14721 Ager Beswick Road, Montague, Siskiyou County, California
Shasta land, a stage stop on the road to Klamath Falls, and the ranch Paul and Joanne Luckey built after they left Sausalito in 1980.
Scroll to follow Joanne and Paul from where they were born to Eagle Ranch. Solid pins are proven places. Dashed pins are close but approximate.
1947
Who: Joanne O'Leal, first child of Tony and Winnie O'Leal Proven by records
Joanne was born on May 25, 1947, at Sutter Maternity Hospital, a year after her mother Winnie, an English war bride, arrived in America. Her father Tony was an Army Air Forces sergeant, probably posted at nearby McClellan Field. The family lived in North Sacramento.
1950
Who: Joanne, 2, with Tony, Winnie and baby Leland Proven by records
Like many Air Force children she grew up all over: Alaska, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Wyoming and Turkey. The April 1950 census found the family next to Tinker Air Force Base, with Joanne indexed as "Joan," age 2.
1943 to the late 1950s
Who: Hayward Paul Luckey Likely
Paul was born on September 16, 1943. The 1950 census very likely shows him at 7 in Cass District, Monongalia County, in the family of coal miner Eugene Luckey and his wife Florence, with sisters Margaret, Julanita and Nancy and a brother, Clyde. The match fits his birth year and his own story, but it is not yet proven.
He started young. "I had worked in the coal mines of West Virginia when I was 10," he said. At 13 he left home for a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, and at 16 he went west to Montana's copper mines and then his grandfather's cattle ranch. The pin marks the county seat, Morgantown.
1959 to 1966
Who: The O'Leal family Proven by records
After Tony retired from Hamilton Air Force Base, the O'Leals settled at 381 Miller Creek Road in 1959. At 17, still a senior at Terra Linda High School, Joanne married George W. Casassa in May 1965, and graduated that June as "Jo Anne O'Leal Casassa." Their son was born at Marin General Hospital on August 10, 1965. The divorce was filed in April 1966.
1970 to 1974
Who: Paul Luckey, leather merchant Proven by records
By 1970 Paul was in business on Princess Street: a leather shop at No. 20 making custom jackets, slacks, bags and belts, and Pegasus, which sold handmade boots and sandals. He learned boot-making in Mexico. In October 1971 burglars took more than $10,000 worth of leather from the shop.
In July 1974 he opened Princess Court, five new shops at 30 Princess Street, and managed the building. That April he and Joanne's brother Mark had registered a business there called Zen Archer.
"We sold everything from hats to boots. I even went to Mexico and learned how to make cowboy boots."Paul Luckey, in Backwoods Home Magazine
May 25, 1971
Who: Paul and Joanne Proven by records
Paul and Joanne were married in Douglas County, Nevada, on Joanne's 24th birthday. The Marin paper listed the license: "Hayward P. Lockey, 28, and JoAnne Cassassa, 23, both of Fairfax; license issued in Minden, Nev."
1971 to 1979
Who: Paul, Joanne and the children Proven by records
They lived in Novato, then Fairfax, then San Geronimo by 1974. Their daughter Jessica was born in January 1972, and the paper caught her at two, riding her dad's shoulders at the Fairfax Little League parade. In 1975 Winnie's newspaper profile listed "Jo Anne Luckey of San Geronimo." Their son Paul Anthony was born in February 1979.
By the mid-1970s, they said, they were "fed up with the drugs, alcohol, and crime in the city" and wanted "a simpler lifestyle... cleaner and more healthy to raise the kids." The pin marks San Geronimo.
1977 to today
Who: Paul and Joanne Luckey and their children Proven by records
On April 7, 1977, they bought the land with Joanne's brother Mark and a partner, E. H. Johnson. In 1980 they sold the Sausalito business and their home and moved the family into a two-bedroom trailer on the ranch. Their son Dylan was born in Siskiyou County in May 1981.
