by Stuart Ward

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Note: This page obviously has nothing to do with Stewart Springs, which site it's in. It's about writer's long-time home front, across the valley from the Springs, and it needed a home.

(To return to Springs site any time, click back-page arrow key)

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Shorter versions of parts 1, 2 and 3 were first published

in the now-zombied Mt. Shasta Herald September 22 and 29, 2021

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The once sleepy, 50 year-old backwoods subdivision of Mount Shasta Vista underwent a radical sea change starting in 2015. While the would-be rural community had already jumped down the rabbit hole ages long before, it was then to discover even greater depths as a haven for unsanctioned commercial cannabis growing. The following seven-part insider retrospective explores where the place was coming from leading up to that momentous year. It hopes to explain why it...well, went to pot...and on so many levels. It blends a seven-part, crazy-quilt of jumping-timeline history with personal experiences, anecdotes, and a nuanced analysis of why the place derailed so spectacularly. It tries to give the reasons the beleaguered realm had always been hard-pressed to find much saving grace. 

 Ward, a Vista resident since 1978, has served as a volunteer board member and co-started an ephemeral official Vista website online from 2012 to 2014. In 1984, he hosted a controversial rainbow family camp on his land.  He still brakes for road litter.

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"...the past is never truly past...it is always tugging up both

its treasures and its tragedies and carrying them insistently into the future."

- Margaret Renkl

[Part 1]

Wilderness condo, anyone?

The rustic wooden archway spanning the A-12 highway entrance off Juniper Drive bore the words “Mt. Shasta Vista” in hand-scrolled, wood lettering. Surrounded by inviting trees on either side, visitors driving under it might've felt they were maybe entering some mysterious enchanted realm.

That welcoming sign amid trees, both now long gone, imparted a certain grace to the entrance of the rural development begun in the mid 1960s. One felt the love and attention going into its creation. The touch showed how earliest property owners -- then only visiting summers from distant cities to camp out -- held an endearing affection for their new-found vacation lands so nicely secreted away in the high desert foothills below volcanic Mount Shasta's northwestern slope.

Soon the place --  some 15 miles from both Weed and Grenada -- would struggle to segue from its simple recreational land beginnings into a functional if sparsely settled residential community, so smitten by its charms had been some of the repeat vacationers. This despite the almost total absence of infrastructure city dwellers took for granted. This pronounced lack, perhaps more than anything, kept it from ever making a successful transformation to being any sort of 'normal' functioning community. 

Instead, shortly after a short-lived building period of a handful of fully code-approved homes, in the early 1970s, by the would-be community's pioneers, it would shift into a kind of permanent, bizarre limbo land perpetually at war with itself, becoming an incongruous oil-and-water mix of legal residences and decidedly non-legal ones. As a result, the place was in perennial hot water with the local powers that be -- the county health and building departments in particular, along with the community at large, which resented its very existence and had relegated it an undesirable place to live. It became a place at perpetual odds with itself while forever being put down and ignored by others. 

That the shared vacation lands originally had no aspirations to ever be anything more was indicated by its simple boilerplate CC&Rs. And its association status: it was a POA, a Property Owners Association, not an HOA, or Home Owners Association. Just a Good Sam’s Club, of sorts, tucked away out in the boonies. An unassuming rural development offering weary city dwellers a mess of mostly secluded private campground parcels to enjoy unwinding in.

A sea of turn-key wilderness camping condos, if you will.

There was no water, no electricity, no sewer system. No gas lines, no paved roads, no community center. No parks, no playgrounds, no nothing except lots of lots --  1,641, count 'em -- and a labyrinthine 66-mile network of modest cinder roads and signage to access them all.

Called 'ranch roads' by the developer, they were fragile, modest affairs built up of loose rock substrate over often deep sandy soil with a local volcanic red cinder gravel topping. They were never designed to regularly withstand heavy loads or frequent or fast traffic. A 15 miles-per-hour speed limit was set to help preserve them, plus keep the backwoods' relaxed, tranquil atmosphere intact and dust down. Ongoing maintenance was covered by the annual mandatory-membership property assessment, informally called road dues.

Profound solitude

The realm was situated a few miles uphill and east of the also-new exurb of Lake Shastina. The majority of lots offered a rich sense of quiet and seclusion (or isolation, depending on one's mindset), existing as most did between one to five miles off the blacktop. On parcels furthest from its five highway entrances, it could feel more like fifty, due to the land's often profound quietude.

