When the Land of Chaparral came into the possession of the United States, all of the valley and lower foothill land was already held in private ownership; so there was very little unoccupied ground that was worth homesteading. Yet men searched out every spot in the mountains that was level enough to hold a house and make a garden, and located there a homestead. Sometimes it was a little basin of an acre or two; sometimes a small flat on the mountainside; or maybe only a slope of gentler grade and smoother surface. Almost any place would do if only there were a spring near at hand and a level spot big enough to hold an eight-by-ten cabin. Often, after proving up his claim, the owner deserted it for the more alluring comforts of the old-settled portions of the region.
....Not a few of them are so far back in the wilds that no wagon road has ever reached them. The trail is their highway; and pack animals are their passenger, express, and freight trains. Farm machinery, household furniture, and supplies of all kinds are packed in. Heavy farm wagons, grain drills, and mowing machines are to be seen on these back-mountain ranches, all of which have been transported thither on the backs of mules or other pack animals. Even pianos have been taken into the heart of the mountains in the same way. To some extent, the products of the ranches are packed out, as in one instance that I know of, where several hundred boxes of apples and other fruits are taken out every year, the distance to a highway being about twenty miles. The history of the homesteading and development of this particular ranch is interesting enough to warrant the telling of it here.
Caught in one of the land booms which surged over Southern California about a generation ago, and utterly impoverished when the boom went flat, a man, who was then near 40 years of age, loaded a prospector's outfit onto a burro and took to the mountains. A season's prospecting brought him no paying mine, but it did give him a wide knowledge of these southern mountains. One day late in the season, he was high up on the south slope of one of the inner ranges. Looking across the cañon which lay between where he was standing and the next range toward the south, he saw well up on the slope facing him a green basin. Although he was some eight or ten miles away in an air-line, yet he could see that the basin must have an abundant supply of water, for late as it was in the season, it looked like an oasis in a desert, set as it was in a wide sea of brown and rusty chaparral. Right then and there, he resolved to quit the prospector's game and become a rancher. He cut a trail to the basin, filed his claim, built a cabin, cleared away the surrounding chaparral, and planted fruit trees. He moved his family there from the city, and for more than a third of a century that mountain basin has been his home. For years, no trails came near it, except those which he himself built. The nearest wagon road is still nearly twenty miles away. Yet he has made there a more comfortable home, and developed a more prosperous ranch than many you might find with the same natural advantages, and which at the same time have always been within easy reach of higheways and markets.
The snow does not fall so deep within this secluded basin itself, but that the occupants of the home may get about the premises at all times. But during midwinter there are often weeks at a time when the trails leading to the outside world are blocked by several feet of snow; and then the mountain home finds itself shut in.
One special evidence of the energy of this mountain ranch owner is a sawmill. It is a small affair, to be sure; but it was built for his own use, and not for general commercial purposes. He wanted lumber for building, and also needed it for boxes in order that he might get his fruit to market in good condition. Spruce and pine grew on the mountain just above the basin, ready at hand for the saw; so he packed in the necessary machinery and built the mill. There were numerous springs about the upper margin of the basin, but the total flow of water was a little scant for turning the wheel that runs the mill. But he was equal to the emergency; he built a reservoir, and by this means was enabled to get a flow large enough to run the mill for several hours at a stretch.
The fruit raised on this mountain ranch is of extra fine quality, and when it has been got to market finds eager purchasers at fancy prices. It has been the principal means of the family's support and the ranch's development, although as a "side-line" the ranch is run as a sort of mountain resort. There are accomodations for a number of guests, and during the summer and fall months a few of the more hardy mountain-seekers find their way to the retreat among the back ranges. It seems probable that in the near future a highway will be built across the mountains which will pass but a few miles away from the ranch. If this road should materialize, this Elfin-Forest home will doubtless be transformed into a full-fledged mountain resort, and will have a large patronage and great popularity. But for me it will then have lost its attractiveness, and I shall sigh for the time when it took a long day's tramp or a rough ride to reach it.