Paul built a hydroelectric plant on the springs above the ranch and then the house. Joanne worked for years at Bogus Elementary School, a mile down the road. The pin marks the house.
"It was during a severe drought in that part of California. I used to climb Mount Shasta and saw this incredible amount of water everywhere."Paul Luckey, in Backwoods Home Magazine
Shasta homeland, a wagon road, a stage stop and a homestead.
Long before any fences, this was the homeland of the Shasta people. Around 1900 the naturalist C. Hart Merriam wrote down a Shasta village called Ah-soo-rah, "a large and important Shaste village on Bogus Creek 4 miles above its junction with Klamath River," named for the pale manzanita that grows there. That puts it within a few miles of the ranch. The Shasta were never given a treaty or a reservation, and many stayed on in their old homeland.
In 1876 a road was built east from the stage road at Willow Creek (later Ager) over the hills to Linkville, the town now called Klamath Falls. People called it the Topsy Road, and today's Ager Beswick Road follows much of it. When government surveyors mapped this township in 1880, they drew the road running straight through the land that is now the ranch.
The first private owner of the ranch's heart was William King McClintock. On December 10, 1881, he received a federal homestead patent for 160 acres in Section 7, most of the land where the house stands today. The 1881 History of Siskiyou County lists the stage line east from Yreka: "Yreka to Willow Creek 12, McClintock's 21, ... Linkville 65," and names W. K. McClintock as postmaster at Bogus. The road crossed his homestead, and the 1894 government map prints "Bogus" with a building at the ranch's corner, so his stage stop and post office were most likely on or right beside the ranch.
In July 1882 a Reno paper reported that "William, son of W. K. McClintock of Bogus... aged eighteen," was found drowned in the Klamath River after trying to ford it. In 1888 George L. McClintock bought the west side of the ranch for cash. In 1893 stage passengers were robbed of about $80 "near McClintock's on Bogus Creek." In 1901 George was still running cattle from Ager on the range "between Bogus and Butte Cr."
The rest of Section 7 went to the Central Pacific Railroad in 1895, part of the land grant Congress gave for building the line over the Siskiyous. The railroad reached Montague in 1887, and Jerome B. Ager built a hotel, store, saloon and dance hall at the old stage barns seven miles west. Ager became the freight hub for the road east until a rail line to Klamath Falls opened in 1909, and the town "faded away" in 1941. Bogus School, a mile southwest of the ranch, goes back to 1871-72.
Drag the slider to see the ranch on the government maps from 1894 to 1984. The maps are at different scales; the red outline is today's ranch on each one.
By the 1970s the land belonged to the heirs of William George Cheesbrough. His estate went to Ruth Freitas Wiseman and the Freitas brothers in 1975, with Eva I. McKenzie also holding a share. In December 1976 they sold to Rudy T. Hirota, a land dealer who resold property all over the county. Four months later he sold this land to the Luckeys and their partners.
From a trailer in 1980 to a house, a power plant and a family business.
Over the first few years Paul and Joanne bought out their partners. E. H. Johnson's share passed through a Marin title company in 1978 and came to them in 1982. Joanne's brother Mark signed his share over in July 1982 and April 1983. Eva McKenzie, one of the old owners, kept a life interest until 1993.
In the mid-1990s Dave Duffy, publisher of Backwoods Home Magazine and a neighbor, wrote about how the Luckeys made it work. They had money from selling the business and their home, "but they still needed to make a living," and the family "eventually expanded to seven children." Paul became "a jack of all trades." They raised cattle until they sold the cows to pay off the ranch, then grew and sold hay. Paul and his sons cut as much as 128 cords of firewood in a year, and he hired out his backhoe and bulldozer to build roads and dig septic systems.
In 1982, after a new law made power companies buy electricity from small producers, Paul started building his own hydroelectric plant on springs above the ranch. "It took him, his sons, and his brother four years and 160 dump truck loads of sand and gravel to make the 300 yards of cement necessary to corral the creek and build a power plant." He sold the power to the utility on a 30-year lease. Joanne worked as a teacher's aide and cook at Bogus Elementary School, by then for 11 years.