The 1,641 lots averaged 2-½ acres each and were flung over seven square miles of mostly juniper trees and sagebrush and a scattering of tall pine. The development spanned nearly six miles between furthest points: Pilar Road and Perla Drive in Section 13 to Trails End Road and Rising Hill Road in southernmost Section 28.

The fledgling development flanked national forest on many borders. Square-mile sections were platted into two giant clumps separated by a square mile of Bureau of Land Management land, with the county highway running between the second, smaller clump of sections 23 and 13 near Pluto Caves and Sheep Rock respectively.

As so often happened in rural subdivisions, the developers often conjured up whimsical road names to tickle the fancy of potential vacation land buyers. Evocative names like Lost Mine Road, Zane Gray Drive and Happy Lane. Rich sounding names like Silver Lode, Golden and Bonanza. One perhaps harked back to a classic movie line: Rosebud. Another was a shameless pun: Frankie Lane. A few were named after saints, like St. George Drive and St. Mary Road, perhaps sometimes giving the development the air of being an unlikely Catholic retreat camp. Two, Collins Drive and McLarty Road, were named for the developer and his main man.

Born amid controversy,

place became an instant problem child

The development officially gave birth on November 3, 1965*,  brainstorm of Los Angeles area developer George Collins on land he purchased from the pioneering Martin family, which had long laid claim to much of the wider region. Longtime locals had been grazing livestock on the land forever, and the region was deemed among the best hunting ground in the county for over a century. Before white settlers, indigenous peoples had seasonally hunted through the area; writer found a complete obsidian arrowhead on his new parcel his very first week.

The story went that when one Martin family member sold the vast acreage to Collins, he hadn't gotten permission from the others. Apparently too late to cancel the sale, they were more than a bit ticked over the commercial nonsense suddenly afoot in their now-lost ancestral holding that they'd no doubt preferred to keep preserved from such dubious things. They aired their grievances to the region's fellow longtime residents, building up community displeasure clear to the halls of local government, so livid was their flinty blanket condemnation of the development that they were suddenly stuck with -- years before respectable lot owners ever aspired to try segueing the primitive rec lands into a de facto rural residential retirement community.

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* According to the date formal paperwork was filed and time-stamped in Siskiyou county courthouse. This date was used rather than an earlier, yet to be filed, date of incorporation, August 18, 1965.

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Locals grumbled over how their longtime backwoods hunting, camping and grazing haven was abruptly closed off just so a bunch of city folk could lollygag about in their shiny Airstreams a few weeks a year.

The county's board of supervisors, some no doubt siding with the aggrieved Martin family members and incensed locals, reportedly almost denied greenlighting it. For the record the hesitation was over lack of water, plus for being often rocky, volcanic land that couldn't support conventional septic systems should owners ever want to build. Off the record it seemed some just didn't want the place, period. Such non-supportive sentiments over time spread throughout every county department clear down to the dog catcher.

Thus an already contentious situation was well on its way to snowballing totally out of control. 

A few years later, when the handful of adventurous owners, after many vacations, got keen on the idea of actually retiring on their properties, they started settling on the new recreational parcels lock, stock and barrel. Dutifully law abiding, each first drilled an approved well, got power lines extended and installed a regulation septic system, thereby supplying all their own infrastructure needs, before building homes to code. In the meantime, most lived elsewhere. On the surface it looked as though the place was on its way to becoming a respectable -- if ultra sparse -- rural community...

But the late '60s and early -70s were a historically rebellious period. Not long after, a growing stream of less solvent and more free-spirited parcel buyers -- likewise attracted to the secluded, unspoiled lots with irresistibly low prices -- descended on the place. They were fully intent on ignoring any blasted codes and regulations; they figured what they did on such remote parcels out in the middle of nowhere was their business, thank you. Many were instant homesteaders, moving onto their lots before the ink on the paperwork was dry.

That's when all hell really broke loose. 

The place's already gnarly vibe, first from negative outside forces and now erupting from within as well, would go into warp drive. Dutifully code-compliant residents went unhinged, fairly frothing at the mouth. The snowball of contentious forces was growing to such monstrous proportions it could seem some demonic force had taken hold of the place, destined to permanently bedevil the would-be tranquil realm. 

