Dick: Today is October the 26^th, 1975. We have gathered here at the Twain Harte Lodge for the annual brunch meeting of the Tuolumne County Historical Society. In addition to the brunch meeting, the society has gathered to recreate the famous Tuolumne County/Alpine County boundary dispute case beginning in the year 1949. Carlo Deferrari, County Historian, will serve as the moderator. Participating with Mr. Deferrari will be retired Judge Ross Carkeet and attorney at the time; Attorney, James Harden; County Surveyor, Floyd Styerwalt, and Surveyor, Jim Rainy. (1:02-1:41 loud muffles in the background)

Jim were you working with Floyd during this (___) (___) (___) and the two of you were actually going back into the area and were you photographing it then? (1:57-2:16 can’t hear Jim’s response and then fuzzy)

Dick: I have the feeling that I didn’t make myself clear when I announced the fandango theater special presentation of the (___). Now this is an on-going presentation but we have been offered the house for the night and I thought, at the time, that it would be an opportunity for us to get together as a big group and go and enjoy this performance, so let me go back over it again just briefly before our program. Drunkered is, of course, one of the leads oldest of the historic programs that you will find anywhere in our country and this particular presentation will be four groups in Tuolumne County. Our particular night would be on the 2^nd of November, Sunday the 2^nd of November at 2:30. I still have a few tickets available if you’re interested in a free ticket and joining the members of the Historical Society for this historic transition, I’ll have one of the old time dramatic productions. The drunkered see me right afterwards and I’ll see that you get your copy. Now that we had our prayer, we’ve had our flag solute, we’ve had certainly one of the finest brunches that I’ve had and I’ve already talked to Jack and Mary about it and I look forward to additional fine brunches in the future. But now that we’ve had an opportunity to enjoy some of these festivities, I think we have a chance to sit in one of the finest programs that we have had before the Historical Society for some years. I’d rather turn over right now to Carlo who will be our moderator so that we can get started in the program and see some things, hear some things, and then solicit questions from those of you who were around at the time and we would like to have some of your questions answered, so let me turn over to Carlo right now.

Carlo: Thank you Dick. I’m going to keep my part of it very short because we have a lot of territory to cover and I think we can get right into the program. I’d like to start by introducing the member of the panel to my right the (___) Ross Carkeet recently retired (___) Tuolumne County Superior Court who represented Tuolumne County as a special consult in the Alpine County matter and Gill is elected the Officer Superior Judge in 1956. To his is right we have (___) Wall who was County Surveyor at the time the Alpine County dispute commenced and who reckoned much of the early field work and the technical work, used and re-perished the county defense and at the end we have Dave (___), Pete (___), (___) the county surveyors office and who is the only one of the panel who was in on this controversy from the very beginning until the end. He worked closely with William X. Spear who did the original research upon which argued fence was erased and upon his death in 1953 he left a blank (___) lying there at night had the honor of filling in. I think that we should have a great deal and respect for work that Mr. Spear did because he did all the basic (___) and subtle work that we later had to use. Incidentally, under my pad that I’m not too sure Mr. Ramney concentrated all of his time from Tuolumne County (___) (___) because in the end he claimed Mr. Spears daughter, Joan, as his bride, so I don’t think he directly knows of the research (__) (___) and last, Dave R. Harden, who assume the legal burden of representative county defense following Judge Carkeet’s election to the Office of Superior Judge. Jim and I worked closely together throughout the last few months of the case and I want to say that I gave a tremendous respect for the outstanding job he did. We had a quite a few squeaky moments and one thing about it (__) the more he chuckles. If you’ve heard him chuckle, you know what I mean and he did it all through the (___). In fact, I have a feeling that towards the end he kind of enjoyed some of the little (___) he did on the opponents and I, of course, Carlo Deferrari, was fortunate having a great deal of the basic research already included by experts on both sides of the issue before I even (___), so I was very fortunate there that I didn’t have to do a lot of that (___) (___) his moral trying to fill in gaps or help interpret what had already been found. Before I ask Judge Carkeet who will be giving our presentation, I would like to conger that had help by county and successful in its attempt to wrest away from the following county as much as 90% of its total area. We would have lost not only some of this county’s most (___) scenic portions, but also the (___) financial impact upon the county’s taxpayers would have been quite noticeable believe me. The area would have been as large as 135,000 acres or possibly reduced to 90,000. Nearly all of this area is within the Stanislaus National Forest and a matter of fact it represents about 22% of the county’s total national forest land. Translating the dollar…this means that last year if we had lost this case, Tuolumne County would not had received about $300,000 in forest river receipts which are used to support the county roads and the county schools. In addition, the lost and the direct secured taxes would have exceeded $65,000 or you might say that every day last year this county would have lost and average of $1,000 per day revenue. (___) (___) the taxes would’ve meant that each tax payer bill would have been .41 cents or a $100 value which is great than it was last year. Over the years the loss census trial was concluded by approximate or would approximately have been $2 million. You can see that when work (___) of mountainside hill trees and beautiful scenery was a lot beneath this doesn’t look a lot like service until you get analyzing it. Even the Alpine County was successful in the smallest claimed territory, the total loss last year would have been over a quarter of a million dollars and I think that the (___) part of the annual reminder at tax time that it would’ve continued on indefinitely along the rivers of paying taxes. I’d like to ask Mr. Carkeet to start as the (___) (___) we’re trying to cover a tremendous amount of period in a short time. Mr. Carkeet.

