In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of Lake County this year, Lake County News is publishing a series of historical stories about the county, its people and places. This week's feature comes from an oral history interview with Al Kugelman that was conducted by Mabel Hazell on July 14, 1980. Kugelman was raised in born and raised in Lower Lake in the late 1800s.

I was born right here in Lower Lake on Oct. 30, 1888, and I’ve lived in Lake County all my life.

My father, Louis, came from New York to Napa. He had a grocery store there but he lost his voice and got asthma due to too much fog, so he came to Lake County and bought a ranch here. This was in the late 1870s.

Seven years later he went to San Francisco and married my mother. She was from Wheeling, West Virginia.

There were the three of us children born here, Rose, myself and Milton.

We all went to school here in Lower Lake at the old Grammar School. There were three rooms at the time but they only used two. One teacher for the first through fourth grades and the other teacher for the fifth to eighth grades.

At recess one day, two girls were walking along down at the foot of the hill. I happened to see an old rusty nail, what we called a spiked nail, and just casually I picked it up and threw it down the hill.

Well it hit one of the girls in the cheek and cut her. My teacher, Minnie Noel, took a wrung out of a

chair and tanned the seat of my pants. Well of course I never threw no more nails.

The Kugelman Ranch is just west, a quarter of a mile from Lower Lake on Highway 29. We had a vineyard and my father made wine which he sold to the different quicksilver mines, Knoxville, Oathill, Sulphur Bank, etc.

There were four saloons right here in town then which were all supported by these mines. My father sold wine at the winery, a gallon or two, or maybe five gallons to different homes. There was also a

brewery right next door to our winery and they made good beer and a good living off it.

When I was 17 or 18 I started taking my father’s job of driving two horses and a heavy spring wagon with 100 gallons of wine to these mines. We got 40 cents a gallon for it, can you imagine?

We made Zinfandel and also white wine, Riesling. Then they [the Board of Supervisors?] voted the saloons out of business here. Napa was wet but Lake County was dry so of course that put a stop to us selling locally.

For a few years we hauled it out of the county with a 6 horse team in 150 gallon containers to different wine cellars in the Napa Valley.

By around 1915 the wine industry at our ranch just withered to nothing so we planted walnuts. We also had a prune orchard, cattle, hogs and horses.

The only story I remember my father telling was about coming to Lake County from Napa in the dead of winter.

There was a severe storm and Putah Creek had no bridge at the time. He was riding horseback so he had to ford the creek and it wasn’t long ‘til his horse went to swimming.

Well he was told to get out of the saddle and get the horse by the tail and the horse would swim across, which he did do, and he got across.

Just imagine what a cold trip he had into Lake County.

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