New striping creates safer access to businesses and more efficient traffic flow during Fair
This weekend, the County of Nevada completed restriping on McCourtney Road, in front of the Nevada County Fairgrounds, from Brighton Street to Auburn Road. The new striping includes a center two-way left turn lane, through lanes in each direction, and shoulder/bicycle lanes on each side of the road.
This striping is intended to provide safer access to properties across from the Fairgrounds as well as improve the ability to move traffic more efficiently during peak events like the annual Nevada County Fair.
During the Nevada County Fair, and other events at the Fairgrounds that draw large crowds, Fair personnel will use cones to turn the center lane into another lane for inbound traffic throughout an event.
The Nevada County Fairgrounds are located at 11228 McCourtney Road in Grass Valley. This year’s Nevada County Fair is August 8 – 12. For information about upcoming events, visit www.NevadaCountyFair.com or call (530) 273-6217.
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Butch Butler, along with Art and Ann Grosse, have been named to the Nevada County Fair’s Hall of Fame. The Fair’s Board of Directors recognized the individuals for their long-time support and dedication to the Nevada County Fair.
Butch Butler Photo credit: Butler family
Butch Butler, CEO and President of Butler Amusement, helped start Butler Amusement in 1970 with his parents. At the time of his death in December 2011, he was the company’s CEO and President, and had contracted with more than 100 festivals and fairs, including the Nevada County Fair. During his lifetime, Butch made significant improvements to carnival ride safety and game legislation in California. He was a member of the Western Fairs Association’s Hall of Fame, and past president of Showmen’s League of America & Showfolks of America, and the Pacific Coast Showmen’s Association.
In nominating Butch, the Fair Board recognized Butler Amusements’ great partnership with the Nevada County Fair. They applauded Butch for his leadership in the fair industry; his mentoring; and his generosity, as evidenced by his contributions to the Junior Livestock Auction as well as his capital investment contributions.
“Butch has always been a great friend to the Nevada County Fair,” said Sandy Woods, CEO of the Nevada County Fair. “He will be missed within the Fair industry, and especially by the Nevada County Fair team. We are honored to be able to recognize him in this manner.”
Jill Moyer, Butch’s daughter, explains her father’s love for the Nevada County Fair. “My father loved the Nevada County Fair – especially the trees at the Fairgrounds, and the challenge of placing the correct ride into the center of a group of trees, as if it was also grown there. He also valued his relationships at the Fair – the partnerships with Sandy Woods and Ed Scofield were more of a friendship than a business relationship, and he loved and respected both Sandy and Ed. Our family is honored that our father has been chosen for the Hall of Fame. He would have taken great pride in this honor.”
Butch is the father of five children, and had 10 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren.
Ann and Art Grosse are being recognized for the their time and commitment to the Nevada County Fairgrounds, particularly during the annual Country Christmas Faire held each November, where they have served as Santa and Mrs. Claus for the past 26 years.
“We’ve been doing this for so long, we now see the children of the children who used to visit us when we first started,” laughs Art. When asked what made them return each year, Art says without hesitation – the children! “We’ve love the children – listening to them and their requests each year. More often than not, children would ask for something for their parents or siblings or friends, instead of something for themselves. It’s quite heart-warming.”
The Grosses live in Rough and Ready, and are both active with the Rough and Ready Chamber of Commerce, where Ann is a member and Art is on the Board of Directors. Art also serves as Chairman of the Board for the Rough and Ready Volunteer Fire District. They have been married for 51 years, and have three children, five grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren. Art proudly reports that all of their grandchildren, with the exception of their seven-week-old great grandchild, have sat on their laps as Santa and Mrs. Claus at the Christmas Faire.
“Art and Ann have unselfishly dedicated 26 years to bringing the joy and magic of Christmas to thousands of boys and girls,” said Sandy Woods. “They have been great examples of the importance of inspiring a child’s hopes and dreams, particularly during the magical Christmas season.”
Butler and the Grosses will be formally inducted into the Hall of Fame at opening day ceremonies on Wednesday, August 8. Butch’s daughter, Jill, will accept the award on behalf of her father.
