Glenn County
Biographies
J. D. DUNFIELD
J. D. Dunfield, who is the
owner of the popular Blue Gum auto camp and dancing pavilion on the main
highway between Orland and Willows, is one of the well known citizens of Glenn county. He has resided in California for many years, and is
one of the veteran stage drivers who carried passengers during the perilous
days of mountain traveling when roads were open only a certain portion of the
year. Mr. Dunfield has also served as city
marshal of Colusa, California, and has followed an honorable course in whatever
occupation he has taken up in this district. He is a sportsman of wide
reputation, is accounted one of the best deer hunters of the section, and is
also a devotee of fishing. J. D. Dunfield was
born in the state of Missouri, May 15, 1883, a son of Thomas and Tinny Dunfield, the latter having died while Mr. Dunfield was very young. The father came to California,
bringing J. D. with him, and now lives at Princeton. He is now
seventy-five years of age.
J. D. Dunfield received a
common school education, then took up stage work,
running a line from Colusa to Sycamore, Grimes, Cole, Stare, College City,
Arbuckle, and other points. He had twelve head of horses, and changed his teams
every day. For four years he operated this stage line, then
had an automobile stage line on the same route. Later, he was the owner of the
Pioneer Stage Company of Colusa, and followed various other lines of endeavor
until he organized a truck company to operate between Sacramento, Roseville,
Newcastle and Auburn. This he continued for about six months, then sold out and
installed a fleet of trucks hauling chrome steel. The roads were bad, being
composed of dobe land, and this work was hazardous
and difficult, the highways only being passable about five months in the year.
Mr. Dunfield also, at one time, had a stage line
between Red Bluff and Eureka, California, and Humboldt and the Pacific coast.
Having disposed of his stage and trucking businesses, he was appointed city
marshal of Colusa, California, and retained the position for six years, during
which period he also operated a motion picture theater at Colusa. He resigned
the office of marshal, and was a candidate for sheriff of Colusa county, but was defeated. He next took up the sale of Dodge
automobiles in Colusa county, in partnership with George K. Littlefield,
and so continued until 1927, and was then with H. O. Harrison of San
Francisco for one year. In 1929 he purchased the Blue Gum auto camp, which is
situated on the main highway between Orland and Willows, and he has sixteen
cottages and all modern equipment for the accommodation of many people. His
place includes eight acres of camping grounds and he also has a dancing
pavilion, one hundred and twenty by one hundred and fifty-five feet in
dimensions, capable of accommodating five hundred couples on the floor.
Mr. Dunfield conducts his place along high-class
lines, and caters to a good trade, law-abiding and respectable. He has
everything at his place of business which a tourist might want,
including tires, gas and oil, and his business is deservedly gaining wide
recognition and popularity.
During his career, Mr. Dunfield
has followed many and interesting occupations. For five years he was a range
rider, and for two years he mined in the quicksilver mines of California. When
deer hunting was unrestricted by law, he gained a reputation as a skilled
hunter, and has brought down from sixteen to twenty animals per day on many
occasions, many of them for tenderfeet who were visiting this country.
Mr. Dunfield is a member of the Marysville lodge
of the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard
02 June 2010.
Source: Wooldridge, J.W.Major
History of Sacramento Valley California, Vol. 2, Pages 151-152. Pioneer Historical Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Marie Hassard..
Golden Nugget Library's Glenn County Biographies