Carbon Canyon Brush Clearance Due by Tuesday the 15th

The deadline for clearing brush on the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon, established by the Chino Valley Fire District, is this Tuesday the 15th.  After that date, inspectors from the district will be going through the Canyon and determining which properties have not yet been cleared.

Those areas that are not adequately cleared will be cited, crews brought in by contract with the district, and property owners subject to paying these costs and potential additional fines.

The reason for the mandate is to remove as much flammable material as possible within the Canyon as we head into the warmer Summer season when drier conditions mean that the likelihood for wildfires are much greater.

Meantime, the brush drop-off program, coordinated by the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council with assistance from the City of Chino Hills and roll-off bins provided by Chino Hills Disposal, was conducted earlier today.  A couple dozen or so drop-offs by about ten different persons led to filling several tons worth of plant material in two large bins.  Fire Safe Council members assisted residents in offloading the material from their vehicles into the bins.

This Wednesday, the Fire Safe Council will be recognized for its volunteer efforts to promote fire awareness and prevention at a meeting held at Western Hills Country Club, during which time council members will receive certificates of appreciation for their donated time over the course of the last year. 

Congratulations to those persons who take time out of their busy lives to work for the promotion of fire issues in Carbon Canyon!

Even More Carbon Canyon Homes Coming?

As reported in the last two issues of the Chino Hills Champion, a long moribund project to build an unspcified number of homes on over 500 acres in the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon is being resurrected.

First, in last week's 5 May edition, the Champion noted that the Chino Hills City Council was to approve an agreement with a firm for an assessment of biological resources and native trees that would involve a significant increase from $70,000 to over $130,000 for the project.

Initially dubbed "Canyon Meadows" and then "Ranch of Carbon Canyon" which is more than a little ironic because whatever meadows or ranches existed in that area of the canyon would have been obliterated, the 1990s project attracted plenty of attention when the developer asked for a change in zoning so that the number of homes would move from 114 to 341.

In turn, the grassroots group, "Save Our Canyon," [a precursor of sorts to today's "Hope for the Hills," which has been battling the "towers of terror" renewable energy project by Southern California Edison], developed [!] the momentum to get Measure U on an election ballot and its approval in 1999 mandated that the city could not approve projects for more units than allotted on the Chino Hills General Plan.

In 2000, the developer went in and razed nearly 500 trees, mostly native oaks, as preliminary work commenced, but then walked away from the project.  Consequently, the site, south of Carbon Canyon Road at the intersection of Canyon Hills Road and directly across the highway from our latest suburban "improvement," the Circle K market & etc., retains its treeless appearance more than a decade later.

Taken from Canyon Hills Road looking south towards the area, across Carbon Canyon Road, that is now dubbed "Chino Hills Country Club," a residential project of an unspecified number of houses on nearly 540 acres.  The landscape still shows, over a decade later, the destruction caused by a developer who removed almost 500 trees, mostly oaks, and then abandoned an earlier version of the project.   The photo was taken on 12 May 2012.

Tomorrow's edition of the Champion notes that the project has been "rebranded" as the "Chino Hills Country Club," and, at a recent City Council meeting, members Ed Graham and Peter Rogers took the opportunity to mention that residents should "keep an eye on the project," though what exactly this is supposed to mean was not explained further.

What was noted, according to the city's community development director, is that the application from the developer will take about a year to prepare and then it could be up to six more months beyond that for the application to be submitted.  The project was described as a "blank slate" [also an apt term for the denuded landscape there after the tree-removal debacle.]

So, it will be some time yet before the project takes shape, if it does at all, but it is worth taking a bit of time here to remind ourselves that there are already two as-yet-unbuilt approved projects on the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon.  The first is a 90-unit one northwest of the Carbon Canyon Road/Canyon Hills Road intersection and the other involves 28 residences across from Western Hills Country Club at the northeast corner of Fairway Drive and Carbon Canyon Road.  There is also the current, if slowly developing, "Elements at Pine Valley Estates" at the north edge of the Western Hills facility, which involves 98 houses.  Finally, the dormant Canyon Crest project, proposing 165 houses, showed stirrings of rebirth a year ago on 367 acres on the north side of the Canyon in Brea.

