Tailholt - Little Shasta Post Office - Little Shasta, CA - E Clampus Vitus Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

I located A website to Jefferson Backroads, a publication devoted to history in southern Oregon and northern California here and there's an article devoted to this historic marker. It reads:

By the early eighties Humbug Chapter core membership had changed hands from members living near the Fort Jones area to Yreka. By the time this plaque was erected Yreka members had taken the helm and began placing more plaques in and around towns located where they lived. The Tailholt plaque was erected at the Snowden and Hovey Gulch Road intersection east of Montague. Follow Ball Mountain/Little Shasta Roads to reach the historical monument as Chapter President Bill Wilson did in 1984 when he orchestrated the plaque erection and plaque dedication.

The Pioneer Press out of Fort Jones, California and later the Siskiyou History web site project best described Tailholt history. A summary of their Tailholt article is included in the following history.

Tailholt was not a gold town. Located in the Shasta Valley and established in 1888 at the end of the line, Tailholt was a rail town support and supply center for nearby lumber mills and logging. A string of sawmills, at least eleven, maybe as many as fifteen, were located along what is now Ball Mountain Road. One of those saw mills may well have later become the Deter or Schmitt Brothers Mill. Services and residences for hardworking loggers and millers sustained Tailholt for more than thirty years. It was a little town, but provided all the amenities timber men needed, such as saloons, a racetrack, baseball field, grist mill and post office.

I located another website here that highlights this former settlement and reads:

Lost Cities: Tailholt
Tailholt, in Shasta Valley, was a railtown, not a gold town. Established in 1888 at the end of a rail line, Tailholt was a base for the lumber industry. Where Ball Mountain Road is now, there used to be a string of sawmills ---at least eleven, maybe as many as fifteen. Services and residences for the hardworking loggers and millers sustained Tailholt for more than thirty years. It was a little town, but it provided all the amenities a budding industry needed.

There were two stores, and a post office, opening precious lines of communication and commerce. For the teamsters, there was a harness shop and a blacksmith shop. There was a slaughterhouse and meat market for feeding hungry crews after long, hazardous shifts, and farther east, a grist mill churned out provisions for man and beast.

Tailholt seemed unusually well - provided with recreational opportunity. Of course, there was a saloon; there was always a saloon. But Tailholt boasted a racetrack, too, where bets were surely laid on anything with legs or wheels that could get around the track. The game of baseball took north America by storm just about the same time the railroad arrived in northern California. Tailholt set the precedent for the rest of this baseball-loving county by laying out a ballfield in their little town.

By the 1920's there was little left of Tailholt but the Post Office. It operated until 1920, after being moved a half-mile west to the Soule ranch, and is still standing there today. Look for it, and another historical marker, the only things left to mark the passing of a lost town.

by Kathy Dias, publisher in their Siskiyou Yearbook 2002 insert
Reprinted with permission from the Pioneer Press, Fort Jones, CA