbed up on the roof and waited for Adam to get the girls to come outside and see the “truth” for themselves.

That’s where things seemed to slip – or rather – I slipped.

All I was supposed to do was run along the top beam of the house towards the chimney and duck down out of sight. But no, instead I took two or three steps, and then fell off the roof.

I hit the cement patio with a smack I thought could be heard for miles around.

There was no time to lay there and nurse my injuries though. Instead I jumped up, dashed into the house, stripped off the suit, stuffed it in Dad’s dresser and raced outside to join Adam and the girls. Deirdre and Marcy were so excited — they had jus’ witnessed Santa disappearing in the “twinkling of an eye.”

They were so excited they never noticed I was out of breath from knocking the wind out of myself, or the fact that I was trying not to show I had banged up my left hip and elbow in the fall. Adam didn’t even realized it until after I told him what had happened.

He jus’ laughed when I told him, “This Santa Claus’ helper doesn’t bounce.”

Joseph Webb started the first newspaper in what is now Nevada, the Gold-Canyon Switch during the year 1854. It was hand written and distributed in John Town.

Three years later, S.A. Kinsey started the second-hand written newspaper, the Scorpion, in Genoa. No copies of either paper still exist; knowledge of them comes from Dan DeQuille having written about them.

W.L. Jemegan and Alfred James hauled a printing press and rolls of paper over the Sierra Nevada on the backs of mules in 1858. The name of their paper was the Territorial Enterprise, following the practice of using the name of the place where the paper was published.

Instead of Genoa being used, however, the phrase ‘Utah Territory’ was shortened to one word. James sold out to Jonathan Williams before the newspaper was moved to Carson City in November 1859. Jemegan sold out to Williams in May 1860.

Williams moved the newspaper to A and Taylor Streets in Virginia City in October 1860. Today. the Territorial Enterprise Building is located at 23 South C Street, and is home to the Mark Twain Museum.

Since it was first reported in June, I’ve been following the investigation of nine-month old Elijah Guia’s sudden death while at a babysitter’s home. What I didn’t know was that I know Eli’s mother, Keia.

She worked at the Reno Hilton on the front desk while I was a security officer. I only found this out after the Reno Gazette-Journal published a photo of her holding a black and white picture of her son.

Keia move to Las Vegas shortly after I left the Hilton. She returned to the Reno area, jus’ a month before her son died.

The medical investigation into Eli’s death has only jus’ been completed and turned over to the Reno police for further review. Authorities say they’ll wrap up their investigation in a few weeks and submit a report to the Washoe County District Attorney’s office for further possible action.

Meanwhile an early evening vigil was held Saturday in front of Reno Justice Court at One South Sierra Street. During the vigil, people wore green ribbons — a color that symbolizes life — and is also the color of Eli’s birthstone.

The baby sitter, Rosalinda Lesaca has since left the U.S. and is believed to be in the Philipines. A Facebook page called, “Every Life is Important,” has been established to help maintain focus on this case and others.