With all of the attention being given to the Tehachapi renewable energy project and its massive towers, it may not be all that long before a lot of that community activism might be needed again out in Carbon Canyon. 

Meantime, as council members Graham and Rogers noted, "keep an eye on the project."

Carbon Canyon Brush Clearance Drop-Off This Saturday

From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday, 12 May, the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council will be offering the first of two brush clearance drop-off programs. 

Held next to Western Hills Park, across from the Chino Valley Fire District station, on the corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Canon Lane, the program allows residents of the Chino Hills side of Carbon Canyon to drop off cleared brush from their property. 

Thanks to the City of Chino Hills, two large roll-off dumpsters provided by Chino Hills Disposal will be on-hand for the collection of this material.  All residents need to do is bring their cleared brush and Fire Safe Council members will assist in placing the material into the dumpsters.

This event is timed to assist people in meeting the 15 May deadline, imposed by the fire district, for the clearance of brush in order to minimize potential fire risks as hotter weather comes and drier, combustible plant material accumulates.

There will be another drop-off date in the Fall before the Santa Ana wind season kicks up and brings further fire risk.

For more information on the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council and its activities and programs, please see here.  Regarding the Chino Valley Fire District, click here.

Carbon Canyon Wildfire Awareness Fair This Saturday!

The Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council, an organization dedicated to promoting prevention of and preparedness for fire, is holding its annual Wildfire Awareness Fair this Saturday, 5 May from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center in Brea.

The free event will feature vendors providing information on public safety, firewise and waterwise landscpaing, fire protection products (such as chemical foams used on structures), children's activities (including face painting and a native plant project), a live animal exhibit and more.

Sponsors, in addition to the Council, are the cities of Brea and Chino Hills, the environmental group Hills for Everyone, California State Parks, the Brea Fire Department, the Chino Valley Fire District, CalFire (the state fire agency), Myers and Sons Hi-Way Safety Company, and State Farm Insurance.

For those people living in the 3,000+ houses within the Carbon Canyon area and those outside, there is plenty to learn about and from at this important event.  While it has been 3 1/2 years since the major Freeway Complex fire that ravaged the Brea portion of the Canyon, the threat of fire is nearly always present and anyone who lives in proximity to areas that are prone to wildfires will benefit greatly from attending.

More information on the Council and its activities can be found here.

California Conservation Corps (+CalTrans) Carbon Creek Cleanup Completed: Corrections Continued

The recently-completed work conducted by the California Conservation Corps along the Orange County portion of Carbon [Canyon] Creek did not just turn out to be removal of dead arundo donax biomass or the recovery of other deceased plant material or the taking out of other debris and trash (such as the furniture and other garbage left months back at the old bridge entrance to the La Vida Mineral Springs motel.)

Comments left on the previous posts concerning this work by Jennifer Dulay of the CCC add to the scope of the work performed:

The California Conservation Corps (CCC) is working with Caltrans on a Transportation Enhancement project along Carbon Canyon. The project derived from the recent fire damage that occurred in Carbon Canyon and Chino Hills State Park. The CCC crews are planting natives to replace the hundreds of native plants that were lost due to fire damage. They are planting Willow, Mulefat, Sycamore and California Walnut.

Thank you for being a supporter of the CCC. The CCC crew is located out of the Pomona Satellite. If you have any questions regarding projects or corpsmember positions, my email is jennifer.dulay@ccc.ca.gov.

This image, taken last Sunday afternoon at the old bridge entrance to the La Vida Mineral Springs motel in the Brea portion of Carbon Canyon shows red and yellow colored flags marking where native plants were placed by crews from the California Conservation Corps, working in conjunction with CalTrans, on an enhancement program along Carbon [Canyon] Creek to mitigate damage down from the 2008 wildfires and from years of invasive arundo donax infestations.