Over time, between the (1) teeth-gnashing, conforming residents on the warpath over the spreading plague of non-compliant dwellers; (2) rebellious scofflaw residents taking the heat and kicking back; (3) disillusioned absentee parcel holders disconnected from resident concerns and feeling stuck with lots they could no longer use recreationally or sell without taking a bath for the place having gone so awry; (4) put-upon county authorities, over time essentially giving up even trying to enforce health and building codes; and (5) an embittered farming/ranching community viewing the inhabitants through distorted fun-house mirrors as a weird, invasive mix of irascible hillbillies and imperious city exiles ...add all these forces together and the place never had (you knew it was coming) a snowball's chance in hell.

A vexatious spirit came to infect the realm like an incurable disease. A contentious force field hovered over the otherwise serene high desert woodlands like so many storm clouds forever threatening to rain on the parade of all, code-legal and non-compliant alike. 

No matter how many future residents over time would dedicate themselves to try turning things around and salvaging the development's seeming early promise,  it appeared the place would never amount to more than a stalled-out recreational development that failed to evolve into a standard, recognized community...or the faintest facsimile thereof.

In realtors' stark parlance, the place was road kill.

Down the rabbit hole

The more free-wheeling, non-compliant dwellers destined to populate the briefly respectable place jumped down the rabbit hole into their own private world  that the rarefied land energies so easily inspired.  Soon enjoying their own wild Mad Hatter tea parties, all but oblivious to the outside world and its innumerable regulations they were so gleefully opting to ignore, they dismissed as mostly impotent ravings the rants of the Red Queen, in the guise of the largely powerless property owners' board and its supporters, all screaming, "It's Build to Code or off with their heads!"

Continuing with the Alice in Wonderland analogy: Standing in for both the hookah-smoking caterpillar and Cheshire cat was, again, the stony, spiraling vortex energies of massive Mount Shasta. The backwoods development of Mt. Shasta Vista, clinging to its very foothills, a half hour from any town's normalizing influence, appeared fully under its surreality-inducing sway.

According to one definition, an energy vortex is "A place on earth that acts as a hub for energy...believed to exist at the intersection of ley lines, or lines of natural energy, that make up the earth's electromagnetic energy field."  While some new-age wisdom went so far as to claim Mount Shasta was the root chakra of the entire planet, most everyone at least agreed  it emanated some very palpable, mysterious and powerful energy which could affect everyone within its field, and perhaps not always in a good way. (That's why First Nation people never lived any closer to it; its energies were felt too strongly for comfort and to live close would show disrespect to Spirit.)

In any event, being under the mountain's influence could induce some pretty wild fantasies, if not outright hallucinations. It might all but erase from mind any pesky notions of dutifully following society's conventional rules. When the non-code living scene started  taking off, by people definitely not their kind, code-compliant dwellers (perhaps more immune to succumbing to its exotic influences, tending to stay locked into the rapidly fading strict law-and-order mindset) were naturally shocked senseless; they saw their fledgling, upscale-rustic community that they'd banked high hopes on in gravest peril.

If they didn't scramble to stem the tide and demand the county enforce its health and building codes, all would be lost...their nascent tranquil retirement village gone with the wind. So, at the Red Queen's behest, they summoned the Card Soldiers in the guise of the county's health and building departments -- sometimes accompanied by a deputy should a situation threaten to turn gnarly, or, in time, as a matter of course -- to try to restore law and order in the by-then beleaguered wonderland.

Time, of course, proved their valiant struggle to rescue the would-be respectable place a losing battle. As said, eventually residency code enforcement efforts would be all but abandoned by county authorities. Stunned, code-compliant retiree residents, devastated over the county government's seeming inability and/or unwillingness to effectively enforce codes they deemed written in stone, saw red.

They were left spitting-nails mad, fit to be tied, frothing at the mouth, pick your metaphor.

Despite what appeared to be an auspicious start as a popular shared vacation land and, soon after, a respectable embryonic rural retirement enclave, the slew of parcel ended up being one giant, messy, mix of code-approved homes and 'outlaw' dwellings. (Plus the occasional die-hard visiting owner hoping to avoid the downer of polarized politics and still enjoy camping on the land as originally intended.)

The place appeared hopelessly snared between worlds. Skitzy in its very reason for being, all along it was an unwanted child lacking 'parental' support from the county and local community alike. Its residents and visiting owners, feeling the love (not) and emerging anarchistic energies, were left to squabble in overdrive among themselves. The Vista became frozen in time, nursing a serious identity crisis and denied ever finding any rightful place in the sun.

