The local leaders in the Shasta area did make provisions for the welfare of their sick and their children. In 1855, a school was opened in Whiskey Creek within the Whisky Creek School District, No. 12.  Miss A. Hathorn was the teacher, and the number of scholars in attendance the first year was only 10. The total number of children in the district was 26 by the time school commenced on January 9. The school house belonged to the district, and was erected at a cost of $200. Many of the rough, antisocial habits of the early gold fever years still prevailed in the Shasta area in 1860, despite nearly a decade of settlement. Traditional social mores, as known in the eastern states, had not taken sufficient root in Whiskeytown by 1855.

Beginning in the late 1930s, Shasta County began to work with state and federal agencies to develop recreational facilities in the picturesque mountainous terrain no longer popular for its rich minerals. The purchase of 36,056 acres of land for the park caused further decline in the permanent population of the area, leaving only a few inholdings and a handful of park employee families as residents.

The few Whiskeytown homeowners moved away, mostly reluctantly, after which time their houses were destroyed. The town cemetery with some eighty graves, and the schoolhouse, survived the demolition. The schoolhouse now serves as a church in Shasta.

Credits and Sources:

“Whiskeytown: Historic Resource Study, III. Twentieth Century Social and Economic Patterns.” National Park Service,http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/whis/hrs/chap3.htm (accessed June 27, 2015).

“Whiskeytown: Historic Resource Study, I. California Gold Sets Pace for Early State, Regional, and Local Development.” National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/whis/hrs/chap1.htm (accessed June 27, 2015).