It is particularly noteworthy that the Corps spent considerable time and effort in planting native trees and other items along the Creek to revitalize the area.  Hopefully, the work that was done will be successful and we will see a profusion of native plants and trees growing for years to come.  The sections covered by the replanting work are marked by colored flags, such as that seen in the above photo.

Again, kudos to the California Conservation Corps and CalTrans, which was not previously acknowledged here for its role, for taking these steps to restore a native landscape devastated by the 2008 fires so that the Canyon can get closer to its pre-catastrophe condition.

Serious Accident Closes Carbon Canyon Road!

UPDATE, 5 MAY:  A comment was left to this post earlier today by someone who was present at the time it happened.  It is repeated here in full as a reminder that this was yet another example of reckless driving on a late weekend evening and it could have been far worse.  Thanks to the person who left this information.

This was not a fatal accident. What my family and I witnessed was a driver in a white car speeding into the canyon around 10:30 pm. He actually passed us as we were entering the canyon. We guessed that he was doing in excess of 80 mph. Not a safe speed at any time on that road. Apparently as he went around the curve he lost control, went up on to the hill across from La Vida and rolled his car. When we got there he and his passenger were out of the car and appeared unhurt. I called 911 and informed them of the accident and I also volunteered information regarding his driving and his speed. Fortunately it was late enough that there were very few cars on the road and so there were no innocent victims. Don't know how the police handled the driver but I would hope that they did a sobriety test and at least cited him for excessive speed and or reckless driving.

While driving on Carbon Canyon Road from Brea to Chino Hills, we came, just before 11:30, upon a serious accident at the eastern end of where the historic La Vida Mineral Springs property is.

Paramedics, police and an ambulance or two were on scene and stretchers could be seen wheeled about.  A quick question to the officer diverting traffic back toward Brea led to the response that the road would be closed for at least an hour, meaning that it would not be open again until sometime between midnight and 12:30 a.m.

A quick few photos were taken, but don't show much except for the hazy glow of emergency lights at the scene.  No details were learned at the time, especially because we had to turn around the take the half-hour detail around via the 57 and 60 freeways.

Let's hope this isn't a fatality, but, unfortunately, it is another accident on a late weekend night on a tight curve in Carbon Canyon.

The last three photos were taken Sunday afternoon the 22nd and show some of the damage on the south side of the highway.

Sleepy Hollow's Hiltscher Mineral Springs Resort

Thanks to a comment and an image provided by Sleepy Hollow resident Ray Byworth after he read the post two weeks back on the 1940 federal census in the community, there is new information about a second mineral springs resort in Carbon Canyon.  The far better known La Vida Mineral Springs opened sometime in the early 1910s or so and operated for many decades, but there was another resort just over the San Bernardino County line and Mr. Byworth provided the image below, which he received from Doug Dale, the local realtor who sold him his house and who annotated the image at the top with "PICTURE OF YOUR PROPERTY."  The view comes from a ca. 1960s publication that looks like a community newsletter and shows the Hiltscher Springs property.

This photocopy of a ca. 1960 newsletter from the Carbon Canyon community of Sleepy Hollow shows a photo of the Hiltscher Mineral Springs resort, which operated in the 1930s and perhaps beyond near the southwest corner of Carbon Canyon Road and Rosemary Lane.  The image, which can be viewed in a larger format by clicking on it, was provided by community resident Ray Byworth.

As noted in an earlier post concerning a 1920s map that showed the Olinda oil field and surrounding areas, there was a J.M. Hiltscher who owned a parcel in the general area that became Sleepy Hollow.  It was speculated in that post that this was Joseph Hiltscher, who was from a Fullerton ranching and farming family.  In the 1930 census, as also covered in this blog, there was a Fred Hiltscher shown as residing in Sleepy Hollow. 