The 2012 Nevada County Fair is August 8 – 12. For more information, visit Nevada County Fair.com or call (530) 273-6217.
A very basic map of Nevada County in California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The deadline to turn in entry forms to enter a still exhibit in the Nevada County Fair has been extended – so there’s more time to enter an exhibit or two in the Nevada County Fair. The deadline for submitting paper entry forms or to enter on-line using the Fair’s on-line entry system is Friday, July 27 at 4 pm. There are no entry fees for most categories (that’s right – it’s FREE), so simply visit the Fair Office on McCourtney Road or log-on to the Fair’s website at Nevada County Fair to complete the entry process.
This deadline extension is for still exhibits only, as livestock exhibit entries are closing on July 20.
Complete descriptions of all categories are available in the Fair’s Competition Handbook, which is available on the Fair’s website at www.NevadaCountyFair.com, at the Fair office, area libraries, and local chamber of commerce offices.
The 2012 Fair is August 8 – 12. For more information, call (530) 273-6217 or visit Nevada County Fair
The magnificent six-up competition is always a crowd favorite at the Draft Horse Classic and Harvest Fair at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley.
By Wendy Oaks
Donate blood on July 30 and receive a free admission ticket to the Fair
The Nevada County Fairgrounds and BloodSource are teaming up for a community blood drive. Make a blood donation on Monday, July 30, from 1 – 6 pm at one of the BloodSource bloodmobiles located in the main parking lot at the Nevada County Fairgrounds, and receive a free admission ticket to any day of the Fair.
As a result of this partnership, at last year’s community blood drive, 78 pints of life saving blood were collected.
Donating blood is safe, easy and takes about an hour. Donors must weigh at least 110 pounds, be generally healthy, and at least 17 years old. If you are 16 years old, you can donate blood, as long as you have a parent consent. For more information and eligibility about blood donation, visit BloodSource.org or call 1-866-822-5663.
This year’s Fair is August 8 – 12. Visit NevadaCountyFair.com for more information or call the Fair Office at (530) 273-6217. The Nevada County Fairgrounds are located on McCourtney Road in Grass Valley.
Wendy Oaks
Publicist, Nevada County Fairgrounds
(530) 273-6217
Arriving in Auburn on a hot Sunday in July, John and I decided to tour a couple of museums. First was the historic Bernhard Museum just off Auburn Folsom Boulevard near the fairgrounds. The house is over 150 years old, built in 1851 by George Bishop and John Long as the Traveler’s Rest Hotel, one of Auburn’s oldest surviving buildings.
In the Gold Rush, this hotel held teamsters traveling the old Auburn Folsom Road, and miners working in nearby Rich Flat. In 1858 the building was converted to a home for one of the builders, George Bishop. The house and 30 acres were sold in 1864 to Eliza Caruthers, and again in 1868 to the Bernhard family. This family and their descendants lived here for over 100 years. They started planting vineyards, making wine and then built a two story natural rock winery into a hillside in 1874.
Now with only 2+ acres left, the house has become a beautifully restored museum of the Victorian Era (mid 1830’s to 1900). No pictures are allowed inside the museum, but it is truly a sight to see. Also on the grounds is an old wine processing building, displaying wine making and barrel making artifacts, as well as a barn with a hearse, a sleigh, buggies and wagons of days gone by.
The top of the stone winery is now an art gallery, while the bottom still houses and operating winery, Bonitata (more on this later).
Next we visited the Gold Country Museum, housed in a historic Works Progress Administration (WPA) building, on the Auburn fairgrounds itself. We began by touring a replicated hard rock mine (thanking our lucky stars that we didn’t have to do that job!) Many other mining displays are also on display, as well as a model stamp mill, and an assayer’s office, a miner’s cabin and an old saloon.
After this tour we went back to the Barnhart Museum Parking lot, but walked down to the winery to do a little wine tasting in the Bonitata Boutique Winery (see last picture in the slides).
Judy J. Pinegar is a writer and winemaker, and her articles appear in many publications.
