Shasta,
California
Shasta
California Historical State Park
Mile
Post 6 from Redding, CA on CA Highway 299 West
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Shasta, CA – Once known
as the “Queen City of the North”.
Shasta is part of California’s gold mining history. From 1850 to 1875 Shasta was the center for
supplies to Northern California.
Supplies were brought up the
Sacramento River to Red Bluff and brought from there to Shasta by
freight wagon. Mule trails went West,
North, and East from Shasta. At
Shasta’s beak of business up to 2000 mules arrived or departed daily. In 1872 the construction of the railroad
thru Redding spelled the end of Shasta.
Today you can still see the brick walls of buildings whose lumber was
removed to rebuild in Redding.
In its wisdom, The California State Parks made Shasta a California
Historical State Park. It is a very
interesting facility with a museum that contains a large collection of early
California paintings and many exhibits of the local history. They have restored the court room in the
museum and the jail, which is downstairs in the museum and you don’t want to
miss this exhibit. The gallows and
exercise yard have also been restored.
Shown below is
one of the exhibits in the museum.
Shown below is part of the photo gallery, the restored
courtroom, and the front of the museum
The Masons were
also in Shasta. Below is a photo of the
plaque on the front of the lodge. The
plaque states that this lodge, “Western Star Lodge No.2 Free and Accepted
Masons of California” is the oldest chartered lodge in California being
chartered on May 10, 1848. The Lodge
Building was built in 1853 and is still in use. If you are a Mason, they meet on the First Tuesday (Second
Tuesday if the first Tuesday is a holiday).
The staff was very friendly and helpful when we visited this
facility. Not only did they answer our
questions but they made sure our visit was a good one. We almost left without seeing the jail, it
is down stairs and we were hesitant to go down the stairs fearful that it was
for employees only. As we were leaving
they said, “you must see the jail down stairs” so we turned around and went
down and were very glad we did, the exhibit is very good.
We spent an hour here and our time was well spent.
The tourist information listed below can be obtained free of
charge at the visitors centers in Arcata or Redding and we urge you to stop
there prior to taking the trip.
Credits for information on this page:
Photos by NorthwestPlaces.com © 2001 all rights reserved
© Copyright 2001 NorthwestPlaces.com all rights reserved
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