The Zogg Fire in Shasta County is finally out. It killed four people and burned through more than 50,000 acres. Among the victims — the historic Ono Grange building. The Grange dates to the 1930s and served as a community hub for Ono, Igo, and the Trinity Alps Preserve.
NSPR’s Andre Byik recently visited with junior Grange leader Karina Pearson and grange master Jerry Dalrymple to talk about the loss of a piece of history. Here are highlights from their conversation.
Interview Highlights
Pearson: My kids and I had to flee and drive through flames actually to get out of Ono. And we knew pretty quickly that it was likely going to head to our downtown Ono and take out the Grange. And just what was going through my mind was all the memorabilia that is there. There is no time. No one's going to be able to go back and get any of those photos or history. Like everyone, you know, you're just afraid.
Dalrymple: As we were evacuating, we were driving, going to drive through Ono and we were stopped right in front of the Ono store. And as we were turning around, the Grange started on fire.
What is the significance of the Grange to Ono and the surrounding communities?
Pearson: The Ono Grange is honestly the heart of our community. It serves Ono, Igo and Tap which is short for the Trinity Alps Preserve. Our community is made up of ranchers, many of them who have been there since the mid 1800s. Like my family alone came in the 1860s as gold miners. And my kids' great grandfather was actually the constable in the 20s back when Ono had its own judicial system. So the history is very rich there. And the Ono Grange not only serves as a community center, but it is where — I mean we have these historical traditions. So an example would be every year Ono Santa rides in on horseback down the hillside. And that's been happening for over 50 years.
Dalrymple: A lot of the people have that memory from childhood clear into adulthood.
Pearson: So we have annual traditions like Ono Santa, or something like we call the Old Timers Dinner where we have all the elderly people, the community get together and share stories. But it's also, you know, where we have funerals, weddings, baby showers, it's where we are when we have an evacuation, like with the Carr fire, we distributed supplies from there — water and food. It's just really the heart of the community. And traditionally, the Ono Grange would be a place where we would have a benefit. We'd hold a spaghetti feed to help them rebuild. But right now even the Grange is lost. So it's a huge blow to our community.
Can you explain the history and perhaps what was lost inside the Grange?
Dalrymple: The inside of the Grange had pictures on all the walls. We're talking almost probably over 1,000 pictures, and all of it was history of families, ranches, veterans. You know, there's things like that that just are so precious. We will strive to recreate and reproduce and get those things back. But the main thing is we do have the memories. And we do want to try to start documenting those kinds of things too.
How will you be documenting those types of memories?
Pearson: First off, we're going to go ahead and we're going to make a plea out to the community. Anyone that has any historical Grange memorabilia in their homes that survived the fire. And we're going to be collecting oral histories from the old timers in our community. And also we went ahead and started a #RebuildOnoGrange on Twitter. So if people want to post an Instagram, post pictures, every single thing, just post it, we'll take it. If you have any old newspaper articles, we'd appreciate copies or photos, and they could certainly mail it to us.