The magnificent six-up competition is always a crowd favorite at the Draft Horse Classic and Harvest Fair at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley.
July 13, 2012
Want to enter something in the Nevada County Fair? There’s still time! The deadline for submitting paper entry forms or to enter on-line using the Fair’s on-line entry system is July 20 at 4 pm. There are no entry fees for most categories, so simply visit the Fair Office on McCourtney Road or log-on to the Fair’s website atthe Nevada county Fair website to complete the entry process.
Join the thousands of Nevada County residents who enter exhibits each year in the more than 300 available categories. If you can make it, bake it, grow it or show it, we have a category for you! Don’t delay – enter now!
Complete descriptions of all categories are available in the Fair’s Competition Handbook, which is available on the Fair’s website at the Nevada County Fair website, at the Fair office, area libraries, and local chamber of commerce offices.
The 2012 Fair is August 8 – 12. For more information, call (530) 273-6217 or visit the Nevada County Fair website
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
Judy and I went to Dutch Flat in Placer County this Fourth of July to watch their annual parade. The town is small, population about 160, although on the 4th I’m sure the population was well over 800 people. Their one hotel was closed and I asked if there were any restaurants in town and the answer was no. Since we had decided to wait and eat when we got to Dutch Flat, that was disappointing. However, the weather was perfect, not too hot for a Fourth of July day.
We picked a great spot to watch, since there was a group of children there with water hoses, water guns and anything else that could squirt water. They met their match several times, since there was quite a few fire trucks with hoses that turned the tide on the kids.
Since the parade wasn’t that long, they want around twice to make up for it. Yep, around the town a couple of times.
dutch-flat-hotel
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In front of the Dutch Flat Hotel, waiting for the parade to start
A big drop in inventories of for-sale homes across the nation has led to a buying frenzy in some sought-after neighborhoods, real estate professionals report. A gradual gain in home prices is also following suit, they say.
Last week, the National Association of REALTORS® reported an increase in pending home sales in every region in the country. The number of contracts signed in May for existing homes jumped 13 percent from a year ago, according to NAR.
NAR projects a 3 percent nationwide rise in existing-home prices this year and a 5.7 percent rise next year.
But more buyers are being met with a shrinking supply of homes on the market. New construction has slowed dramatically—to record lows—the last few years. A backlog of distressed homes have not yet hit the market. And many home owners are waiting to list their homes for sale until prices rise more.
“In the Atlanta area, we are 40 percent below where inventory was this time last year,” Debra Bradley, managing broker for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Buckhead, Ga., told Forbes.com “Generally inventory goes up this time of year, not down.”
Inventories of for-sale homes appear to be lowest for less expensive properties, at which investors and first-time home buyers often buy, real estate professionals report.
“It’s different today for a buyer being in the market,” says Rick Davidson, Century 21 Real Estate chief executive. “They might not find that deal of the century that they may have expected to find.”
Several housing markets are now reporting multiple offers and bidding wars surfacing, due to the lack of inventory in some markets.
“Most houses below $250,000 priced realistically are attracting large numbers of offers in a short time, and many exceed the asking price,” says Mike Orr, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at the W. P. Carey School of Business.
Industry insiders appear less concerned about the shadow inventory of distressed homes that have yet to hit the market.
“It’s not being let out to the market in bulk,” Beth Butler, president of ONE Sotheby’s International Realty in Miami, told Forbes.com. “It’s coming slowly and it’s not seriously impacting the market one way or the other. Truth be told we could use the inventory!”
On Wednesday, a so-called “Homeowner Bill of Rights” moved a step closer to passing, with housing advocates claiming the bill would help people stave off foreclosures. The CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) opposes provisions in this measure which will allow anyone to stop the foreclosure process by filing a lawsuit, merited or not.
C.A.R. agrees that careful and balanced reforms to the foreclosure process are necessary. However, C.A.R. opposes AB 278 because it will further delay the housing recovery by inviting bad-faith lawsuits and defaults, making it difficult for even well-qualified borrowers to obtain financing.
