Robinson Roots
Penn Valley Courier Volume 1 No. 3 August 26, 2005 By Nancy Hilliard Pierce
In the summer of 1848 Jonas Spect went prospecting up Deer Creek from his diggings at Timbuctoo, where on June 1 he had discovered gold. He later wrote, “I came to the finest kind of valley, which I think they afterwards called Pen Valley, but nothing occurred which would be of interest”. Of course, Mr Spect’s interest was gold. Many who came after found a different kind of value in the land.
The present site of Penn Valley’s commercial center developed long after Indian Springs and Pleasant Valley (around the Anthony House) had post offices, schools and businesses.
Penn Valley’s center was first called Casey’s Corner, named for the Casey family, owners of the land at the intersection of Penn Valley Drive and Spenceville Road.
Peter Casey was the family patriarch. He was in the 1880 Federal Census with his wife, Winifred, and eight children. Peter’s land ownership is shown on the 1860 Nevada County Parcel Map. A Federal Land Patent for that parcel was recorded in his son John’s name on October 25, 1871.
By 1906, of the original Casey family, son Peter H. Had moved to Browns Valley, Frank H. to Yuba County, William to Idaho and Peter and Winifred Casey had died. This left John J. Casey, his wife Margaret and their children, Thomas, Gertrude, Nellie and William on the Penn Valley ranch. By 1930 only Thomas, Gertrude and Nellie were living there. Ivan Branson remembered in the early 1940’s that “ The intersection of Spencville Road and State Route 20 was called ‘Casey’s Corner.’ There were three dwellings, or families, evident, one of which was the Willow Brook Farm, used as a school for ‘city boys.’”
The Casey family commercially raised chickens, turkeys, pears, and pastured cattle on their ranch. They also built a small market on the southwest corner of the intersection. This store was later purchased by Al Pegar, and he turned it into a hamburger stand. The intersection was then commonly called Pegar’s Y.
Artie Bolin came to Penn Valley in 1965. In 1971 she opened her beauty shop just down the road from the business center. She remembers Brown’s Country Store being owned by Joe and Delores Getty
and located where the bakery and the Chamber of commerce are today. There was a little “cubby hold” of a post office inside that they later expanded.
Hauser’s Hardware was next to the Fire Department, just the one building with the rodeo grounds behind.
Artie recalls a building on the northwest corner of Pegar’s Y that housed a pet shop. Don Young remembers the same building also housing a beauty shop and a plumbing store. He recalls Tom, Will and Gertrude Casey at one time running the Tack Room. Later, it was Tex and his wife Margaret.
Rob Bielen moved to the Donovan Ranch on Pleasant Valley Road in the mid 1960’s. As a youngster he remembers Pegar’s Y consisting of Mr. Hauser’s Hardware, Pegar’s Restaurant, The Tack Room and Brown’s Country Store with two gas pumps out front.
In 1975, Highway 20 was rerouted to bypass the commercial center and Burt Cooper owned the northwest corner of the intersection at Pegar’s Y. At that tie there was a 77-space mobile home park, the big yellow house where Mr. Cooper resided and a fenced pasture with grazing cattle where the Caseys once had their pear orchard.
In the late 1970’s Don Young purchased 100 acres, including the parcel belonging to Mr. Cooper. By 1980, Mr. Young developed the northwest corner of Pegar’s Y into the 30,000 square foot Penn Valley Shopping Center and expanded the mobile home park to 138 spaces.
He had a well drilled that produced 128 gallons a minute and installed 10,000-gallon water tank. Later he built the self storage units next to the big red barn.
Betty and J.J. Hill purchased the parcel across Penn Valley Drive from the shopping center and next to Hauser’s Hardware and in 1980 built Airhill True Value Hardware.
The Ettlin family started their Oak Tree nursery and landscape business in the space south of Airhill’s parking lot.
In 1982 Al Pegar sold his restaurant to Lenis Foster Hostetler. In about 1983, next to the Petticoat Junction, the Country Junction restaurant opened and closed soon after. Petticoat Junction was burned down by the volunteer fire fighters in a training exercise in 1987. About that same time, across Spenceville Road from the fire house the newest professional complex for five occupants was completed by Dr. Eaton.
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