A Cold Case: THE LAST CALIFORNIA LYNCHING Copyright 1992 - Edward J. Begley In the early morning hours of Jan. 6, 1947, a small mob of local ranchers wounded and captured a suspected cattle rustler on a ranch owned by a well known Yreka medical doctor near Gazelle in Southern Siskiyou County, California. From there the black man was taken to the village of Callahan and hanged from the utility pole in front of Callahan's one room school house. Siskiyou County Sheriff's Deputies, and officers of the California Highway Patrol conducted a preliminary investigation of the scene after students had arrived for school, and the Siskiyou County Coroner removed the victim's body at approximately 10 AM, just as Miss Mary Roff's students were allowed outside for first recess. On Friday, January 10, 1947, the (Etna/Scott Valley) Western Sentinel newspaper carried a front page story about the lynching of a butcher from Weed, California. During the following weeks, an effort was made to recover all copies of the Jan. 10th issue of the Western Sentinel, and the school students were told that they were never to discuss the incident again. Now, 57 years later, the best evidence seems to indicate that, not only was no effort made to apprehend the perpetrators, but that there was an active cover-up of the crime by both local and state officials from Yreka. Other witnesses have come forward with additional information, but we still need more information about the murder and cover up. Anyone with firsthand information or a copy of the January 10, 1947 issue of the Western Sentinel is invited to contact Ed Begley at . Library of Congress Cat. Reg. No: 092-3396-53 Ref: http://www.scn.org/~begley/lynching.txt License to reprint is granted without restriction. $500 REWARD for an original copy of the JANUARY 10, 1947 issue of the Etna/Scott Valley Western Sentinel. Send to: Ed Begley, P.O. Box 251, Rochester, WA 98579 Note: As to Mr. Keith Arnold's article in the May 12, 2003 issue of the Siskiyou Daily News (On file with the Siskiyou County Historical Society) related to the incident, he provides a fair and accurate though non-conclusive assessment of the case to date, and I compliment him on his work. Rough Justice - Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947 By Michael J. Pfeifer, Phd, Evergreen State College Including references to the Jan. 6, 1947 Siskiyou County, California lynching witnessed, investigated, and reported by Edward J. Begley. July 2004 272 pages. 6 x 9 inches. 6 line drawings. Cloth, ISBN 0-252-02917-8. $35.00 History, American: 19th C. / History, American: 20th C. $35.00 from University of Illinois Press 1325 South Oak Street Champaign, IL 61820-6903 You may order directly from Univ. of Illinois Press, or you can call us (USA only) at 1-(800) 537-5487; Maryland and Canadian residents please call (410) 516-6956. June 20, 2005: With the recent passage of Senate Resolution 39, the United States has officially apologized for the lynching of 5000 African Americans between the years of 1882 and 1968. Unfortunately, that resolutio as a hollow ring to it while that same government refuses to investigate lynchings that occurred within living memory. Only by understanding what happened then can we ever hope to prevent future occurences.