The legislation would ban the practice of dual-tracking, in which a bank continues foreclosure proceedings while a homeowner is seeking a loan modification; require banks to provide a single of point – either a person or a team – for struggling borrowers; and give borrowers the right to sue their lenders for “significant, material” violations of the new law.
The bills also require lenders to give a clean explanation when they reject borrowers for a loan modification, to verify mortgage documents before a foreclosure, and to provide copies to borrowers upon request. Lenders can be fined up to $7,500 per loan for filing and recording unverified documents. The bills’ provisions apply to first-lien mortgages for owner-occupants.
For more information about C.A.R.’s opposition to AB 278 and to learn how to take action, visit this website
The earliest settlement in Nevada County was made in the summer of 1848 at a place called Rose’s Corral which was located between the Anthony House and Bridgeport. Early in the spring of 1849 a group of mountaineers from Oregon known as the Greenwood Company mined for gold at Illinois Bar on the South Yuba River. They were followed by emigrants from Indiana. In the fall of 1849, the Greenwood Company made winter camp at Jefferson, and the Indiana group moved further upstream to Washington. In that same autumn that Captain John Pennington’s party struck rich diggings on Deer Creek and built the first cabin on Gold Run, the site that was to become Nevada City.
Originally a mining camp founded along Deer Creek in 1849, Nevada City rapidly became the largest and wealthiest mining town in California. At one point, Nevada City was the third largest city in California with a population of 10,000. Nevada City’s good fortune allowed miners and settlers to enjoy plush gambling establishments, hotels, saloons, and stores. However, like many big cities that sprang up quickly during the rush for instant wealth, early Nevada City shared a darker side of claim jumping, murder, brothels and opium dens.
By the 1850’s Nevada City’s wealth began to wane, and as miners moved on in search of new claims and stories of gold and riches, a quiet and quaint city emerged. Two fires in 1856 and 1863 raced through Nevada City almost completely wiping out the town. The beautiful architecture that stands today is testament to the will of the people of Nevada City who rebuilt the town completely not once, but twice.
Hydraulic mining, Nevada County, CA, 1866 Photo courtesy of http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com
Nevada County was created in 1851 from parts of Yuba County because of the increase in population in the area and the distance to travel to courts which made it necessary to create a new county. The county was named after the mining town of Nevada City, a name derived from the term “Sierra Nevada.” The word nevada in Spanish means “snowy” or “snow-covered.” Nevada City has carried many monikers through its history; Caldwell’s Upper Store, Coyoteville, and Deer Creek Dry Diggings, but Nevada was chosen in the 1850s to give the town a cultured name.
Nevada City, CA, USA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In 1851 the newly formed Nevada County copied the name. The State of Nevada used the name 10 years later in 1861. The region came to life in the gold rush of 1849. Many historical sites remain to mark the birth of this important region in California’s formative years. Among them are the Nevada Theater in Nevada City, which operates to this day and once hosted Mark Twain among other historical figures. The gold industry in Nevada County thrived into the post WWII days.
The county had many firsts and historic technological moments. The first long-distance telephone in the world, built in 1877 by the Ridge Telephone Company, connected French Corral with French Lake, 58 miles (93 km) away. It was operated by the Milton Mining Company from a building on this site that had been erected about 1853. The Pelton wheel, designed to power gold mines, still drives hydro-electric generators today. Nevada City and Grass Valley were among the first California towns with electric lights.
Commemorating World’s First Long-Distance Telephone Line. Monument located in French Corral, California. Picture courtesy of http://www.noehill.com
The Olympics, NASA, and virtually every television station around the country utilizes video/broadcasting equipment designed and manufactured by Grass Valley Group, founded in Grass Valley. Electronic medical dosing equipment was first developed and manufactured in Nevada County. The first commercially viable picture-phone was developed in Nevada City. More than fifty high tech and applied tech companies, and more than one thousand hardware and software design and development professionals.
Judy J. Pinegar is a writer and her articles have appeared in many publications.
For all your real estate needs
Email or call today:
John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com
