Around the time Cone Kimball burned, we had another dreamer making his mark on Red Bluff. Orville Jacobs and his wife Dee made a big splash of dreams when they came to town and took a dirt lot across from the fairgrounds into Cowtown Plaza, now called Frontier Village.
He boosted and branded our community with Western-style architecture. He also built Adobe Plaza. He put the beautiful Red Bluff is a great place to live sign on the corner to greet people coming off the freeway, but now, it stands neglected by the city!
The schemer in this story was my former beauty college teacher, who moved to Red Bluff after her house in Redding burned down. Her thriving hair salon burned up in Antelope, giving her a hefty sum to open a new salon, in Adobe Plaza. My first husband was hired as manager, and I left a great job at Hair Productions. We lasted a year as it was a stress-laced rollercoaster for a demanding boss. We decided to open a new salon, The Cut Hut. We were barely open when a fire broke out in her salon, gutting the center of Adobe Plaza and became a leaver.
Years later, another fire broke out, at Cowtown burning up the southern part. I believe it was electrical. His wife Dee opened a newly restored building downtown called Shoe Palace, which was a top spot for stylish shoes. The Jacob legacy continues with their son Glenn.
When I started working at Hair Productions, one of my first clients was Pam Koeberer Pitts, who like everyone wanted to try a wash and wear perm. Hubby John did not find it to his liking, so we cut her into a wedge, and she became my most loyal, and thoughtful client, referring lots of clients to me for forty years. Even when she lived in Layette, she would make sure she was always in Red Bluff every four weeks for her haircut. Thank you, Pam!
Pam was born a dreamer. In 1956 she moved with her parents from Mountain View, CA to Mineral to be close to her grandparents who had recently purchased Childs Meadow Resort. She went to college in the Bay Area but returned to Mineral in the summers where she met John Koeberer working as a seasonal for the Park Service while going to college.
Soon after they married, they were asked to help run Childs Meadow Resort after Pam’s grandfather passed. A few years after the move back to Mineral the National Park Service asked John and Pam to take over the contract for Lassen Volcanic National Park as interim concessioners.
In 1977 they were awarded the contract for all three operations in Lassen: Drakesbad Guest Ranch, Manzanita Lake Camper Store, and Lassen Park Ski Area. The Koeberers picked up the hospitality for all three facilities, remaking them with acquired style. This was the beginning of their phenomenally successful California Guest Services; expanding over the years to running 17 operations for several agencies in California, Arizona, and Utah. They retired and sold the business in 2021, but their dreams made Lassen Park a diamond of the success of Tehama County’s famous active volcano.
The schemer in this story is the Lassen Volcanic National Park, who did not want the ski resort in their national park and as the drought set in the ski lodge lost money and the Koeberers moved to greener resorts.
The park removed our ski park, hurting winter business for many mountain resorts and businesses. Another Tehama County gem crushed by big brother.
Another family of dreamers is the Bob Carroll family who have owned and operated the best burger place in Red Bluff, Bud’s Jolly Cone, since 1983, passing their successful business skills on to their kids, who all worked at Bud’s.
Carroll’s daughter Mary Gross started taking ballet at four. By the time she was eighteen, she bought Red Bluff School of Dance and turned it into a place where young girls, like my daughter Teal, could fulfill their dreams of becoming a prima ballerina. Mary taught them the discipline of dance and how to be and love themselves, but mostly Mary loved each child individually.
Even though Teal, at four, did not know right from left, she became a prima ballerina who taught, choreographed, produced, and directed dance for Mary and Selah Dance. Thank you, Mary!
Bob Carroll, a racing enthusiast, loves to invent and expand his business footprint often. He and his son Robert designed the first mini outlaw go carts, racing them as the community gravitated to the new sport at our fairgrounds. As outlaw business grew, they opened QRC, selling go carts, dance apparel and mining equipment. Robert expanded to a bigger location with Red Bluff Motor Sports, selling all types of recreation vehicles, until he sold it.
Teresa and her husband Ali Abassi took over running Bud’s and expanded into promoting big events like the Red Bluff Boat Drags! When the Chamber of Commerce first had the boat drags there were no stands, food, rules, or regulations, as locals would bring ice chests and lawn chairs and sit in the water, on the bank or in a boat.
When the Abassi’s and Joe Froome picked up the boat drags, they turned it into a big national event, with racers coming from all over to race for big money. They put our little town on the map and once again, Red Bluff benefited financially from the Abassi’s dream.
All of that was wonderful and profitable about our lake is gone thanks to several schemers, who need to leave. First, Congressman Doug LaMalfa, who never protected our interests or compensated us properly for the millions lost, when we lost the drags and lake.
Bureau of Reclamation for making sure we lost our lake to the benefit of water schemers south, like Tehama Colusa Canal, Westlands Water District, and Judge Wanger from Fresno, whose decision was “compromised by his ties to Westlands Water District” ruled against Red Bluff and pulled the plug on our lake. All we needed for the salmon to do better was a better fish ladder and we could still have our lake, even part of time, just shut the gates and give Red Bluff its lake back.
Maybe someday dreamers will represent Red Bluff again, instead of schemers and our children will benefit from what new dreams they create minus schemers on the take.