Tejon Trout Lakes Ashtray

Tejon Trout Lakes ashtray, early 1950s. Diameter 4", weight 9.48 oz. Glass and decal.

Decal reads: "Tejon Trout Lakes / The Angler's Paradise / Phone Lebec 2742 / Bud & Bee Parker Managers / Highway 99 Three Miles North of Lebec."

The trout farm traces its history to 1930 when Leonard Lawrence McClarty, a major player in the development of establishments along the Grapevine grade (see Harrison Scott: 2002), started the Tejon Angling Club, aka The Fish Hatchery, "a short distance south of the main entrance to Fort Tejon." Scott writes (ibid.:234-235): "The small facility included a nice restaurant with Indian decor and red-checkered tablecloths. A small building housed tanks for breeding trout. Outside there were large concrete hatchery ponds. Nearby in the wooded area, Leonard created trout ponds at various points along Grapevine Creek. Local fishermen enjoyed the Fort Tejon Angling Club only a short time. A fire destroyed the restaurant in 1932, and the club was never rebuilt."

Turn up the clock to 1944 and Martin Yaeck, who lived in the Fort Tejon Inn after it closed, opens Crystal Springs Trout Farm "directly south of Fort Tejon on the west side of the highway where Leonard McLarty had operated his angling club in 1930" (ibid.:209). In the 1950s it was called Tejon Trout Lakes. The "managers" were Bud and Bee Parker in the early 1950s, followed by Carl, Myrtle and Bill Hampton in the late 1950s-early 1960s. The Hamptons dealt in rainbow trout, catfish, bluegill and bass.