Families bind history

They dig through archives, weed through boxes from grandma's attic, and when faces in an old black and white photo can't be identified, members of the Wheatland Historical Society pay a visit to lifetime resident Dorotha Baker, 94.

Conducting research in the town that gave us the Hop Riot and the state's first class-action lawsuit is no different from work that goes into most other Arcadia Publishing projects.

Before the end of the year, Wheatland's amateur historians expect to have their town listed among Arcadia's 250 or so California locale titles — part of the Charleston-based company's "Images of America" history series.

Collecting materials for the book, said Historical Society president and former Wheatland resident Ron Jauch, 62, has been largely a matter of tracking down old friends.

"A lot of the old families still live there," he said.

Jauch, a retired finance company executive living in Nevada City, estimates that of 18 children who attended first grade with him in Wheatland, 12 still have family members in town.

And many of the last names found on grave markers in historical cemeteries nearby, he said, still can be found in Yuba or Placer counties.

"A lot of the local families married into one another," he said.

In recent years, history buffs like Jauch have realized how perishable history can be in an age of endless housing tracts and strip malls.

The Wheatland book project, which borrows largely from a locally published book compiled for the city's centennial in 1974, began early last year — and not a day too soon, said Jauch. Sacramento developers now own Wheatland's former company town, Horstville, and the site at which the Donner Party rescue team was organized in February, 1847.

Among the photos scanned and archived by the historical society for the Arcadia project are many submitted by society member Jane Paskowitz, nee Stineman, whose Bear River roots date back to 1862.

That was the year in which her great-grandmother arrived from Iowa by wagon train at age 13.

Paskowitz, 62, like Jauch, returned to the area after spending a few decades of her adult life elsewhere.

Her three brothers own portions of the farm land that once belonged to her grandparents, at the end of Oakley Lane.

One still grows walnuts and almonds, and recently purchased a home built by their grandfather in 1893.

The house was the first in Wheatland to feature indoor plumbing, Paskowitz said, and her aunt, Dorotha Baker, lived there until she was 6.

Baker is staying temporarily at a Lincoln nursing home while she recovers from several recent ailments.

The nonagenarian, "is of sound mind," said Paskowitz, "but her body is starting to fail her."

Baker's memory, said Jauch, has been a key resource for much of the historical society's research expeditions.

Former Wheatland residents and their relatives from as far away as Buenos Aires, and from across the U.S., also have helped by sending photos and information for their book.

One stranger delivered to the group a storage container that had been purchased at an estate auction. The box contained burial records that had been missing for 60 years, Jauch said.

Also instrumental to the book was information from an 82-year-old Placer County man, who Jauch said studies old Maidu Indian burial sites in the area.

Facts about a landmark 1879 California Supreme Court decision, and the 1913 Hop Riot will be key features of the book, said Jauch.

In the first case, farmers whose land had been devastated by tailings or "slickers" from the hydraulic mining process, and shifts in the Bear River's flow that resulted from those byproducts, filed a collective lawsuit against prominent mining companies.

"They won," said Paskowitz of the farmers, whose case was overturned and then appealed to the state Supreme Court, where the farmers were again victorious.

"That's what stopped hydraulic mining for good," she said.

The Hop Riot, which broke out when hops pickers in the area associated with officials from a labor rights organization, came to represent one of the nation's first major labor disputes.

One farm worker, a sheriff's deputy, the ranch owner's lawyer (who was Wheatland's district attorney) and a young boy, all were left dead after the melee.

The trial and numerous retributions that followed only increased the incident's notoriety, said Jauch.

His historical society members plan to make final photo selections for the book in the next two weeks, he said.

Anyone interested in sharing their old Wheatland photographs, he said, should call him at 530-271-7426.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Nancy Pasternack at 749-4712 or at npasternack@appealdemocrat.com