Photo by Anderson Historical Society

STILL STANDING — Remnants of the old Barney slaughterhouse and stockyard still stand in the vicinity of Marx Way and Athletics Unlimited on Barney Street.

I had been asked a number of times about Stringtown and where it was located, so I will try and fill in what I knew, remembered and what I could find out about it.

It was an area just south of the old original town of Anderson, across Anderson Creek and ran along the old roadway, which later became Highway 99. The south boundary of the original town of Anderson was South Street.

One of the first white settlers in that area was Thomas Freeman, who constructed an adobe building on his 160-acre property (located near the old cemetery) for a way station for travelers going to and from the Gold Fields and crossing the Sacramento River. He was the second person in 1853 to purchase land from the Pierson B. Reading’s Rancho Buena Ventura Land Grant — Reading had received a Mexican Land Grant consisting of 26,632 acres.

Freeman also established the first Post Office in 1855 on his property and called it the American Ranch Post Office, the fifth Post Office in Shasta County. He sold the property to Elias Anderson and John Vance in 1856.

Following his purchase of the property, Mr. Anderson constructed the American Ranch Hotel on the knoll approximately where the present 1-5 crosses the railroad along the old road that later became Highway 99 and is now known as Barney Street. Mr. Anderson later relocated his hotel into town after the railroad was constructed in 1872.

Later Mr. Barney’s stockyard and slaughterhouse was located in the vicinity of the present-day Athletics Unlimited on Marx Way. Mr. Barney owned a meat market and ice plant in Anderson a few doors north of the present Allen & Dahl Funeral Chapel and across from the old railroad depot.

Fairs were held in the Stringtown area in 1889 in the open oak-covered area, prior to the County purchasing the ground north of town for the Shasta County Fair Grounds in the 1920s.

The Terry Lumber Company constructed a mill across the railroad tracks around 1910 for a box factory, which later burned. Lumber was transported to Anderson via the Anderson-Bella Vista Railroad.

Mr. Manter, who had operated one of the steam engines for the railroad, lived in a large two-story house by the south side of Anderson Creek.

For years after the mill burned the old locomotive was housed in an old building on the mill site. Mr. Manter would get the old steam boilers going and take the local kids for rides in the engine on the short track.

You can still see a portion of the Terry Railroad right-of-way on our local maps just east of the freeway.

The death knell of the railroad occurred when the California, Shasta and Eastern Railroad Company grant deeded the right-of-way to Shasta County in January of 1945. (Jim and Retha Carter are doing research on the Terry Lumber Company so at a later date more information will be available).

There were other nice homes along the road going south but it seems like only two of the oldest homes still remain.

Near the present City Corporation Yard there was a service station, Auto Camp with cabins, a restaurant and other homes. Don Matheson said that when his family moved their in 1951 the cabins where still being rented.

Josie Kane Rother stated that they “lived in the area for a short time in the 1930s when other homes were being constructed.” Today the old cabins are being demolished.

We surmise the town was called Stringtown because it was strung out along the old Highway.

If anyone has any other information or pictures of the area we would greatly appreciate any input at the Anderson Historical Society. We are open on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 2330 Ferry Street on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and can be reached at (530) 365-7045.