8.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses the cultural resources within Sutter County.

The physical character of Sutter County has evolved to what we see today through a variety of cultural changes and historic events that are both interesting and enlightening. These events have either been preserved in archaeological sites, lost through natural or human destruction, or chronicled and recorded in a variety of historic resources. Such resources not only deserve recognition and preservation but prominence in the community.

The California Archaeological Inventory Information Center indicates a total of forty-one formal archaeological reconnaissances have been conducted within the County covering barely 10,000 of the County's 388,000 acres. Seventy-eight archaeological sites were recorded as a result of these surveys. This information demonstrates that many unknown archaeological sites may be located throughout the County.

Sutter County adopted a Home Rule Resolution on March 7, 1995. This resolution reiterated the obligation federal and state agencies have to obtain input from the County with regard to actions that conflict with Sutter County's land use plan, policies and controls. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the federal government to consider impacts on the local culture, heritage and economics. Should inconsistencies occur, the Environmental Impact Statement should describe the extent to which the federal agency would reconcile its proposed action with the local plan or law.

The Sutter County General Plan sets forth to balance economic growth with the protection of agriculture, the environment and the custom and cultural qualities that make Sutter County unique. It also reflects the aspirations and values of Sutter County residents regarding the character of the County. The Cultural Resources Chapter, along with the Land Use and Economic Chapters in the Background Report, provide the foundation for the Home Rule Resolution and the basis for goals and policies to maintain Sutter County's unique environment.

8.2 PRE-EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT ERA

Evidence indicates that the region had been occupied by Native Americans for thousands of years. The tribes included the Patwin, Wintun and Maidu. The Maidu, which simply means "the people", lived in the Sacramento Valley and surrounding foothills. The southernmost Maidu were the Nisenan. Nisenan lands were comprised of the drainages of the Yuba, Bear and American Rivers and the lower drainages of the Feather River. Maidu society was organized into tribelets. A tribelet was a conglomeration of villages numbering two to twenty or more. Some villages had populations of 1,000 or more, others were made up of only one or two families. The Nisenan were hunters and gatherers with the valley and foothills providing enough food and shelter to meet their needs. Their diet consisted of acorns as a staple with a tremendous variety of roots, nuts, bulbs, seeds, greens and berries. Meat was obtained from antelope, deer, elk, small game, fish and birds. The tremendous natural productivity of the area was able to support a relatively large population of subsistence inhabitants.

Sutter County has a very significant cultural feature that is just as significant a geologic feature. The Sutter Buttes rise to over 2,100 feet above sea level and provide the only geographic relief in the otherwise level Sacramento Valley. This small mountain range is considered by the Maidu as the spiritual center from which life originated. It is also believed that the spirit travels there on its journey to the afterlife. There are many colorful Native American legends regarding the origin of the Buttes. Records indicate only limited archaeological surveys have been conducted within the Buttes, which occupy approximately 40,000 acres.

The first European to see the Sutter Buttes was Gabriel Moraga, a Spaniard trying to locate mission sites in 1808. Another Spaniard, Luis Arguello, led an expedition in 1817 to explore Northern California by water. He called the Buttes "Los Picachos" or "the peaks". He also named the Feather River "El Rio de las Plumas", because he saw many feathers of wild fowl floating on the water. In 1828, the renowned mountain man Jedediah Smith trapped in the vicinity of the Buttes. It was in 1833 a brigade of French fur trappers from the Hudson Bay Company first referred to these mountains as the "buttes". This contingent is believed responsible for the introduction of the small pox virus to the Native American population. This devastating illness is attributed with killing up to 75% of the Maidu and resulting in the abandonment of many villages in a single year.

An interesting insight into some of the historical characters of the time can be found in the story of Indian Peter, a Sioux Indian who came to California with the Jedediah Smith party in 1828. Indian Peter once told of two great battles with the Indians. The trappers were defeated in the first battle and the Indians were badly whipped in the second. Peter mentioned that minor skirmishes with the Indians took place most of the time. When the trappers returned, Peter remained in the area because the hunting was better than at any place he had been before. Peter later married a French woman and had three daughters, all being great hunters, especially the eldest who used to go out hunting with her father. She commonly rode upon a stallion when she hunted elk and deer. Peter's daughter even saved his life from the paws of an angry grizzly bear when they were smoking the bear out of a cave:

The fellow came out sooner than expected, was about to leap from a rock upon Peter when a well directed shot from the girl's rifle killed him. Later on Peter went to the Sutter Buttes to shoot antelope, when he was badly attacked by a female grizzly bear, deprived of her cubs a few days before. She knocked his gun from his hand and seized his head in her paws. While in this position, Peter drew his knife and succeeded, after many cuts, in killing her. His head was terribly mangled and the wound would never completely heal. He wore a cloth about his head and died a few years later from the effects of his wound, and whiskey.

EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT ERA

Sutter County derives its name from one of its first settlers, John Augustus Sutter. In 1841, after settling at Sutter's Fort, he established Hock Farm, believed to be a corruption of the German word "hoch" or "upper", on the site of a Nisenan village originally located there on the west bank of the Feather River about eight miles south of Yuba City. In establishing the Hock Farm he created the first important agricultural project in this part of the state. Sutter planted grapes, pomegranates, fig trees and the first peach orchard on his land at Hock Farm, as well as using it as a stock ranch.

With the 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's sawmill in Coloma on the south fork of the American River and the rapid spread of mining to all foothill areas, the culture and life style of the Nisenan were severely disturbed. Widespread disruption of the people and destruction of their villages and other sites occurred with the resulting influx of miners and mining activities. At the same time, farming was begun in the Valley, impacting native culture in the lowlands.

Sutter County itself experienced little mining, but was attractive for its agricultural potential and was primarily settled by former miners who became interested in agriculture after 1860. Early activities included the cutting of wild hay, herding of stock and the harvesting of lumber along the rivers. (It has been reported that when the early settlers arrived a belt of woodland extended along all the major rivers from one-quarter to two miles in width, consisting of oaks, sycamores, cottonwoods, and willows. This growth was soon cleared to provide lumber fuel for steamboats, as well as for building supplies, and also to clear land for farming.)

During the gold rush, as hundreds of thousands of new immigrants flooded into California, hostilities between whites and Indians rapidly accelerated. White miners, ranchers and farmers came to see the Indians as threats to their prosperity and security, an obstacle blocking progress. Many of the immigrants believed that Indians were primitive and therefore that they were all the more repulsive and expendable. There is a traceable evolution of attitudes based on the changing needs of the whites. Needing to discredit Hispanic claims to California, American observers saw the Indians as victims; needing to acquire a cheap labor force, they viewed the Indians as a useful class; needing to gain unimpeded access to the resources of the Golden State, they regarded the Indians as obstacles to be eliminated. These attitudes also tolerated the 1850 California legislative act authorizing the indenture of Indians, a thinly disguised substitute for slavery, or the common practice of kidnaping Indian children and women, and openly selling them as servants. The unfortunate events that followed included the massacre of many remaining villages, and in 1863 some 461 Indians, mostly Maidu, were force-marched 125 miles to the Round Valley Reservation during which many were killed or died with only 277 completing the journey, most in poor health.

During the 1870's and 1880's, valuable farmland in Sutter County was lost to the silting up of the rivers caused by hydraulic gold mining in the Sierras. Local farmers formed the Anti-Debris Association, and in 1884, they won a landmark suit halting the practice of hydraulic mining. Once land was cleared, river bottom land claimed and hydraulic mining stopped, agriculture developed rapidly. Several famous agricultural varieties were developed in Sutter County, including Proper Wheat in 1868, which opened up the wheat exporting market in Sutter County; the Thompson Seedless Grape in the 1870's, which led to a thriving raisin industry; and the Phillips Cling Peach in the 1880's, which paved the way for a surge in the canning industry, with three local canneries established.Several organizations, important to the prosperity of Sutter County, were created as a result of agriculture. The Farmers' Cooperative Union of Sutter County grew out of the farmers concerns about speculators who worked together to keep the prices paid to farmers low, regardless of the market. These speculators also worked in concert to drive up the price of transportation of agricultural products. The Farmers' Cooperative Union, begun by S.E. Wilson, B.F. Walton, George Ohleyer, A.L. Chandler, Francis Hamlin, George Brittan and Henry Elmer, enabled the farmers to join together and act to improve prices paid to farmers. Other organizations include: the Farmers' Union Bank, the financial branch of the Farmers' Cooperative Union; Producers' Bank of Yuba City; the Nicolaus Farmers' Grain Warehouse; the California Fruit Canners Association, now known as the Californian Packing Corporation.

Agriculture and the promise of a stable and prosperous future brought many different kinds of people to Sutter County. One such people were the East Indian Sikhs of the Punjab province of India. Beginning around 1910, East Indians moved to the Central Valley of California. Originally brought to the Sutter County area as workers on roadbeds for the electric railroads, the East Indians turned their attention to orchard and farm work.

Many people had an impact on the way in which Sutter County has developed. They include: B.F. Walton, largely responsible for the development of the peach canning industry in the County; J.T. Bogue, the first nurseryman to propagate the Phillips cling peach commercially; E.T. Thornbrough, of Meridian who first brought prune trees to the area; George Ohleyer, founder and editor of the Sutter County Farmer newspaper and one time supervisor; Allen Noyes, who acquired land on the west side of the Buttes, creating the village of Noyesburg and deeding, upon his death, land to the school and cemetery districts; Frederick Peter Tarke and Frederick Hoke, who as young men were drawn to the gold fields but soon decided that they might better make their living in a ranching and agricultural partnership that encompassed several thousand acres of land on the southwest side of the Buttes; Harry Stabler, one of the first County Agricultural Commissioners; William Thompson, a Sutter resident and propagator of the seedless grape; and John Paxton Onstott, responsible for establishing the raisin industry in the United States.