Carkeet: Thank you Carlo. I’m going to suggest that all of you people turn your chairs so you cannot only face this way but you can see the maps and photos over on the farmerall and also can see the screen where we’re going to have slides, so if you’ll all turn your chairs I think this way. Also I’d like to pass out this (___) here and (___) some of the lighter ones of the photos taken in 1952 of the Clearance Brooks and North Trail and of the (___) Trail and the…some of the city country that we’re going to be talking about. You’ll see some of these slides on the screen during the course of this display. One other thing I’d like to mention; those of you who take the Modesto Bee will ought to be sure to look for this and those of you who don’t, may want to get today’s Modesto Bee. (___) (___) there’s a very interesting article on the immigrants by Richard Davis or it’s about Richard Davis, a San Francisco Stockbroker, who has been very generous with his contributions to our society and for the past 20-30 years is interested himself and going up and down the immigrant trail looking for signs and artifacts of the old immigrants and he was quite an authority on that subject. This article is real interesting and I’m sure you’ll want to read it. I’m going to be talking about that trail too this morning. I think before I start I’m going to take this pointer and go over to one of the maps and make some explanations to you and then you’ll know what I’m talking about. This is the map which includes the northerly and easterly origin of Tuolumne County and in order to (___) ourselves, Dardanelle (___) and Dardanelles are here. North (___) is here to the east. Dardanelle campground is here. The Highway 108, North (___) Highway and on Sonora between easterly you will see that’s the Dardanelle campground and onto Sonora Pass and on lower into the north county and (___). Now the upper end or north (___) (___) (___) is the climb sport of the Stanislaus River. We’re going to be talking about the trail up in (___) Fort. This is what we talk about. Highway 108 and Sonora Pass Highway generally calls (___) (___) Deadman’s Creek. I’m going to talk about a trail up Deadman’s Creek. Generally we’re going to be speaking then about the trail that’s roughly around Highway 108 through the Sonora Pass. The…there’s (___) talk also about the trail that supports over the mountain that at St. Mary’s path. St. Mary’s path is northerly of (___). We’re going to be talking about another trail the old (____) trail. You’ll see at the bottom of the map in blue and it runs up and then down along the page of the southerly portion of the (___) and on over across the mountains (___) (___). So we’re going to be talking about these three trails and (___) (___) where we are when we’re talking about these trails. Those of you who might have read the Carlo Deferrari’s Genesis of Tuolumne County will recall that he mentioned about the formation of Alpine County in 1864 and the Alpine County was supposedly, according to the statue, to be formed out of portion to (___) guard, Calaveras, (___), and Mono (___) but it also, as Carlo said, took a healthy jump of Tuolumne County. A portion of the description, which was in that statue of 1854, that statue (___) a line to run over in Calaveras County, then ran this (___) along ten. This is a straight line and it started in the (___) in the (___) (___) Alpine County and this line bends easterly in the direct line to where the Sonora trail strikes the middle one of the Stanislaus River. Then easterly along the (___) trail in the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountain. (___) (___) (___) of the Tuolumne County that the Sonora trail started in 1864 (___) trail up to Flag Fort and this was the (___). Alpine County started this dispute and they claim the trail (___) Sonora Trail was up around Highway 108. Later, somehow, we got down on the (___) trial; though we were arguing what the legislature been in 1864. No question seemed to have been raised about this boundary. Alpine and Tuolumne went right along recognizing the Clarks Fort as the boundary line until 1937. There was, however, in 1895 an effort to amend the statue. We don’t know…we’ve never been able to find out what was behind that. There were two bills put into the legislature. Now going back to the map, I’ll tell you this that both bills in their final form would’ve brought the trail up over a ridge that is between Clark’s Fort and Highway 108, so that would’ve gone up a little bit south of the Clark’s Fort but a little north of Highway 108. Both of those bills were killed in the register. Nothing further was done until 1937. Nobody ever raised any question about it and the Bureau of Census sent a telegram to the Board of Supervisors and the County Clerk of Alpine County and sent one to the County Clerk of Tuolumne County and also followed that up with a letter; and the letter which we received said this: “Maps recently published for Alpine and Tuolumne Counties indicate a change in county boundaries about which this office has not been informed. You replied to our telegram states that the northerly boundary of Tuolumne County parallels Clark’s