Emboldened by realm's remoteness

Despite such a daunting load of handicaps, over time it seemed there was always a steady trickle of buyers keen on moving onto the remote, oft-maligned but cheap land.  Beyond investors feeling stuck with their holdings in the arrested development; disinterested speculators hoping to make a fast buck; and those still content to simply retreat on their parcels now and then -- beyond these were land-hungry people. People burned out on the high cost and hassles of city living and lured by the amazingly affordable rural properties. They hoped to be left alone to live invisibly 'between the cracks' of society's costly living standards. While some, including the writer, would grudgingly conform to building code, others, blissfully ignorant of (or studiously ignoring) the mundane, city-centric regulations trying to be enforced deep in the boonies, held more of a "What code? You're kidding, right?" attitude. One couldn't blame them; people, unless masochists, naturally like certain things like one's living scene to be simple and easy.

Some among the succeeding waves were emboldened by three things: (1) the place's remoteness, which made it feel like its own little kingdom, a realm far removed from mundane realities; (2) its mostly abandoned original camp use intent and the emerging proto community of home owners, which created enough confusion, chaos and uncertainty to take ready advantage of; and (3) the lack of sustained residential code enforcement by the county -- despite a solid core of code-compliant dwellers and an all but powerless property owners board lacking fining power -- after the first few battles were fought and won.

Early casual owner-builders -- labeled ""violators", "illegal residents" and perhaps the unkindest cut, 'squatters' (on their own land) -- moved in with a casual air of "Hey, what's the big deal? We're just building a little shelter on our land in the  middle of nowhere; c'mon, you're not serious." In time, knowing something of the place's code-conformity battle, but also of the increasingly spotty enforcement, other newbies made bold and went on the offensive, moving into hauled-in, unconnected trailers and mobile homes or building ramshackle shelters with a brazen attitude of "Hee, hee, what're you goin' to do about it, huh?"  Or like screaming eagles: "This was still America last time I checked; this is my land, and I'll do whatever I damn well please on it;  back off if you know what's good for you."

Time warp

Eventually, non-code construction and living in unapproved, utility-unconnected mobile homes became more or less epidemic. Unconventional structures sprang up like  mushrooms after a heavy rain.  While a few were artful, others were void of any charm except maybe to their inhabitants. It was as though such dwellers had time-warped back to the pioneer era, when plains settlers built primitive earth-sheltered soddies and forest settlers threw together rude log cabins. As if late in the twentieth century the development had magically become a latter-day frontier. One far removed from modern times and all its dratted spirit-stifling regulations over how one was supposed to live on their own land.

In time, certain dwellers  -- feeling light years removed from dependable, responsive law enforcement save for most serious matters (a 45 minute wait time wasn't uncommon if arriving at all) -- would essentially deem themselves a law unto themselves. 

Buy in Haste...

No doubt many impulsive first buyers among those interested in actually using the land were at best only vaguely aware of the place's sundry handicaps and liabilities, any number of which would turn off your more circumspect land shopper exercising due diligence. They were giddy over the notion of getting such a generous-sized piece of unspoiled land in a popular recreational region at such a dirt cheap price. Eureka! It was practically the modern-day equivalent of the pioneer era's Forty Acres and a Mule government giveaway. The parcels proved so invitingly cheap, any normally felt need for due diligence flew out the window. Parcels were snapped up like bargain basement steals.

Before the place's sundry disheartening realities at last percolated into the grey matter, new would-be resident-owners merrily spun excited dreams and schemes of how they'd enjoy their new, secluded woodlands that felt so seemingly safely hidden away beyond modern times' slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Add to them the inevitable parcel flippers who also grabbed them, imagining how they'd move them up the realty food chain in no time flat and make easy money.

It appeared many first-generation settlers, given the place's choice rural location and dirt-cheap prices, were willing to make allowances for the almost total absence of infrastructure. Water was scarce, waste management nonexistent, and no more than maybe ten percent of the parcels would ever get connected to the power grid. While this presented little or no problem during the first years of exclusive camping and simple retreat use -- trailers being self-contained and one otherwise making like a bear in the woods a while -- it was flirting with disaster when more and more resource-shy, would-be residents rolled the dice and dropped anchor on parcels without seeking anyone's approval beyond their own. In proceeding to establish primitive seasonal camps and year-round ramshackle dwellings, the pedigree of the Vista began its long, irreversible decline from the fledgling standard rural community its respectable residents briefly enjoyed to a seemingly anything-goes, scofflaw outback that the county came to throw up its hands over in despair.

