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Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, October 3, 2018
The Plaques of E Clampus Vitus
Saloon at Fort Jones
The 40th in a continuing series of articles
prepared by Bill Wensrich
“If you ain’t plaque’n, then you ain’t
Clampin’”
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Charlie Bob’s Cocktails, The Saloon
at Fort Jones, was plaqued Aug. 27, 2011
to commemorate the first watering hole
frequented by members of a new E Clampus
Vitus Chapter established in 1973. Today’s
owners call the place the Cold Stream Saloon.
Housing many businesses over the years, the
building will always be remember by Humbug
Chapter Clampers as Charlie Bob’s, the first
official Chapter meeting place and watering
hole.
Humbug Chapter’s Ex-Noble Grand
Humbug, Jim McConnell, came upon the
notion to plaque the Cold Stream Saloon when
he read about the death of Callahan’s Melvin
Cramer. Mel had been the first Chapter
President of Yreka’s ECV Humbug Chapter
and one of the founding fathers. Jim wanted
the bar location and its relationship with ECV
to be remembered.
Jim prepared the wording and had
Cecelia Reuter from the Fort Jones museum
help him with the language. He talked to the
Cold Stream owners and they agreed to put
the plaque inside over the bar in a prominent
viewing location. Jim then contacted Ralph
Starritt who prepared the wooden plaque.
That August weekend the Chapter held
a Doin’s party at Indian Scotty’s group camp
ground. On Saturday about 25 Redshirts made
the trip into Fort Jones for the dedication and
speechifyin’. Noble Grand Humbug Spike
“Raspberry” Haines had become ill and
stepped down that spring. McConnell grabbed
the Chapter historian’s horns and ran with ‘em.
The rest as they say “is history.” What follows
describes the inauguration activities and very
early days of HumbugChapter 73.
The Chapter owes its existence to tireless
Trinitarianus initiators and instigators and
Siskiyou County locals Mel Cramer, Murk
Mansell and Carroll Pepperdine. Their efforts
culminated in the establishment of ECV’s
Humbug Chapter.
It all started back in 1971 at Tony’s
Tavern in Ft. Jones. Wearing red shirts,
Weaverville’s Trinitarianus members Russ
Ratliff, their Noble Grand Humbug, Herk
Shriner, Virgil Mortensen, VNGH, and Hal
Goodyearwere tippin’ back a few. Locals
Murk Mansell, Tony Phelan, Ernie Deppen and
others in the bar practicing drinkin’ asked these
guys what their red shirts were all about.
That was the beginning! The
Trinitarianus group discussed the need for
an ECV Chapter in Siskiyou County because
they couldn’t take care of that area as well
as their own Trinity County territory. The
group had a few meetings in Etna to discuss
the notion. Before long a couple of Doins’
were held in Callahan and an initiation at Ft.
Jones conducted by the Trinitarianus Chapter
where Murk and others were “taken in,” by the
Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus
Vitus.
Credit for starting up Humbug Chapter
probably goes to those Trinitarianus clampers
who showed up at Tony’s Tavern for a few
beers. When Virgil “Mort” Mortensen was
Humbug, Russ Ratliff first presented the
notion of a Siskiyou County chapter at the
Grand Council of May 27, 1972 held in
Murphys, California. Meeting minutes reflect
the following: “Where upon there appeared
one Russ Ratliff, XNGH, one Mort Mortensen,
NGH, and one Melvin Cramer, Subaltern,
all of Trinitarianus Chapter, to request the
formation of a new Chapter to be known as
Humbug Chapter of E Clampus Vitus with
headquarters at Fort Jones, California and
with jurisdiction over Siskiyou County. Upon
proper assurance that Trinitarianus would
happily release the territory and act as sponsor,
a motion to approve the Chapter was made
by Bill Byars and seconded by Jack Stoddart.
The motion was unanimously approved subject
to the usual years’ probation.” The following
May at Grand Council, SNGH Goodyear made
a report on Humbug Chapter’s progress during
their probationary year. “They were granted
full chapter status with the proviso that their
Humbug, Mel Cramer, could coherently accept
same at the Grand Council meeting.”
No one really remembers where Humbug
Chapter’s Charter Doins’ was held. According
to the old ECV newsletter The Clamper,
Humbug Chapter was going to hold their
Charter Doins’ and initiation at Greenhorn
Park in Yreka on April 23, 1976. Bill Haas,
XNGH#7, sponsored by Don Lee, remembers
a Charter Doins’ held on Humbug Creek.
Humbug Chapter derives its name from
Humbug Creek, the miners and mining history
of that canyon. The creek was named by a
party of disappointed miners who worked it
with no success in 1851. Later arrivals were
more fortunate discovering gold along the
creek that same year in May. Nonetheless, the
Creek’s name survived.
The number73 comes from the year
Grand Council officially recognized the new
Chapter.
Credit for further development of the
Chapter belongs to Murk Mansell and Carroll
Pepperdine. At the time, Murk worked for the
Siskiyou Telephone Company; Carroll owned
the Jolly’s Club. Carroll had been a whiskey
salesman for the McKesson distributor as
well, or at least he was known to have had a
whiskey or two each day.
During the Chapter’s early days,
meetings were held at numerous drinking
establishments, including Jolly’s Club, Charlie
Bob’s Bar in Fort Jones, the Yreka Hotel, and
the Corner Club in Montague. For a very
long time a list of all the Charter members of
Humbug Chapter hung on the wall near the
telephone inside Jolly’s club.
Murk and Carroll were both instrumental
in establishing the Chapter’s presence and
participation at the annual Fort Jones parade.
The Chapter often led the parade which was
first established in 1968. Humbug Chapter
would have a couple hundred Redshirts at each
Doins’, as well as a marching Kazoo band they
took to local parades.
Back in the early ‘70s to make money
for the Chapter, Murk and others took a red
and black roulette wheel with a picture of a
jack ass on it, to various events selling beer.
They split the proceeds with the event operator
and the Chapter. After a while this operation
was shut down. Murk says the roulette
wheel ended up in a basement in Ft. Jones
somewhere.
Later on Murk found an old beat up fire
truck near a sand bar on the Klamath River,
just past Happy Camp. He paid about $200
for the old 1941 Federal, and drove it to Ft.
Jones where Chapter members restored it. It
was repainted red; the pumps were rechromed
and touched up with gold leaf. There were just
two seats in the cab and no room in the back
because of the pumps and equipment.
Murk became the Chapter’s second
Humbug followed by Carroll Pepperdine,
whose brother, Phil, became Humbug 20 years
later. Don Biss who owned a body shop in
Yreka became the Chapter’s fifth Humbug.
Richie Meek was Don Biss’ sponsor.
Bill Wensrich serves on the E Clampus
Vitus Board of Directors. His recently
published Guide Book for the ECV Transierra
Roisterous Alliance of Senior Humbugs titled
The Trail to Sailors’ Diggin’sfrom Paragon
Bay is available for purchase from the non-
profit Del Norte County Historical Society
Museum located at 577 H Street in Crescent
City, California.