Fort and we got the same reply, incidentally, from Alpine County.” and he went on to Census Bureau then on maps on file in this office which were checked at the time of the 1920 and 1930 Census should the boundaries running along the Sonora Trail as it appears to run parallel to the middle Fort and the Stanislaus River and Deadman’s Creek. In other words, the Census Bureau had a couple of maps running the boundary line up the Sonora Pass Highway and he said, “The only authority they could find was a Forest Service map in 1934 which did show the trail up to Pike’s Fort.” Well good ole Doc Dambacker I wish he were here so I could pat him on the back. On behalf of the Board of Supervisors, the (____) Census Bureau there had never been any change in boundary by mutual agreement or otherwise and since the boundary has a bogus drive by me has never been in dispute as far as these two counties are concerned I trust this information will clarify the question. In other words, he had (___) and he went up to Clark’s Fort and that was it and so nothing more was heard until 1949 when the district attorney of Alpine County in Mr. Cook, W. Coleburn Cook, wrote a letter to the Lands Commission. Well first he…first he wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors of Alpine, eh, Tuolumne County suggest that they get together. So the two Forts (___) had nice luncheon together, a friendly talk about boundary, but nothing happened and the matter was referred to the two district attorney’s and the two district attorney’s did nothing about it and so finally Mr. Cook wrote the Lands Commission in 1949 asking what they could find about it. And then there was lapse in another year in 1950 he wrote again and said he’d been able to get no satisfaction out of anybody, especially out of Tuolumne County Officials who seem to, and this is his language, he said, “Who seems to take the position that the Sonora Trail went around the Clark Fort of the Stanislaus River,” he said the Tuolumne River but he meant Stanislaus River, “and that that is all there is to the map.” And that was a position (___) (___). Well his letter, however, was followed up by a resolution Board of Supervisor of Alpine County asking the Lands Commission to look into this matter and that they did start to investigate in 1951 did some intensive study’s and we, of course, were not doing anything and I think the Board of Supervisors wasn’t even aware that this was going on and Bill Spear learned of these activities and interested himself in this map. Bill Spear was a long-time resident, tax payer in this county. He’s a former newspaper man and a public spirited citizen. At this time, he went to the Board of Supervisors and cautioned them about this attempt to take some of our territory and he offered, since he wasn’t then working, to donate his time if the Board would pay his expenses to research this question form for the Board and to the historical background to show why the true boundary was up at Clark’s Fort. The Board agreed to this. Mr. Spear went to work in late 1951, worked all through then in early ’52 he reviewed over 44,000 pages of newspapers, maps, photographs, historical documents, record mining claims; everything he could find, getting together a document report showing the history and development of this trail. He was in regular communication with our state senator who was then Jess Mail with our (___) who was then Francis Lindsey and he was in communication constantly with the Lands Commission and Executive Officer Colonel Footman who was would hear of this matter eventually. On March 31^st, 1952, Bill Spear filed a detailed 44-page report with the Board of Supervisors (___) and with the Lands Commission and this was studied and the county sent Alpine County and the matter was put on the calendar for the Lands Commissions for a regular meeting in June of 1972. At that time the Lands Commission indicated that they were going to take jurisdiction and conduct a study of this matter and hold hearings and the hearings would be held in fall of ’52. At that meeting, Mr. Spear appeared and learned that Alpine was really serious in this matter. They had hired an engineer, they hired a researcher, and were studied some money and really attempting to divest Tuolumne County to some of this acreage. At this point many legal questions were rising and Mr. Spear asked the Board of Supervisors to appoint special legal counsel so that he could have some help and in July of that year of ’52, the Board of Supervisors appointed me as special counsel to work with Mr. Spear in conducting all matters relating to this thing. Also Floyd Starlog who was then county surveyor had been working closely with Mr. Spear, checking out much of this information, doing field work, and he and Bill Spear developed a theory and this theory incidentally, ultimately held one. Their theory that they developed at that time was that the legislature in 1864 those men knew what they were talking about and they were talking about the Sonora Trail. They weren’t talking about the Immigrant Trail and they weren’t talking about the Highway 108 or the Sonora Mono Wagon Road which wasn’t in existence