The Grange is a movement that began in the aftermath of the Civil War. The war had taken a great toll on our county, and particularly on the farms in the Southern part of the country. Fearing widespread starvation, President Johnson directed Oliver Kelley to assess the status of these farms immediately following the war. Oliver Kelley was a prominent figure in the large agricultural circle of Minnesota and a clerk in the U.S. Bureau of Agriculture. As a member of the Masonic Fraternity, Kelley was able to move easily throughout the South despite residual resentment between Northerners and Southerners. He found the Southern farmlands to be completely devastate
Through his journeys, he realized the opportunity for a new kind of agricultural fraternity that would educate farmers and help organize and band them together to rebuild America. As such, the National Grange was founded in 1867 by six other men and one woman. The Grange, also known as the Patrons of Husbandry, became the first agricultural organization to give full voting rights to women. The organization would continue to grow and would eventually include one out of every three farms in the country. Farmers who gathered at local Grange Halls often voiced similar complaints about the high rates charged by warehouses and railroads to handle their grain, and they began to organize for state and federal controls over these pivotal economic issues.
The California State Grange was organized in 1873. Despite early success, California State Grange membership rapidly declined beginning in 1876, hitting an all-time low in 1889. However, the Grange was on the cusp of a major development that would later change the future of California and its agriculture. The Annual California State Grange Convention, held in Redding in 1929, made a declaration that startled California. It reaffirmed a position held on conservation, in keeping with the Grange program, by urging the development of the water resources of the State through the construction of a dam at Kennet, now known as the Shasta Dam, with combined State and Federal funds, to conserve water for irrigation in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. The delegates asked that electric power and power sites be developed with the project. In adopting this policy, the California State Grange became the first statewide organization to support the construction of the Shasta Dam, under the leadership of California State Grange Master George Sehlmeyer. Shortly after, local granges in Shasta County began to organize, with the Buckeye Grange #489 receiving its charter in 1932. The Shasta Dam was built with the Buckeye Grange having a front-row seat to one of the largest projects in history.