Onerous building code & the owner-builder

Unsanctioned home structures flourished in the 1980s and 1990s. More and more, buyers bent on settling their lots appeared to lack the funds and/ or willingness to build anything to code. Freer spirits considered building requirements ridiculously over-complicated, needlessly intrusive and exorbitantly costly. As if they maybe only reflected the cushy living standard of the more affluent strata of society that imperiously demanded everyone dance to their tune. But hoping to avoid such stringent codes -- and the inflated lifestyles of would-be upward mobiles, tempted to live beyond their means and soon drown in debt -- was the very reason so many moved to the Vista in the first place: to get back to basics, to live more simply, within one's means.

For it was one thing to have a few reasonable guidelines in place to avoid getting unsightly, flimsy, owner-built structures that could blow over in the first strong wind and to ensure critical hygienic standards, quite another altogether to insist that one living on their own private land out in the middle of nowhere overbuild by a safety factor of five, install double-glazed windows, super-insulate roof, install fire sprinkler systems...

In the 1970s there was a grass roots effort led by a group of outraged Mendocino county, California rural owner-builders to establish less onerous building requirements. It resulted in then-governor Jerry Brown approving a Class K housing bill specifically with such rural owner-builders in mind. But it got so watered down in 1981 by an apparently construction-industry friendly state assembly that it was left to each county to adopt or not. Only three did; Vista's Siskiyou county wasn't one. Its building department, at home dealing with contractors who knew the drill in their sleep, seemed owner-builder hostile, not wanting to hold the hand or guide rank amateur builders in the myriad demands to conform to the quagmire of regulations and specifications. They assumed -- not without good reason, given the code's impossibly elaborate, pricey requirements -- that many were only reluctantly conforming owner-builders and would try to  'cheat' the code at every turn.

While such draconian requirements had discouraged earlier, would-be non-compliant builders, in later times, with the one-time iron grip of society's strict old order still in place but weakening, a more rebellious scofflaw attitude was emerging. People aspired to build rural shelter however they fancied, never thinking of first getting any Mother-may-I? permission from busy-body, bureaucratic authorities and pay for the privilege. (Though on a much smaller scale, in some circles playing "beat the code" became almost as popular as "beat the pot laws" would become in later times.) Bound and determined to live on their bought-and-paid-for property and figuring possession was nine-tenths of the law, such Vistans' attitude was, as mentioned, "This is my property and I'll do what I want on it; go jump in a lake if you don't like it."

...regret at leisure

As the place's sundry problems became all too clear to Vista parcel holders, an intense love-hate relationship with the land emerged -- especially among those who hoped to actually settle on their lots and enjoy much sought after rural seclusion and peace and quiet. It was "Buy in haste, regret at leisure", a sad, familiar song. Lured by the rural development's cheap parcels, the buyer realized that if wanting to make use of the place beyond just camping up to 30 days a year without being deemed an illegal resident, the lack of infrastructure would require shelling out a small fortune.

It was like ten-cent parcels had a hidden million-dollar spoiler attached.

For the same or related reasons, parcels became an albatross around the necks of investors, speculators and vacationers alike. Their holdings were no longer part of a dedicated simple recreational development once full-on homes started going up, and they were unable to sell them at a profit as vacation lots to anyone knowing the score -- which didn't take much sussing to discover. One had only to talk to your typical walking-wounded, teeth-gnashing resident. Their ears were soon singed as the disenchanted party warmed to their task, often raking the place over the coals with an almost demonic intensity.

It was a buyer-remorse pattern destined to be repeated over the decades by untold numbers.

But the subtle magic and simplicity of an affordable tranquil backwoods under the protective presence of the magical mountain, the land feeling worlds away from noisy, over-wound city living, kept grabbing new would-be residents and investors alike. The latter thought to flip the under-priced parcels, while the former were blind to mundane concerns like conforming to the at first strictly-enforced building code -- that is, until out of the blue it bit them on the backside and they instantly joined the full-throated chorus of disillusioned parcel holders.

Lots practically sold themselves

In fairness to the developer, the parcels were originally offered only as primitive camp lands, nothing more; it was all upfront and legal. They were marketed as simple places of retreat for weary city dwellers wanting to rough it and enjoy refuge on their own piece of relatively unspoiled nature now and then. Developer Collins maybe sensed he needn't invest any more time, money or effort in the project than he did in order to move the lots, having created in effect a simple wilderness co-op retreat, each lot with well-maintained road access and platted to a fare-thee-well, corner boundaries marked by pounded in red steel pipes and ribboned lathe sticks with exact scrawled bearings.

