A town called Van Trent

The question for next week asks "What was the location of the area's pre-Civil War military camp?" Please email answers or any information about it by Tuesday to carolf@goldcountrymedia.com. Last week's question asked where and what town the Dairy Farm Mine was located.. Paul Long answered, " I live in Thermalands and I think the Dairy Farm Mine was located at Van Trent, which is now under Camp Far Lake. It closed in 1917 and employed about 60 miners. It was a Copper mine." And Bruce Decker of Lincoln answered, "The location of the Dairy Farm Mine was at the current site of the southern and western bank of Camp Far West Reservoir. How did I know this? Google, of course!" According to Lincoln Area Archives Museum docents, the Dairy Farm Mine was an important site in the Sierra Nevada foothill copper belt. The mine had 160 acres, about nine miles northeast of Sheridan in the town called Van Trent. Dairy Farm Mine opened in 1903 with P. E. Vandercook as superintendent and L. C. Trent as manager. The museum docents explain that the town was named by using part of Vandercook's and Trent's names, according to Edith Williford Hodgson of Lincoln. Hodson's family members were close friends of the mine site residents. The name, Dairy Farm Mine, came from the Moorehead family who earlier had a dairy farm just south of the mine in the late 1800s. This mine was a copper mine and gold was a byproduct. According to an article by Bill Wilson, the mine had a machine shop, office building with a vault, boarding house run by the Chase family, cottages, a 100-ton plant for surface ores, a compressor and an electric hoist. The mine was part of a long vein of copper, which stretched for a distance. Clara Midgley Stevens of Lincoln, who moved to a ranch adjoining the mine about 1902, had said about 400 residents lived there, according to the Lincoln Area Archives Museum docents. Stevens also said that there were several dozen homes and a tennis court. A school was never built but children attended the Valley View School. The boarding house was set further from the mine so the night workers could sleep during the day. Chase also had a general store. Mr. Click of Sheridan would deliver orders and bring them to Van Trent. It is not clear if Click delivered supplies to the store or to individuals, according to the museum docents. Hodson recalled to museum docent Wesley Freeman how she and her family and friends would enjoy regularly-held dances at the mine. In 1916, there was an auto stage line daily from Lincoln to Van Trent. Roscoe Allen was sometimes a driver of the auto stage. Walter Midgley, who lived adjacent to the mine, delivered the mail from the Van Trent Post Office. The advent of mining copper began in 1863 with the first copper mining companies being formed in western Placer County. They included the Gardner Company, the Captain Page Company, the Warfield Company and the Old Hickory Company. There was the Wilson Company and the establishment of the town, Wilson. Another town was Superior. Visit the museum and read about these copper mines in "Tales of Western Placer County, Volume 1, 1849-1875." The book and others are on the Native Son's desk in the museum's resource section. In 1917, the Dairy Farm Mine was closed. The message given was that World War I caused a shortage of cars so ore could not be hauled. Slowly, the town faded away. It is thanks to the late Lincoln historian, Wesley Freeman, that information is available at the museum on area mines. Wes researched and collected memorabilia of the mine and the town of Van Trent. Wes was born in Lincoln and his mother, Edith Williford Freeman Hodson, was born in the Mt. Pleasant district. Wes was always eager to give information to others who were interested in local history and help in writing their own articles and would accompany interested researchers to various sites, according to docent Shirley Russell. The Lincoln Area Archives Museum is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. Admission is free but donations are always accepted.