in 1864. They were talking about Sonora Trail and the reason that they developed about the Clark’s Fort and the reason…the theory of this was this: that in earlier years beginning about 1852, the trail that we now know as the Immigrant Trail was known as the Sonora Trail. In fact, any trail that went through Sonora over the mountain was known as the Sonora Trail, but that was the best known and it was known as such until about 1862 and in 1862 a survey party went up the Clark’s Fort for the purpose of developing a route for a new highway over the mountain. The lake went over the mountain what we know now as Sonora Mono Wagon Road, but it…their first survey in 1862 went up to Clark’s Fort and it was found to be a pretty plausible route. They widened it and they made a good trail out of it and this was widely publicized in newspapers and in Mono County as well as Tuolumne County and became a commonly used route when they finished that survey; it was a much thinner, much shorter route than the Immigrant Trail. In 1863 the same survey party surveyed the route and up the highway to Sonora Mono Wagon. The contract was left in 1864 to build that road. The old timers know about the Patterson grave. The contract was left to Patterson to build that road and it wasn’t finished until 1867 so the Sonora Mono Wagon Road wasn’t used until 1867. What was used then in 1862, ‘63, and ’64 when the legislature was meeting was that road or trail after Clark’s Fort. Now in order to avoid any confusion, the contemporary people of that day in 1862, ’63, and ’64 because people would call it the Immigrant Trail the Sonora Trial. In order to avoid confusion changed the name themselves to (___) Trail. This wasn’t the recent option question. The change in that name to Immigrant Trail, Immigrant Trial was made by the old timers themselves back in 1863 and ’64 and this is documented by the fact many of the located mining (___) along that trail and in each in their locations they referred to it, not as the Sonora Trial, but as the Immigrant Trial. So that was the theory on which we said the legislature met the trail up to Clark’s Fort. Now a mass of data was obtained historical data. There were two statutes on the books called “(___) recognition logs” which said that if a line had been mutually recognized by two counties for more than 25 years prior to 1927 that was the boundary line between counties. In 1951 there was another statute adopted which said that if two counties mutually recognized by mutual use and exclusion of the other mutually recognized line for 15 years prior to 1951 that that was the boundary line (___). However, and we felt that we had the evidence to show that we had in fact assessed and taxed everything south of the line that we are talking about that was assessable and that we had excluded Alpine County by mutual exclusion the line was easily established both in the 1925 statute and the ’27 statute and in the 1951 statute. However, this appeared to be the question of law and the Lands Commission felt that they could not consider that that they have to base their decision on historical data, so we started out with a hearing in Markleyville in October 21^st, 1952 to develop and show our historical information was to be held in Markleyville on October 21^st and then two days in Sonora on October 23^rd and 24^th. Bill Spear and Floyd Starlog and myself would go to Markleyville and presented our evidence at the hearing. We got a great surprise. We started out thinking that Alpine County was only trying to steel 32,000 acres and their original claim was that not to Clark’s Fort but that the Deadman’s Creek on Sonora Mono Road was the top of the (___). This is 32,000 acres that they would take. We were prepared to contest that. However, when we got there, they put on some old timers, witnesses; one of them said at this line over here has been improperly located by the map makers it belongs down here and it didn’t stop here; it gained clear over here in the Immigrant trail and the Sonora Trail of the legislature was talked about the (___) was really the Immigrant Trail. They wanted everything that would be 115 or 20,000 acres and this would take, again, (___) resort area and (___) (___) and that was the first we had heard of that claim. We came back to Sonora. We had one day of hearing. One of our Sonora witnesses surprised us by saying that he’d never seen any evidence of the trail up to Clark’s Fort. Well at the conclusion of that first day, I was called to my parent’s home in Turlock and my father passed away that night so the hearings were postponed until November; about a month and we got Floyd Sternwall and Jim Randy and they got some horses from Reno Sardella and they went on the trail and found the evidence and they took photographs, slides, and some beautiful slides here and looking for places, trail marks, anything we got to verify what we had been talking about. At this point, I’m going to call on Floyd Sternwall to bring in the (___) statement for this purpose and show you these slides that were taken and he can relate to you what he took and (___) (___) can relate to the ones he took. However you want to do.