If so, he was right. It appeared enthusiasm over the chance to spend spring, summer, maybe a still-pleasant early fall, amid the solitude of one's own affordable woodlands, majestic Mt. Shasta watching over the scene, big as life, was contagious. So much so that with the help of a little sizzling ad copy the lots practically sold themselves.

The spiel naturally also attracted many who had zero camping interest -- arguably, the vast majority. They'd snap up the parcels exclusively as a long-term investment or short-term speculation, imagining others -- not them, thank you -- would soon be clamoring to enjoy such secluded, affordable rural properties. Yet others, though primarily speculating, might sample their 'wilderness time-shares' a time or two out of curiosity to discover exactly what it was they'd bought sight unseen. Maybe the land then grabbed some and they changed their minds, flirting with the idea of building a vacation cabin or even a residence. For some, it was if nothing else something to leave the grandkids. 

Again, no infrastructure besides a reliable and nearby water source had been needed to fulfill the place's original purpose. The minority who intended to visit and enjoy the lots a while were psyched at the prospect of roughing it on their own backwoods land. They'd revel in the realm's often pronounced peace and quiet and charm of a then relatively intact high desert woodlands ecosystem.  

As far as things went, on the surface everything seemed hunky dory. It was easy to be blissfully ignorant of the festering, behind the scene storm clouds brewing over the place's very existence, of locals' abiding ax-grinding resentment of well-heeled city folks crowding in to exploit their longtime quasi-public lands and crimping their accustomed lifestyle (many were descendants of the region's pioneer settlers). And clueless of how the county powers had barely greenlit the place and looked at it askance ever since, viewing the development like some lemon vehicle they'd bought against their better judgement and were stuck with. As none of this was readily apparent at first, visitors reveled in their idyllic bargain properties.

One had the convenience and luxury of camping on their own bit of nature for free up to 30 days a year rather than pay someone daily to camp, others maybe setting up twenty feet away with a passel of squalling kids. A mini-movement was afoot -- many coming from the Los Angeles region, others from the Bay Area and the Central Valley -- purchasers pitching their tents and rolling in their travel trailers to the region's inviting seclusion, fresh air and awesome mountain view.  

The terrain was high desert woodlands. Though powerful seasonal windstorms -- roaring through like a runaway freight due to the massive mountain displacing and intensifying any storm's air currents -- could prove treacherous, the place, like nearby Lake Shastina, generally enjoyed an enviable banana belt climate. It offered often delightful springs and falls. While summers were hot and often bone dry, there were plenty of junipers trees and, on some parcels at least, a few scattered pines, for inviting shade. Some years there were occasional summer thunderstorms to cool things down. Adventurous residents in the west end of section 7 lived a modest hike away from a cross-country irrigation canal to dunk in. And in hot weather the mountain’s spectacular northwestern glacier-clad side could do wonders keeping one feeling cooler just by gazing on its chilled splendor.

"Bye 'n' bye" came fast

Significantly, it seemed developer Collins -- responding to a growing owner enthusiasm for extended camping stays those first years -- couldn't resist throwing out the idea that the parcels just might make dandy places to retire to "bye 'n' bye."  He relayed this exact notion in passing in the official Vista newsletter that was periodically sent to every member and avidly read by the small segment of involved co-owners of the new-fledged, low-key wilderness outpost, so neatly tucked away at the central top of the golden state, regal crown of Mount Shasta offering its blessing.

Since practically next door Lake Shastina would spring up a couple years later, initially as a second-home vacation community, bye 'n' bye came fast. It gave a handful of so-minded Vistan landholders the impetus to follow suit, but with a twist: building structures not as second residences but, as Collins suggested, full-on, primary-residence retirement homes.

Like Lake Shastina, it usually got far less snow than either nearby Weed or the City of Mt. Shasta, due to the region's phenomenal crazy-quilt of micro-climates, again, largely the mountain's doing. Usually just enough powder to enjoy a winter wonderland now and then without getting a sore back or frostbitten hands shoveling snow or having to put on chains to get out of never-plowed roads. (Long ago the place tried plowing after the rare heavy snowfall; the equipment blade tore up the cinder roadbeds so badly, requiring such expensive and laborious repair work, it proved impractical; everyone was on their own.)

Con su permiso:

dealing with an onerous building code

Of course, it was understood it was up to each would-be resident to spring for the cost of getting power lines extended to their parcels, drilling an approved well and installing an approved septic system -- all before the county would ever deign to issue a building permit...and then only after submission and approval of exacting plans that met every code requirement and then paying for the permit, based on square footage. Only then did it allow one the option of living on the land in an onsite trailer, mobile or non-code structure during the construction phase. (While construction was expected to advance "in a timely manner," the writer stretched his home-building project out to 42 months while living in a semi-underground hobbit home that was decidedly non-code.)