A little further research reveals that Joseph and Fred (Frederick) were brothers.  Their parents were August Hiltscher and Frederike Bockisch.  August, born in June 1843, and Frederike, born in September 1850, were from German-speaking families who had Prussian and Austrian birthplaces.  The couple married in 1868 and raised five sons: Frederick, August, Jr., Joseph, Maximilian, and John.  August was a manufacturer of fine linen tablecloths in Austria and, because he had markets in the United States, decided to come to this country.  In April 1886, the Hiltscher family sailed from Hamburg, Germany and landed in New York City within eleven days.

Almost immediately, the family came west and found property west of Fullerton along Orangethorpe Avenue at Nicolas Avenue, what is today Euclid Street.  On twenty acres, the family tried wine grapes (after all, nearby Anaheim was founded by German immigrants looking to establish a wine-making colony), but then moved to walnuts and apricots after a disease wiped out the majority of the area's vineyards.  Later, the ranch was converted to raising oranges, which became the signature crop of its namesake county.

After only five years in the area, however, August Hiltscher died at age 48 and his widow assumed management of the ranch, successfully operating it with the help of some of her sons until her death in August 1919.

Shortly after his father's death, Frederick moved to Butte County in northern California, where he worked as a cooper (who made casks, barrels, tubs, buckets, butter churns and other vessels) in the town of Bangor, southeast of Oroville.  After a couple of years there, he returned to Fullerton for another brief tenure and worked as a farmer.  By 1900, however, he and his younger brother, Maximilian, five years Frederick's junior, were living in Chino where the two were farming.  It is not entirely clear where in Chino they were and it is possible they were in Carbon Canyon.  One of their neighbors, a French Basque named John Bidart (there was a La Puente family by that name) was a shepherd, and another was Andrew Friend, a farmer, and a family named Friend has been raising cattle in the Canyon for many decades.

By 1904, though, Frederick and Maximilian had left California for Arizona, where in that year the former and three partners incorporated the White Dog and Fullerton Mining Company in Prescott, a copper mining town northwest of Phoenix (incidentally, fifteen or so miles north of Prescott is Chino Valley!)  Fred served as the company's vice-president, while Max was a director.

However, after a few years at Prescott, the two brothers lit out for the copper mining town of Faulkner, New Mexico, north of Las Cruces and near what is now called Truth or Consequences, after a popular 1950s game show of all things.  In 1910, Fred worked as a mine assayer, someone who tests ores and minerals and figures out their type and what they are worth, while his brother was a machinist in a mine.  The brothers, who never married, were in the same community a decade later and, while, Maximilian continued to work as a machinist, Fred was listed as a civil engineer, though undoubtedly connected to mining.

Sometime during the 1920s, though, Fred came back to California and settled in Sleepy Hollow, while Maximilian remained in Faulkner associated with mining and was listed as owning his own copper mine in his World War I registration form.

The image provided by Mr. Byworth clearly shows the structure, located on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road between Rosemary Lane and the San Bernardino/Orange counties line to be the "Hiltscher Springs."  The question is: which member of that family.  The Joseph guessed at earlier as the "J.M. Hiltscher" on the 1924 oil map, was actually Joseph P. Hiltscher, not that map-makers don't make mistakes.  On the other hand, the middle initial might stand for "Maximilian," except that the 1900 census shows him as "Max H. Hiltscher."  It certainly wouldn't seem that "J.M." would have been Frederick.

Another minor issue is that 1937 and 1938 articles in the Los Angeles Times about regional mineral springs stated that Hiltscher, along with Silverado (in the Santa Ana Mountains east of Orange) and La Vida, was in Orange County, though the 1940 census clearly enumerates the spa as in San Bernardino County, which the photo above also indicates.

In any case, this is a great find.  Mr. Byworth, as indicated in his comment to the 1940 census post, also unearthed the remains of six concrete and tile hot tubs on his property that were from the Hiltscher Springs resort.  If someone out there has any information on which Hiltschers were owners of the springs, how long it operated, and any other material, it would be great to hear from you.