In those early days there much heavy recruiting to bring people, and especially farmers, to California. In Glenn County this was carried on by the privately owned SVI (Sacramento Valley Irrigation) which was developing an extensive irrigation system for primarily Glenn and Colusa Counties.

After a few years this SVI was not doing so well, so the irrigation district became a public agency, the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation Districtd.

My father went to work for the Glenn-Colusa in about 1919 if I recall the story correctly, and continued for many years there, retired about 1960 maybe. By that time the Glenn COlusa was known as the world's largest gravity flow irrigation project in the world, providing water for some 245,000 acres. That has probably been exceded by this time. Their gravit flow system pumps water from the Sacramento River at a spot just north of Hsamilton City (also in Glenn County), then flows without additional pumping to cover this extensive acreage. Major crop in rice, which requiresd large amounts of flowing water.

Anyway, people came to Glenn County from primarily the Midwest, to claim the cheap land, and relatively inexpensive water -- any many local residents today have their roots in that migration.

Kennett Allard