David Purington Reminiscences of Carbon Canyon Rancher Fred Hiltscher

With thanks again to neighbors here in Sleepy Hollow who loaned a collection of material related to the community and the Canyon, this post presents a three-paged typed reminiscence of rancher Fred Hiltscher by David Purington, whose father Cleve and others established Sleepy Hollow in 1923.  Click on any one of the three images below to see them enlarged in a separate window for easier readibility.

Hiltscher has been discussed in this blog previously, but a little background will help with reading Purington's recollections.  Born in 1870 as the eldest of the five sons of August and Frederike, Hiltscher was raised in Austria until his family sailed from Hamburg, Germany in 1886 and settled in Orange County.

The Hiltschers settled near today's Orangethorpe Avenue and Euclid Street in west Fullerton, raising wine grapes, walnuts and apriccots before turning to oranges.  Members of the family later had a grove on Romneya Drive near West Street in Anaheim, as well.  Fred and his brother Maximilian were living in the Chino township in the 1900 census and it is likely that this was on a ranch purchased in Carbon Canyon a little east of where Sleepy Hollow was later established.  One of their neighbors was Andrew Friend, who has been mentioned in this blog, and whose family has raised cattle in this area for well over a century and still does in the Canyon today.

In the early 1900s, Fred and Max moved to Arizona where they pursued copper mining in the Prescott area and followed that with a project near Las Cruces, New Mexico.  While Max stayed at the latter, Fred returned to California by the early 1920s and, as Purington explained, had interests in the family grove in Anaheim, while living on his Carbon Canyon ranch during weekends.

A 1924 oil map previously featured on this blog shows a "J.M. Hiltscher" as owning property just east of the Orange County/San Bernardino County line, next to land held by Placentia orange grower Charles C. Wagner.  The year prior, Hiltscher sued Wagner for infringement of an unnamed type on his property.

By the 1930s, however, Hiltscher was residing full-time in the Canyon and he and Max also established a mineral springs resort in Sleepy Hollow just east of the Orange County line and south of Carbon Canyon Road, where Carbon Creek runs alongside the thoroughfare.  Known as Hiltscher Mineral Springs and then Carbon Canyon Mineral Springs, the resort looks to have operated during the 1930s and into the 1940s before closing.

Fred Hiltscher died in 1941 and is buried in a weed-choked cemetery in Hillsboro, a little community about 75 miles northwest of Las Cruces.

A couple of notes concerning elements of Purington's memories of Hiltscher.  The Sleepy Hollow community swimming pool was built right next to the creek in the middle of the neighborhood, a little east of the former Party House Liquor Store property and just west of the Purington residence (which, incidentally, is now for sale.)  It was fed with mineral water derived from the hot springs that fed the Hiltscher resort, as well.

Purington's statement that Hiltscher was educated at the famed Heidelberg University in Germany appears to be false, as he came to the United States when about sixteen years of age.  The country store in Sleepy Hollow looks to have been across from the Purington house where the parking area is for the Sleepy Hollow Community Center.

Finally, Purington's statement that Hiltscher "was killed by a falling rock in one of his mine shafts" did not likely happen in Arizona, but in New Mexico, because he and his brother transferred operations from the former to the latter and Hiltscher is buried in Hillsboro, as noted above.

This recollection is one of several of notable locals that Purington remembered from his youth and more of these will be shared in future posts.