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Description

Promoting Honey Lake City

This map, issued by the Honey Lake Valley Land & Water Company in about 1891, was created to promote the development of Honey Lake City, a planned metropolis in the Honey Lake Valley of Lassen County, California. The company, established in the same year, embarked on an ambitious reclamation project for the eastern portion of Honey Lake Valley. Their main water supply was to be Lake Greeno, a reservoir constructed on Long Valley Creek.

The vision for Honey Lake City was grand and idealistic, a true dream city that ultimately only existed on paper. Despite this, it had its own publication, the Honey Lake Valley Farmer, which was first published in San Francisco in April 1892. The publication was optimistic about its temporary location in San Francisco, anticipating a move to Honey Lake City once their office was established there.

In its inaugural issue, the Farmer described Honey Lake City as the natural center for the new lands made arable by the irrigation projects underway. The publication highlighted the city's ideal location on the Nevada, California, Oregon Railway, where the railroad descends into the valley. The site was seen as the perfect hub for the agricultural, grazing, lumbering, mining, and manufacturing industries that were expected to flourish with the development of irrigation.

The Farmer envisioned a thriving city, with panoramic views of the valley, the expanse of Honey Lake, and the surrounding timbered mountains. It predicted rapid growth, with a population increase of a thousand residents per year, reaching ten thousand by the turn of the century.

Although Honey Lake City never materialized, the area would eventually be known as Herlong. Notable features of the map include the Nevada, California, and Oregon Railroad.

Condition Description
Minor loss at fold intersection and some early pencil notes.