Only then would the post office assign the lot a legal street address (or, technically, release the already existing one assigned by county planning to every recorded parcel in the county), thus enabling one to receive mail at the blacktop entrance boxes.  Such an address was also needed to obtain a state driver's license, register to vote, and qualify for FedEx, UPS and OnTrac home deliveries.

As one might suspect, extensive health and building codes included maddeningly detailed particulars about everything: permanent foundation; framing method, with itemization down to the grade and variety of lumber and size, type and spacing and specific kind and size of fasteners; minimum structure size; electrification, insulation, full kitchen facilities, indoor plumbing, minimum water pressure... Any unconventional design, like a geodome, earthship, cob home or earth-sheltered residence, required hiring a qualified engineer to certify that the submitted plan would prove structurally sound and otherwise meet general specs. As said, most early Vista owner-builders, having hired contractors to do most or all the construction, didn't move onto their properties until building was completed and given the official county blessing, being duly signed off after a final inspection and thus 'green-tagged' for legal occupation.

While the Uniform Building Code (UBC) had been around in the U.S. since 1915, enforcement for ages was no doubt relaxed to nonexistent in more rural areas. Primary focus was concentrated on crowded cities with all their close-packed structures, usually built by detached contractors who'd never live in their creations and were often tempted to take shortcuts on construction integrity that could result in shoddy results and even tragedy for the eventual inhabitants. Accommodating rural owner builders wasn't a concern, as the founder of the UBC, Rudolf Miller, himself stated early on, never envisioning the new regulations being applied to rural owner-builders:  “…[W]hen buildings are comparatively small, are far apart, and their use is limited to the owners and builders of them, so that, in case of failure of any kind that are not a source of danger to others, no necessity for building restriction would exist."  His commonsense view was obviously abandoned over time, as average living densities increased and government’s bureaucratic, power-hungry, invasive powers grew exponentially.

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So it was that for a long while country property owners could more or less build cabins and cottages to suit themselves, at their leisure, even play it by ear, overall design maybe emerging only half-way through if even then. It was their rural land and so they'd naturally enjoy the freedom to build whatever they wanted on it. But with bureaucratic regulations' tendency to be adopted by ever greater numbers over time (cynics might say spreading like a cancer), until at last universalized, government authorities came to at least try insisting that the same exhaustive guidelines adhered to in teeming cities be followed even deep in the furthest reaches of rural regions like Siskiyou County, on one's remote property in the middle of nowhere.

It was having such unreasonably heavy-handed ordinances in place (and no fine-empowered board of directors keeping a tight hold on things) that would over time cause the eventual erosion of respect for certain areas of the rule of law by more than a few Vista residents.

Priced to move

Parcels were truly priced to move. Writer seems to remember reading in the Vistascope newsletter archives how they initially went for between $750. and $975. (in 1969 dollars; worth about twice as much in 2023 dollars, but still incredibly cheap.) Price varied according to parcel size, location and land features. The developer had relatively low overhead and obviously wasn't out to get rich off the project. He was already successful from his urban development ventures and could afford to be generous. Moreover, he appeared to hold a genuine affection for the place, actually joining others in camping on the land every summer the first years. He no doubt wanted lot sales to feel like the feel-good bargains they were, if only for occasional rec use. There were no steep infrastructure costs beyond putting in and maintaining red-cinder roads, many traced over preexisting logging, cattle-tending and hunting roads; surveying and marking off each parcel boundary; erecting entrance and section-corner signs; and planting first-generation, short, 4X4 inch, wooden road sign posts painted yellow with stenciled black lettering, many soon camouflaged by the fast-growing sagebrush.

No doubt all kinds of first-generation buyers purchased the lots for all kinds of reasons. But, again, countless had snapped them up out of pure speculation: "Hey, they're not making any more land."  Some would never set foot on them, let alone camp on them. Though a fair number were indeed psyched at the prospect of enjoying their own campground, and/or maybe saw them as something to enjoy on retirement, arguably the overwhelming majority were just betting on the place. They anticipated making out like bandits once the place grew, maybe becoming something like a giant KOA-style camp village loaded with amenities and services and attracting a flood of vacationing campers who'd be tickled by the notion of owning the (by then) popular recreational properties in the fabled Mount Shasta region.

