he year 1849 is still vivid in the recollection of C. E. Owen, who was one of the historic multitude famous as the Argonauts of the great gold discoveries in California. Born at Sheffield, Lorain County, Ohio, January 29, 1830, Mr. Owen was educated at the common schools and an academy at Norwalk. March 16, 1849, in company with a brother five years his senior, he started for California by the overland route, and September 23, of the same year, arrived at the Losson Ranch, Deer Creek, in the valley of Sacramento. The brothers kept together through the vicissitudes of the after years and came together to Redlands, where the elder of the two died about five years ago.

Mr. Owen's career in California and other mining centers was full of adventure and excitement from the day that he left the Missouri River until, in 1873, he settled down to a quieter life as a rancher in San Bernardino County. It is impossible in the limits of this article to give even a summary of his exciting and interesting experiences. He commenced his mining career on the Feather River, his tools being a baking pan, four by eight inches and three inches deep, an iron spoon and a bowie knife. The first successful day's work with these primitive tools netted him $15 and he paid $10 for a regulation miner's pan. In those days the flour and beef that he ate cost him 50 cents a pound. He mined on Oregon Bar and in Trinity County, where he discovered gold on the present site of Weaverville, a town which derives its name from one of the party, which name as given to the diggings by Mr. Owen. He also discovered gold on Coffee Creek, and christened the location by the name which it has borne ever since. His discoveries in both these cases were the commencement of a great mining excitement. Mr. Owen also mined on the Salmon and Klamath Rivers, participated in the Gold Lake excitement, went to the Frazer River in 1858, mined in Humboldt County, Nevada, was in the Powder River mines, and was at different periods, interested in various quartz mining ventures. He also engaged in stock trading, buying and selling cattle and in other business enterprises in intervals of his mining labor.

Coming, as stated, to San Bernardino in 1873, Mr. Owen lived in that city until 1887 when he removed to Redlands. Here he has cared for an orange orchard of eleven acres. Mr. Owen has been twice married. His first wife was Sylvia Coppin, to whom he was married in Ohio in 1873. Some years after her death, he was married at San Bernardino, to Savira Wright, a native of New Hampshire. Mrs. Owen was living in San Bernardino at the time of her marriage, but had spent most of her life in Massachusetts. They have had no children, but an adopted daughter is Mrs. George Hisom, well known in San Bernardino County as the widow of George Hisom, formerly county clerk. Mrs. Hisom is at present attending the Woman's Medical College at Chicago, with the intention of preparing herself for the practice of medicine.

(Source: Illustrated Redlands, p. 10.)