Last updated: August 16, 2021
Place
Museum - Tulelake Exhibit
NPS Photo, Danny Ortiz
Quick Facts
Location:
800 Main St, Tulelake, Ca 96134
MANAGED BY:
Amenities
2 listed
Audio Description, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
Some of the most fertile soils in the world were reclaimed after the shallow waters of Tulelake receded. Ten years of redirecting water resulted in 11 homesteading periods. The town of Tulelake has a rich and colorful history from the early boomtown days following the first rounds of homesteading through the World War two years of a Japanese American internment camp and German Italian P.O.W. camp.
It has been molded by veteran homesteaders, farmers, ranchers and merchants who collectively provide for its economy. Instead of giving up when things get tough, the citizens persevere and overcome to preserve an agricultural, rural lifestyle in a land full of history, beauty and wildlife.
I had the greatest life growing up, hunting, fishing, working hard in a family with my dad.
The schools pretty much followed the homesteaded. When a group of homesteaders that moved in, there's no time delay had kids of their own and there was no place for them to go to school. So they built a school or moved one in.
And I had a job right after the interview because Mrs. Jacobini was leaving. So I was the teacher, the principal, the janitor, the art teacher, the music teacher, the PE teacher and every kind of teacher at our school. We had to make do. And when you do that, your kids become creative. And the milk cans were frozen over in the winter time and we had to chop the ice out of the milk cans to get the big dipper in, to get a drink of water. And you'd think the children would have gotten diseases, but they were healthy little rascals. They were never absent simply because they had to work too hard when they stayed home. So they'd rather come to school.
When we got here in 1927, there was no little town of Tulelake. Yeah. Oh, I think the railroad probably was started, gone through and they had a plan for the Tulelake, but we had to go to town of Malin for groceries for the first few years. So they would actually put down a bunch of lumber to hold so their cars could drive through. They would all sink into the ground. So it's probably a lot of lumber up in the main street anyway.
The town of Tulelake was a rip-roaring frontier town of all things. There were seven saloons and Tulelake at that time. This was at the end of the dustbowl days. And migratory labor came in Tulelake in great numbers at harvest time, especially for the potato picking.
Up on the hill. Deer went past us and that touch the heart of the hunter. The church was made up, first of all, homesteaders, but everybody was very, very friendly, the whole area.
And we had lots of community spirit in those days. Everybody got out in helped. And they had dances every Saturday night in the old Legion Hall where we started our school.
Now exit the first maze in turn left into volcanoes and natural wonders.
We invite you to take your time in this area to learn the processes that took place to create this landscape. Notice our spectacular geological formations, except for a few deposits of muddy sediment washed upon the basin floor, almost all the rocks in this region erupted as molten lava.
There are 17 volcanoes in the subduction zone known as the Cascade Range, extending from British Columbia to northern California.
Among them, Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Shasta are some of the world's best known.
Our own Medicine Lake volcano is the largest in size in the cascade range. The result is a landscape where a great variety of volcanic features can be seen in a relatively small area.
Now enter the next maze on your left.
It has been molded by veteran homesteaders, farmers, ranchers and merchants who collectively provide for its economy. Instead of giving up when things get tough, the citizens persevere and overcome to preserve an agricultural, rural lifestyle in a land full of history, beauty and wildlife.
I had the greatest life growing up, hunting, fishing, working hard in a family with my dad.
The schools pretty much followed the homesteaded. When a group of homesteaders that moved in, there's no time delay had kids of their own and there was no place for them to go to school. So they built a school or moved one in.
And I had a job right after the interview because Mrs. Jacobini was leaving. So I was the teacher, the principal, the janitor, the art teacher, the music teacher, the PE teacher and every kind of teacher at our school. We had to make do. And when you do that, your kids become creative. And the milk cans were frozen over in the winter time and we had to chop the ice out of the milk cans to get the big dipper in, to get a drink of water. And you'd think the children would have gotten diseases, but they were healthy little rascals. They were never absent simply because they had to work too hard when they stayed home. So they'd rather come to school.
When we got here in 1927, there was no little town of Tulelake. Yeah. Oh, I think the railroad probably was started, gone through and they had a plan for the Tulelake, but we had to go to town of Malin for groceries for the first few years. So they would actually put down a bunch of lumber to hold so their cars could drive through. They would all sink into the ground. So it's probably a lot of lumber up in the main street anyway.
The town of Tulelake was a rip-roaring frontier town of all things. There were seven saloons and Tulelake at that time. This was at the end of the dustbowl days. And migratory labor came in Tulelake in great numbers at harvest time, especially for the potato picking.
Up on the hill. Deer went past us and that touch the heart of the hunter. The church was made up, first of all, homesteaders, but everybody was very, very friendly, the whole area.
And we had lots of community spirit in those days. Everybody got out in helped. And they had dances every Saturday night in the old Legion Hall where we started our school.
Now exit the first maze in turn left into volcanoes and natural wonders.
We invite you to take your time in this area to learn the processes that took place to create this landscape. Notice our spectacular geological formations, except for a few deposits of muddy sediment washed upon the basin floor, almost all the rocks in this region erupted as molten lava.
There are 17 volcanoes in the subduction zone known as the Cascade Range, extending from British Columbia to northern California.
Among them, Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Shasta are some of the world's best known.
Our own Medicine Lake volcano is the largest in size in the cascade range. The result is a landscape where a great variety of volcanic features can be seen in a relatively small area.
Now enter the next maze on your left.