Bella Vista

History

Bella Vista was once a thriving lumber town. A lumber flume fed a mill at the present-day location of the end of Meyers Road and Deschutes. The flume was completed by the Shasta Lumber Company in August 1888 when it reached Bella Vista. The lumber flume was a V-shape structure which was elevated to 90’ in height and supported by scaffolds. Lumber from nearby Round Mountain was shipping via the flume to the mill at Bella Vista, where it would be treated and sent south to the railhead at Anderson. Present day Bella Vista was the end of the lumber flume and the site was originally called the dump, because it was the dumping point of the lumber coming off the lumber flume. The original town site was established with a general merchandise store owned by the Shasta Lumber Company, company offices, a planning mill and additional buildings. Bella Vista was once a thriving community and at its peak, hosted a population of 2,000. Bella Vista's community consisted of saloons, barber shops and various stores, including gas stations. Bella Vista once hosted the Anderson and Bella Vista Railway, which was a 15-mile freight carrier that hauled lumber and other commodities to the Southern Pacific railhead in Anderson. The bottleneck of the operation was the transfer of the lumber from the mill at Bella Vista to the nearest rail connection, which was 10 miles away, in Anderson, and on the wrong side of the Sacramento River. Circa 1891, work began on the Anderson & Bella Vista Railroad down the valley of Cow Creek to the Southern Pacific railhead in Anderson. The railroad was abandoned in the 1930s and torn up shortly after. The distance of this lumber flume was 32 miles long from its start at Hatchet Mountain to its dumping point. From the dump, the Shasta Lumber Company wanted to…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP covers an area of 26.6 square miles (69.0 km2), of which 99.26% is land and 0.74% is water.

Race & ethnicity