Jefferson - The 51st State - Northern California / Southern Oregon - A State of Mind

Ever since at least 1850 there have been repeated attempts to form a separate state out of the region currently found in southern Oregon and northern California. Many of the efforts have been tongue-in-cheek, or at most a media-savvy effort to get the attention of lawmakers or governors who have started paying too much attention to urban folk at the expense of rural communities. Some, however, have been serious.

The most famous effort was in 1941. From http://jeffersonstate.com/jeffersonstory.html:

...Jefferson made the papers nearly every day, competing with headlines of Germany's ravaging of Europe. The San Francisco Chronicle sent a young reporter, Stanton Delaplane, to cover the events. He traveled the rain-soaked roads to speak with locals to get a feel for the secession movement from their point of view. He got stuck in the mud down the Klamath River but that did not stop him from writing a series of colorful articles on the rebellion which earned him the coveted Pulitzer Prize.

On December 4, Judge John L. Childs of Crescent City in Del Norte County was elected governor. A torchlight parade complete with horses, marching bands and sign-carrying young people riding in trucks was held in Yreka followed by a ceremonious inauguration held on the courthouse lawn...

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the secession movement stopped, and people dove into helping the war effort instead.

The favored name for the proposed state has varied, from Klamath to Shasta to Siskiyou to Jefferson. These days, the favored name seems to be Jefferson. The title link connects to a website devoted to the history of the various efforts, and to keeping the idea of secession alive. Well, that, and promoting a little tourism, of course.

For a list of Pulitzer Prizes for 1942, including Delaplane's award for reporting, see http://www.pulitzer.org/cgi-bin/year.pl?559,29.

UPDATE: I just went looking for more articles on Jefferson, and came across http://www.humboldt.edu/~sojmc/history.htm, which, among other things, implies that Delaplane helped manufacture the stories he was covering:

...On December 1 the movement both gained and lost a county. The Board of Supervisors of Modoc County adopted a resolution unequivocally stating that Modoc wanted no part of the secession attempt. Balancing that setback was the announcement from Weaverville that the Trinity County Board of Supervisors had unanimously voted to support the secession drive. In addition to Trinity County, the movement had picked up another supporter who proved to be extremely valuable: a cub reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle.

This young man -- Stanton Delaplane -- had heard about the secession attempt and thought there might be a story in it. He convinced his editor to send him, in spite of the fact that he was only a beginner. Upon arriving in Yreka he did not find much happening that was newsworthy; so he joined in the planning to provide the kind of stories his readers might find interesting.

One of his proposals was to blockade the highway every Thursday, distributing window stickers and proclamations to passing motorists. And they requested the people to withhold their penny sales tax as a protest against the lack of support for the development of copper mining. The movement was rolling...

Oh, dear.