Sternwall: This picture was taken…we (___) (___) (___) about 7 o’clock 23 years ago today and it was cold. It was after deer season. There wasn’t another soul in the mountains. In fact I had trouble persuading Reno Sardella to put shoes back onto the saddle horses so we could take the trip. I’m going to go through these fairly rapidly. It’s along the trail. Here’s another one heading on up to Denalli’s Cabin. This is one of the forks of the trail up there with Jim Brune who was our packer and guide and he was (____) pretty well so we weren’t afraid of getting lost. This is a picture of first rock. Bust Rock as it was originally (___). This here is looking across Powell Lake and to Cooker’s Peak or East (___) Rock or something; one of the (___) pages to the north. This is along the trail going down toward the relief country. There’s to the portion of the evidences…evidence that we were trying find was the gap then continuity of the trail blazes. This picture at this time of year you can well imagine a (___) beautiful, beautiful scene.

Lady: What time was this?

Sternwall: It was in the (___) Fort of 23 years ago today.

Lady: What month? September?

Sternwall: October the 26^th…I think this one is one…I don’t know whether it’s upper or lower Relief Valley. Twenty-three years ago my memory isn’t quite as sharp. This is another picture taken by the trail. That’s looking down into lower Relief area with…I think that’s Nightcap Peak in the background. Another picture along the trail. Note the glacial action in that picture that the lower right/left hand corner you can plainly see a couple of men on horseback. This is in (___) (___). This of Lunch Meadow. On the way…we were on our way up to the Immigrant Summit. There I am going along. I haven’t been on a horse for 30 years and I got to the point where I couldn’t walk and couldn’t ride. I was (___) (___). We made it for four days up in two days. We couldn’t get enough timber lying down. This is a picture of Russia Pass…no there’s a (___) Bear Pass. This is about 9800 foot elevation. It’s one of the passes out up at…it’s also (___) Lakes Meadows going over to Immigrant Lake. In fact Immigrant Lake is down in the (___) with Grizzly Peak in the background. Here’s our final arrival up on Immigrant Pass where my left (___) Mono County and my right (___) Alpine County and ours is actually just (___) (___). A few days after just taking this trip, we planned on sending…or spending some time on the Flex Port Trail to take pictures of the blazers. And that same day the Alpine County surveyor suggested we rent blading and fly after we take some pictures, so I got to sit down in a plane. This is one of the pictures. In fact, another picture up there can’t help but recite the Alpine County surveyor. At the time was having a little kidney problem and was up around 15,000 feet and he started to open the door to step up behind the (___). (___) that I read and we got a (___) (___). This is a picture of Pickle Meadow looking westward towards Sonora Pass. This is on the upper river. This is a picture of the Stanislaus River somewhere in the neighborhood of Dardanelle’s Reservoir. And this is a picture on up the Stanislaus River with the Clark’s Fort oh just about the center of the picture. At this point I’m going to let Jim (___) take over, but he was the one who took the pictures of the Clark’s Fort or rather he came down but we’ll put him in the (__) going back up the Clark’s Fort.

