Greetings family, friends and neighbors. If you have driven on Interstate 5 or Highway 99 in Northern California you will likely recognize the topic of today's Historic Snippet.......Sutter Buttes.

Historic Snippets

SUTTER BUTTES

The World’s Tallest and the World’s Oldest trees can be found in California as well as the World’s

Crookedest Railroad and the World’s Longest Suspension Bridge are among hundreds of other

boasts and often unsubstantiated World Records. California also lays claim another unique world

record. In the days before Guiness was around to verify the truthfulness or accuracy of assertions,

vintage postcards often made claims about attractions being “the worlds largest”, oldest, tallest”,

or having the distinction of being the “eighth wonder of the world”.

Located in Northern California’s Central Valley near the agricultural town of Yuba City a circular

collection of eroded volcanic lava domes rise to almost two thousand feet above the flat fertile

valley floor. From a distance in every direction the seventy five square mile 1.6 million year old

volcano remnants appear to form a miniature mountain range. Rich in game and acorns, the

buttes attracted indigenous people for generations who formed villages and seasonal

encampments, practiced regional Native American religion, and where people of earlier

generations came to ascend to the afterlife. The natives peaceful lives were changed forever in

1806 with the arrival of the first Europeans in the Central Valley. Californio Luis Antonio named

the domes “los tres picos” (The Three Peaks), the name that appears on an 1843 Mexican land

grant. The Buttes were renamed for California pioneer John Augustus Sutter who established a

fort, lumber mill and hock farm in the region in the early 1840’s, but ultimately lost everything

when the region was overrun by hoards of gold seekers in California’s 1849 Gold Rush.  Sutter

Buttes, rich in history and scenic beauty is remains today as an undeveloped State Park with

limited public access, California’s “World’s Smallest Mountain Range”. “Sutter Buttes and

Orchards in Bloom” Circa 1940’s vintage postcard.

-Bill 2/25