That or, as instead happened, the place segued into a thinly inhabited, de facto community...one that might've actually succeeded and thrived, indeed driving up parcel prices sky high in time, had every would-be resident taken responsibility for meeting their own infrastructure needs before building to code as had most every last one of the first wave of new residents.

Obviously that didn't happen. Pouring such heavy investment into primitive, cheap land could seem counter-intuitive, like trying to turn a lemon into a peach. Something maybe only done by people reaching retirement age and flush with cash from selling their big city homes and hypnotized by the land, perhaps clouding their better judgement. Those with the willingness (and eligibility) to take on major debt  and, of course, having the mindset to deal with all the time-consuming, hoop-jumping bureaucratic process of building to code. Understandably, their vision didn't elicit any ringing endorsements from the less solvent -- many of whom moved onto their new lots immediately -- why else buy them? They'd maybe have only enough to cover the modest down and score some derelict mobile home or trailer or throw up a makeshift shelter on the fly from scrap materials or small lumber yard splurge and call it okey dokey.

It seemed cheap land and cheap shelters could be quite happy together.

Earliest investors and speculators never anticipated this major wrinkle, that a soon-to-emerge epidemic of noncompliance would destroy property values and the place's desirability for any and all the least bit convention-minded. Between hearing about the full-on code-legal homes springing up and developer Collins talking up a rosy picture over the place's bright future, they assumed everyone would naturally build to code. When what had started as simple vacation lands started to morph into something far greater and promising juicier returns, speculators no doubt started salivating.

Convinced they'd made a smart move, parcel buyers -- investors and speculators alike -- sat back and waited for things to happen. Some of the former soon joined in and likewise built on their property to live in a while before anticipating selling at a nice profit or actually became smitten with the land and decided to stay. But most, having little or no interest in ever getting involved in the place's day-to-day realities or the steep challenges to successfully evolve from camp land to community, simply waited for parcel prices to take off.*

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* They'd only have to wait half a century. Parcel values would in 2015 indeed start a dizzying flight to the moon: values of unimproved lots skyrocketed from $5,000 to over $150,000 by 2021. This would be the combined result of a national red-hot realty market and the place's discovery by underground cannabis growers who anticipated California legalizing recreational pot and the largely unenforceable restrictions that decriminalized unsanctioned commercial grows to a misdemeanor (the only western state to do so); it would make eventual sporadic busts often (but not always) little more hassle than getting a traffic ticket. Lots would sell like crazy for reasons totally unrelated to any infrastructure build-up, still almost nil; formal development plans, still nonexistent; or desirability as maybe a place to live for none but a few.

The startling phenomenon would prove in keeping with the chronic, extreme boom-bust nature of the place. One that -- due to factors beyond the scope of this writing -- caused unimproved lot prices to plummet by 2022, when they might again find few takers at $10,000 to 20,000. ("Price reduced $80,000.")

The place's extreme boom-bust nature might be likened to a bone-dry desert that experiences a brief flash flood every decade or two. A deluge of land-hungry people and/or cagey speculators descended on the region, driving up prices or try to, then the land and market returned to its default bone-dry conditions with a realty market softer than a sponge cake.  

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In the Vista's late sixties' start, every one of the lots was snapped up inside of 18 months. This fact belies a later common assumption the developer had somehow been stuck with parcels that nobody wanted.  People wanted them all right -- or thought they did, at first. It was the hundreds of absentee owners and those they sold them to who, in time realizing the development had gone seriously cattywampus, couldn't get rid of them fast enough. But they didn't want to sell at a loss. So the odd lots, though charming to all who valued rustic seclusion and the inspiring mountain views, had deal-breaker shortcomings and so in time became a drug on the market. Despite being offered cheaply compared to most other similar regional properties, they still often found few takers once its bizarre pedigree -- rife with an often gnarly, contentious atmosphere, daunting lack of infrastructure, and prohibitive cost of gaining then well-enforced code compliance -- became fairly common knowledge. 

But no one felt stuck with them during the soon wayward bound place's momentous first years. An historic back-to-nature movement was ratcheting up into high gear. A small minority of Vistan parcel buyers were stoked at the prospect of enjoying their own unspoiled bit of nature in one of upper California's popular recreational regions. Such vacationers -- and soon the relatively well-heeled retiring residents -- saw in the sprawling rural development something of a backwoods paradise.

Excited in discovering such an affordable wonderland to vacation at, maybe retire in, or, at the least, a sure-fire speculation, everyone and their uncle was tumbling down the rabbit hole.