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Sunday, September 17, 2006

The Original Highway 190 Cedar Slope Store













Cedar Slope Beginnings, The Store, and The Chimney


Cedar Slope Beginnings
(The Store at Cedar Slope in the Good Old Days)


Cedar Slope was the name chosen by Ruth Bailey for the beautiful picnic place that she and her husband. Les, started visiting for Sunday picnics from their farm in the Valley.

The plot of land that would become Cedar Slope had originally been homesteaded by a woman named Nellie Marshall, who legend has it was the niece of the Marshall who discovered gold in California. Nellie saw the land in 1881 on one of her trips into the Southern Sierras and built a log cabin on what is now Lot 65.

Nellie began proving up her claim, living there in the summers and spending the winters working as a seamstress in the Porterville area.

Eventually she married a local farmer but the stream running through the acres still bears her name.

Her cabin was built with logs from trees she cut her self and hammered together using square nails, made by hand and carried up the trails on horseback.

Nellie died tragically in a carriage accident on August 1, 1897 and eventually the land passed to a logging company who came in to cut the sequoias, leaving piles of saw dust in their wake.

The Cedar Slope Store

Families escaping from the heat of Central Valley began traveling up into the Sequoias to picnic and camp in the early years of the 1900s. But until there were roads travel was subject to packing in what was necessary.

In 1920 there was a road up to the powerhouse where the North Fork of the Middle Fork, Tule River, joins the Middle Fork. After that point travel was again either by horses or foot.

Change was slow but steady. Soon afterwards the road was completed as far as Camp Nelson.
In those early years of Highway 190 transport up the Mountain was also subject to hourly one way traffic with travelers pulling off to wait until it was then their turn at the narrows and dusty road that wended its way up from the Manzanita and Oaks into the cedars, Pines and Sequoias.
Ruth and Les were able to buy the now abandoned logging site because it has been so thoroughly cut for a modest amount of money and then Les's mind turned to how this location could best be used.

Les's sister, Hazelyn Hopkins and her husband Fred had all enjoyed the picnics in the cooler elevations, now they considered how to make this spot a second home.

The first Cedar Slops Store was located below Highway 190 in a largish flat area now Lots 33, 32 and 31. The first Store, Fred's Ol' Place still stands there as a private cabin.

But soon Les's ideas ran to a larger and more accessible establishment and the location right on 190 was selected for construction which began right after World War II by Paul Gordeuk, a Ukrainian immigrant who would build not only the original store to stand on 190 but many of the cabins Les sold.

The Chimney

The Chimney of the original Store was constructed from good stone, which was hard to come by because the granite most local to the area is too decomposed to be good for building so Les cast his eyes around and found a source of good stone near the road between Cedar Slope and Quaking Aspen.

Paul Gordeuk reported that the stone resisted their efforts so Les applied some persuasion in the form of dynamite that he had brought along.

This proved to be very successful in releasing the stone but also brought it down onto the road so that it was impossible to pass.

Cars trying to go up and down 190 started to pile up and the occupants, decided that they must move the stone from the highway.

Seeing an opportunity Les asked that instead of pushing it off to the side that they despite the beautiful white granite in the bed of his truck, which was conveniently located backed up to the slide.

They did so and the result was the wonderful fireplace and chimney that stood at one end of the Cedar Slope Store until it burned down.

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