Photo by Anderson Historical Society

YOUNG SOLDIER: Walter McCabe, pictured here in his WWI uniform, was a Shasta County judge for 42 years.

Judge Walter McCabe, 1895-1983, was a life long resident of Cottonwood. He served as a judge in Shasta County in the Cottonwood area for 42 years before retiring in 1973.

He married Rose Mary Wilcox, a member of the pioneer Wilcox family of Balls Ferry in 1947. They resided on Locust Street and were neighbors of Fred Stoekel, another member of a pioneer family.

McCabe recalled in 1974 how the wagons pulled by six- and eight-horse teams rattled into Cottonwood with loads of lumber sawed at mills along Shingletown Ridge. The wagons crossed the Sacramento River on a steel bridge built in 1889 at Balls Ferry and were unloaded near the stockyards at the depot.

Dust lay a foot deep on the wagon-traveled roads, hiding the rocks and ruts that had flipped young McCabe off his bicycle more than once.

He used to ride his bicycle out to work in the peach orchards that flourished along the river from Cottonwood to Anderson. He received a nickel a box, each box weighing 50 pounds.

Later he worked for Lem Hencratt, driving a horse-drawn dray to the Cottonwood Depot to pick up freight for delivery to the town’s merchants. At the turn of the century, Cottonwood had three hotels, four stores, seven livery stables and numerous saloons.

McCabe recalled the night his older sister awakened him and his brother at their house on Locust Road. “The sky was aglow from a fire in town. My father was postmaster, and my parents stayed at the rear of the post office. We were afraid they were in the fire, so my brother and sister ran to town.”

The post office and the Stoekels’meat market escaped the fire that destroyed all of Ed C. Carter’s buildings, in addition to the United States Hotel and two livery stables on the south side of Front Street in 1902. Carter rebuilt with brick, and those buildings stand today.

The elder McCabes barely had escaped with their lives a few years earlier, when fire had destroyed the post office and a storehouse in the Carl Munter building on the corner of Front and Main streets.

The above information on Judge Walter McCabe is on file at the Anderson Historical Society. The picture shows him in his uniform in World War I, but we were unable to find any information on how long he served or what branch of service. If anyone has any information we would like you to contact the Historical Society at 365-7045 to supplement our files.