"We've raised ourselves and our children not to depend on anyone else... to be independent, to be themselves, and to rely on God and themselves to make a living."Paul Luckey, in Backwoods Home Magazine, mid-1990s
Parcel 004-070-300, 113 acres.
Paul built the house himself. The power company took an easement across the ranch in 1988, and the county's data gives the house a building year of 1989. An air photo from October 1973 shows only open hay meadow at the spot. By July 1991 there is a full farmstead, with irrigated hay fields on both sides of the road.
Drag the slider to see the farmstead from the air. The red lines are the parcels.
Tap a name to open it.
The eldest child of Antonio "Tony" O'Leal and Winifred "Winnie" Dewey O'Leal. Grew up on Air Force bases, then at 381 Miller Creek Road from 1959. Married George W. Casassa at 17 in 1965 and had a son; divorced 1966. Married Paul Luckey on her 24th birthday in 1971.
On the ranch from 1980. Worked as a teacher's aide and cook at Bogus Elementary School, and was an officer of the family's construction company when it was first licensed in 2007.
How we know: The California Birth Index (mother's maiden name Dewey), the 1950 census, Marin newspapers, the Nevada Marriage Index, the state contractor board and Backwoods Home Magazine.
Coal mines at 10, a Pennsylvania dairy farm at 13, Montana copper mines and his grandfather's cattle ranch at 16, by his own account. A leather merchant on Princess Street in Sausalito, 1970-74. Married first to Betty June Brown (divorced 1970-71), then to Joanne in 1971.
On the ranch: rancher, hay grower, woodcutter, backhoe and bulldozer operator, builder of his own hydroelectric plant and house, and for a time the janitor at Bogus School. The ranch's 1996 Cal-Vet purchase contract suggests he may be a veteran; no service record has been found.
How we know: Public records indexes (birth date), the 1950 census (likely), Marin newspapers, the county deed index and Backwoods Home Magazine.
Jessica, born January 1972 in San Francisco. Paul Anthony, born February 5, 1979 in San Francisco. Dylan Eugene, born May 30, 1981 in Siskiyou County, who took third in boys' snowboarding at the 1998 state high school championships and has run Eagle Ranch Construction since 2007. The house parcels passed to him in 2024.
Joanne's son, born August 10, 1965 in Marin, very likely grew up as Michael Lee Luckey: the records give Michael the same birthday, and Paul and Joanne deeded him land in 2004. He is now Dylan's partner in the business. Paul's son from his first marriage was probably Hayward Paul Jr., born in 1963. Two more children haven't turned up in the records searched so far.
How we know: The California Birth Index (mother's maiden name O'Leal), Marin and Redding newspapers, public records indexes, the county deed index and the state contractor board.
Antonio "Tony" O'Leal was born "Antonio O. Leal" in the copper camp of Metcalf, Arizona, joined the Army at 22 and retired as an Air Force lieutenant colonel in 1958. Winifred "Winnie" Dewey was born in Hemel Hempstead, England, married Tony at Maidenhead in 1945 and came over as a war bride in 1946. They raised Joanne, Leland, Linda, Mark and Gail at 381 Miller Creek Road, where Winnie lived until she died in 2016.
Their full story is told on the Miller Creek Road site.
How we know: See The House on Miller Creek Road.
In 1950 Eugene was a coal miner in Cass District, Monongalia County, West Virginia, with Florence and five children: Margaret, Julanita, Hayward, Clyde and Nancy. In 1940 the family was in Randolph County, where Eugene had grown up at Huttonsville, a son of John C. and Susanna Luckey. Paul named his youngest son Dylan Eugene.
How we know: The 1940 and 1950 censuses. Paul's birth certificate, held by West Virginia, would prove it.
The original records behind this story. Tap any one to see it large.