Jim: I can start…I was going to point out the same things to start to make sure the fact that when I made this earlier trip that was going downhill of the mountain. The sequence of the pictures were going uphill. It was a long day. This picture…this is a picture of Roy (___) and Mr. Sternwall at the point where Sonora Trail crosses the (___) (___). This picture is crossing the Clark’s Fort. Those of you who look a little sharp there you will see a cable stretching one length to the other length. I have no idea how many years that cable has been there but wrote down it has been there and used a good many years ago. This is the present day Clark’s Fort Bridge paved road. This picture is up to Clark’s Fort. The disputed area is on the right hand side; just a pretty picture of the Clark’s Fort. This is a fort crossing across the Clark’s Fort and here is an old blaze on a tree. I’m sorry but my memory doesn’t serve me now; this is what the describer does say. I’m sure we were able to interpret at the time but I’ve completely forgotten it by now. This is the present day Iceberg Meadow at the end of the pavement and this was…this meadow was referred to as Onion Valley. The elevation at this point was 6,450 feet. That is the iceberg itself; roughly 8,000 foot in elevation. This is a picture along the trail. You’ll see my partner on the side of the picture on the trail. Again, this is along the trail. This was my lucky companion, David Sampson, standing along the side of the large tree with the respectable blaze. Here is Dave again and another blaze. For those of you who work crossword puzzles, this is a tarn t-a-r-n; 9,000 foot elevation. Now on that day, it was Mr. Sternwall mentioned about flying. There is a picture of the tarn. This is a portion of the Clark Fort’s meadow. Let’s see…this is a picture of (___) Disaster Peak. That’s over 10,000 foot in elevation (___) (__) which incidentally is two miles north of the iceberg. Here we are…this is the plain decks that Mr. Samson carried 20,000 pounds of lime up on his back which is no small theme because your thin air to start with and we had spent three to four hours reaching that point; elevation there is approximately 10,100 feet.

Man: (___) (___).

Jim: Pardon me?

Man: Where is that point?

Jim: There’s just a point marking Saint Mary’s baths which will be more readily visible from the area photograph Mr. Starnwall holds up.

Man: (___) (___).

Jim: On the dividing (___) and there if you’ll look real sharp, you’ll see frost toward the center and right of the picture. This is Meadow Peak note the snow. That is southerly at the Sonora Pass and the county boundary between Tuolumne and Mono Counties; (___) elevation of that peak is 11,570 feet. We do have high country up there. Woops…did I get the wrong thing? Yeah that’s Sonora Peak; Sonora Peak over 11,000 feet. Now Sonora Pass is in the center of the picture and that’s looking easterly. This is that point actually where we left the highway and working our way up towards Saint Mary’s Pass. From Saint Mary’s Pass we wouldn’t have been able to have taken this particular picture. And here I am…this shows Mr. Starnwall from the airplane that we happened to be in view at the time and there we were. As myself there holding quite a few yards of the red material. That was it. Thank you.

Thank you (___) Jim. Incidentally that great cross was on the ground Mr. Starnwall (___) (___) was on the dividing ridge between Clark’s Fort and Stanislaus River right at the top of the ridge.