Sutter County was one of the 27 original counties of California, set up by the first Legislature on February 18, 1850. The original county seat was located in Oro, but as there was no suitable building, it was moved to Nicolaus. In 1851 the Seat was moved to Auburn, but when Placer County was formed later that year the town of Vernon (now called Verona) was selected. As Vernon's growth declined, the Seat moved back and forth between Nicolaus and Yuba City, where it was permanently located in 1856.

Yuba City was named after and founded upon the site of a Nisenan village in 1849 by Sam Brannan, Pierson Reading and Henry Cheever. A year later Yuba City was nearly abandoned as neighboring Marysville on the east side of the Feather River grew rapidly, becoming a major supply point for the gold mines in the Sierras. As the Gold Rush continued and many miners became less enchanted with the gold fields, many of them began moving into Sutter County to develop the rich agricultural land, and Yuba City flourished again to eventually become the larger city. In 1908 Yuba City became incorporated.

Live Oak evolved as a commercial center to serve the agricultural population where alfalfa, dairying, fruit and nuts were quite prominent. Live Oak became an incorporated community in 1947, the second and last incorporated community in Sutter County to date.

The town of Sutter traces its origins to 1849 when Edward Thurman and a partner built a cabin at the east end of the Sutter Buttes. Four years later G.E. Brittan purchased the Thurman land and built a two-story home out of the Butte rock. As the agricultural industry developed and thrived, the community continued to grow. In 1887, real estate speculator and developer P.D. Gardemeyer arrived on the scene with a grand view of the future of "Sutter City". Plans were laid out for a large and modern city but unlawful land deals caused Gardemeyer to quietly and quickly leave town. Shortly thereafter Sutter dropped the "City" from its name.

There are two Registered Historical Landmarks located within Sutter County. No. 346 is the site of John Sutter's Hock Farm, the first non-Indian settlement in Sutter County. No. 929 is the site where William Thompson settled and propagated what has come to be known as the Thompson Seedless Grape. There are also twenty-one (21) Points of Historical Interest in Sutter County as identified by the California Department of Parks and Recreation Office of Historic Preservation. Additional discussion of points of historic interest and California Historical Landmarks can be found in the Recreation Chapter.

Sutter County has continued to rely on its agricultural resources as the primary economic base. The cropping patterns have evolved into two predictable types. Those areas nearer the rivers with the coarser soils are extremely well suited to orchard crops while the lowlands farther from the rivers with the clayey soils are well suited to the production of rice. A variety of truck crops and grains are also grown in various locations. Grazing is the predominant agricultural use in the Buttes with scattered grain and orchard farming.

8.3 FINDINGS

A limited portion of the County has been surveyed for prehistoric, historic, cultural or archeological resources.

There is a record of early explorers witnessing a large population of Native Americans within the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.

Agricultural uses and urban development may have already compromised a significant number of prehistoric sites.

The Sutter Buttes have served as a point of cultural and historic significance in Sutter County.

Agriculture continues to be the predominant land use as well as economic and cultural base for Sutter County.

The County's customs, culture and economic base are reflected throughout the Land Use, Economic and Cultural Resources Chapters of the Background Report.

Sutter County has two registered California Historical Landmarks, twenty-one Points of Historic Interest and a number of other sites considered to have local or county-wide historic and cultural significance.

8.4 PERSONS CONSULTED

Dreyer, William, Assistant Coordinator. California Archaeological Inventory Information Center, Department of Anthropology, California State University Chico

Heinrich, Ira, Director. Middle Mountain Foundation, Sutter, California

Lowe, Jacqueline, Director. Community of Sutter County Memorial Museum

8.5 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burrill, Richard. River of Sorrows; Life History of the Maidu-Nisenan Indians, Naturegraph Publishers, Inc., 1988

Cultural Resources Unlimited. A Cultural Resources Study for Sutter Bay Project, March 1992.

Department of Parks and Recreation. California Inventory of Historic Resources, March 1976.

Department of Parks and Recreation, Office of Historic Preservation. California Historical Landmarks, 1990.

Department of Parks and Recreation, Office of Historic Preservation. California Points of Historical Interest, May 1, 1992.

Heizer, Robert Fleming. The Destruction of California Indians, Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1974.

Rawls, James J. Indians of California, The Changing Image, University of Oklahoma Press, 1984.

Sacramento State College. A Descriptive Study of the Growth and Development of Sutter, California 1830-1900, 1961.

Stanford University Press. Historic Spots in California, 1966.