California Trivia & Tidbits - Page 19

Looking for California trivia? Try our list California little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Northern California’s dormant volcano, Mount Shasta, near the city of Mount Shasta (pop. 3,460), is 14,162 feet high and is surrounded by five glaciers. The peak’s first recorded climb was in 1854.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park is the home of the boysenberry. In the 1930s, Walter Knott took plants that his friend Rudolph Boysen had been experimenting with and developed the new berry—a cross between the loganberry, red raspberry, and blackberry.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

The Monterey Bay Natural Marine Sanctuary, which stretches from just north of the Golden Gate Bridge south to Cambria Rock in San Luis Obispo County, is the largest of the nation’s marine sanctuaries. Within the site is the 10,663-foot-deep Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon—deeper than the Grand Canyon.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

The Shasta County town of Cottonwood (pop. 1,747) is named for the cottonwood—a short-lived, fast-growing tree common from Texas to California, whose cotton-haired seeds are dispersed by the wind. The tree is known as “alamo” by the Spanish.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

California’s earliest inhabitants were isolated by mountain ranges and bore no ties of language or culture with American Indians of the Great Plains. They lived in family groups or clans, unlike the larger tribes and nations to the east. Nuts, berries, fish, and a meal made from acorns were dietary staples.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

The Skunk Train may not sound like a pleasant excursion, but modern-day passengers between Fort Bragg (pop. 6,078) and Willits (pop. 5,027) need not worry about its pungency. The name goes back to the early days of the line when gasoline engines powered the trains that were heated by onboard potbelly stoves. The combination of odors helped create the name; it was said you could smell the trains before you could see them.

first appeared: 5/20/2001

The 165-room castle sitting on 127 acres near Cambria (pop. 5,382) was once home to newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. The magnificent structure took nearly 28 years to build. Today, the home named La Cuesta Encantada, or The Enchanted Hill, is preserved as a state historical monument.

first appeared: 5/13/2001

Legendary businessman Ray Kroc is the father of McDonald’s restaurants, but the first McDonald’s was the enterprise of San Bernardino’s Dick and Mac McDonald. When Kroc, who was a distributor of milk-shake makers, visited the pair’s establishment in 1954, he was so impressed by the quick service that he soon launched the landmark chain.

first appeared: 5/6/2001

Gilroy (pop. 31,487) boasts the title “Garlic Capital of the World.” More than 100,000 people are expected to celebrate the pungent plant at the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival the last full weekend in July.

first appeared: 5/6/2001

The huge Hale telescope at the observatory on Mount Palomar has a reflector measuring 200 inches in diameter and weighing 14.5 tons. It was completed in 1948 and named for astronomer George Ellery Hale.

first appeared: 4/29/2001

Death Valley includes more than 3.3 million acres and contains the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere—Badwater, 282 feet below sea leavel.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

What is now Humboldt Redwoods State Park, in Northern California near the coast, once was home to the Sinkyone Indians, who made prudent use of the giant trees. Redwood planks were used for housing, redwood logs helped make canoes, and redwood root fibers were instrumental in basketry.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

The first production in the Hollywood Bowl, a natural amphitheater, was Julius Caesar, performed May 19, 1916. The programs known as “Symphonies Under the Stars” began in 1922.

first appeared: 4/15/2001

Chico is home of the National Yo-Yo Museum, featuring yo-yos from as far back as the 1920s.

first appeared: 4/15/2001

Death Valley’s temperature soared to 135 degrees on July 10, 1913, the hottest day ever recorded in the United States.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

The General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park is calculated to weigh 6,000 tons, making it the largest tree in the world.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

Yosemite National Park owes its founding to naturalist John Muir, who came to love the area in 1869 when he spent the summer herding sheep in the Sierras. The Yosemite Valley and neighboring giant sequoia forests were first protected as a California park, but Muir’s dream of a national park was realized in 1890.

first appeared: 4/1/2001

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