This Week in Local History: March 17-23
100 years
The dead body of a large bob cat which was being displayed in the store window of J.A. Marx on D Street, showed the fighting qualities of dogs owned by Joe Melteer, a well known resident of Live Oak. The dogs of Melteer had an encounter with the cat in the Yuba river bottoms. The cat measured 38 inches from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, and weighed about twenty-five pounds.
A.C. Bates, a well known mining man of Brownsville, believed that he struck a good paying gravel mine on his claim in the northeastern part of the county. Gravel showing a large amount of free ore was extracted and other evidence indicated that it would develop into a good paying proposition.
50 years
Clyde M. Felix, 1863 Park Circle, Linda, reported to the Yuba County Sheriff's yesterday that a 15-gallon and a 7.5 gallon beer keg had been stolen from his home. The kegs were taken during a large beer party Feb. 23 of which Felix allegedly was one of the sponsors. He was awaiting trial of a charge that he sold beer without a license at the party that attracted about 200 young persons.
Glenn A. Johnson, J. Clifford Johnson Sr. and J.W. Johnson, doing business as the Double J Land and Livestock Co., filed suit in Yuba County Superior Court against the Yuba County Planning Commission and the County of Yuba. They sought a court order delineating the rights of the livestock company and the county in a dispute over whether the company needed a use permit from the Planning Commission for the operation of a feed lot at Ostrom and Virginia Roads.
25 years
Yuba-Sutter's garbage crisis was averted when the state Reclamation Board approved expansion of the Yuba-Sutter Disposal Inc. landfill to allow dumping of refuse through 1995. The board voted 4-2 to delete a condition in YSDI's permit barring use of a 50-acre parcel north of the Hog Farm Ditch as a landfill and extend the permit five years. The vote ended months of debate and controversy that pitted Yuba-Sutter business and political interests against a handful of concerned Hallwood residents.
Live Oak was named along with Yuba City, Yuba County and Marysville in an amended lawsuit filed against Sutter County and the Hub Area Transit Authority. The original suit, filed in December of 1987 by California Rural Legal Assistance, claimed that low-income residents would be damaged by Sutter County's recent pullout from the transit system in January and formed its own system — County of Sutter Transit System — because county representatives felt the county paid too large a share of the costs of HATA.
10 years
A North Highlands man who had a job that paid $19 an hour was sentenced to three in prison for a Marysville burglary. Mark A. Swyers, 37, was arrested Jan. 30 after he had tried to pry open the ATM at Gold Country Credit Union and broke into the Armor Loan, taking five guns. Three were recovered on the sidewalk in front of the store.
Sutter County supervisors established a 13-person committee to advise them on historic preservation issues. The committee was formed in reaction to the demolition of the historic Onstott house. The destruction sparked much criticism of county supervisors for never adopting a historic preservation ordinance.
