About Malin

Malin’s Rich History

Located in the fertile Klamath Basin, Malin is a close-knit community with a colorful history. In 2004, Malin celebrated the 95th anniversary of its founding. Throughout its ninety-five year history, Malin has been a beacon of hope for people searching for a better life. While the city’s history dates back to 1909, development in the area began much sooner.

Long before the town of Malin was founded, the cattle industry was an important part of the area’s economy. In 1872, the Brotherton and Boddy families, along with bachelor Henry Miller, established cattle ranches in the area. However, this was an era of tension in the region between the U.S. government and the Modoc Indians. On the first day of the Modoc War, November 29, 1872, the Modocs killed all male members of these families. Eager to leave the area, some surviving sold out to Jesse Carr, a millionaire cattle rancher and land speculator from San Francisco. For the next thirty years, Carr’s company, the Carr Land and Livestock Company accumulated most available land in the area.

Conditions in the area limited the potential of the cattle industry. The nearest railroad was over 100 miles away, and with no irrigation ranchers needed more land to be financially successful. During the late 1800s, area ranchers attempted to bring irrigation to the Malin area. However, J.Frank Adams, developer of an irrigation project in nearby Merrill, and Jesse Carr never came to an agreement on a price to extend the project to the area.

In 1903, Carr died, leaving the Carr Land and Livestock Company to his daughter, Jessie Seale. W.C. Dalton, the foreman of the Carr Company, purchased one-third interest in the business. The importance of agriculture to the region’s economy was increasing at the time of Carr’s death. In the high dessert climate however, irrigation was essential for successful farming. Dalton understood the importance of irrigation to the region and in 1904, he and Adams came to a financial agreement to have the Adam’s ditch extended to the Malin area.

The irrigation water provided by the Adam’s ditch proved to be inadequate to keep up with the demand. Local farmers and ranchers petitioned the federal government for help, and in 1905, the government approved the Klamath Project. The project was one of many irrigation projects throughout the west created by the Reclamation Act of 1902.

Adams knew the Klamath Project would attract numerous settlers to the area. In 1907, Adams along with a group of local businessmen incorporated the Lakeside Land Company. The company purchased 6500 acres of land for $90,000 from the Carr Land and Livestock Company. Much of this land, located between Adams Point and Bevans Point (Turkey Hill), was still under the receding waters of Tule Lake.

The Lakeside Land Company surveyed and plotted the land dividing it into 40 acre lots; setting aside 160 acres at the base of Bevans Point for a town site. Slowly, farmers bought the land at an average of thirty dollars an acre. The company’s big break came in 1909 with the arrival of three scouts from the Czech Colonization Club.

Jan Rosicky organized the Czech Colonization Club in 1908, with the goal of establishing a Czech colony in the American West. For a small fee, a person of Czech ancestry could join the Omaha based club. Members received a monthly news letter, Hospodar, which kept them informed on the progress of the organization. For various reasons, the club’s members had left Europe for a better life. Originally settling in the large cities of the Midwest, the immigrants longed to return to an agrarian lifestyle.

In 1909, the club sent three scouts, Vaclav Vostrcil, J.A. Sobotka, and Frank Zumpfe on a three month trip to survey the various federal irrigation projects of the American West. Upon their return to Nebraska, the three men reported that the Klamath Project was the most promising location to establish a Czech Colony.

Sixty-six members of the club took the scout’s advice to settle in the Klamath Project. Upon the group’s arrival in September 1909, J. Frank Adams took them to the tract of land owned by the Lakeside Land Company. The Czechs quickly bought up these properties at an average of fifty acres, at $40 an acre per settler. On the land set aside for a town site, the new settlers established the community of Malin, named for a farming community in Bohemia.

The first years of the Czech settlement was a trying time. Many had spent their entire savings to purchase the land. Infested by jackrabbits and covered in sagebrush, the land required heavy preparation before a successful crop was possible. The two established ranchers in the area, Adams and Dalton, helped by extending credit and loaning equipment to the settlers. However, until crops were established, the settlers needed another source of income.

Some of the Czech settlers went to work for Adams and Dalton. The ranchers employed the men as farm hands and cowboys, while employing the women as cooks. Other settlers went to work extending the Southern Pacific Railroad north of Klamath Falls. Some settlers also found work in the region’s new timber industry.

With the advent of the Klamath Project and the subsequent wave of settlers, there became a need for lumber. In 1910, with the financial help of W.C. Dalton, Jim Worlow established a mill ten miles east of Malin on Bryant Mountain. Besides an extra source of income, the mill provided new settlers to the area lumber to build their homes, ranches and businesses. Men from Malin walked ten miles from their homes to the mill where they would stay all week. At the end of the week, they returned home for the weekend to attend to their ranches.

Life was tough for the settlers, but many found time to socialize and have a good time on Saturday night. One of the first buildings built in the new Malin community was a recreation hall. Built in 1910, the hall hosted a variety of events from weddings to weekly Saturday night dances. The dances were popular among early area settlers and their success led to the creation of Malin’s entertainment industry. By 1916, word of the exciting dances held in Malin had spread throughout Southern Klamath County and people from as far away as Bly, 60 miles away, attended.

The first few years were a struggle but area settlers eventually established profitable farms and ranches. The market crops of early area farms were a variety of grains, including wheat, rye, and Barley. It was the introduction of potatoes however, that impacted the local economy for the next eighty years.

From 1909 to 1920 the population of the Malin area slowly grew. This slow population growth changed with the arrival of the 1920s. 1922 was a pivotal year for Malin. That year, Malin was incorporated as a city and a new water/sewer system was put into operation. For many years this system provided Malin residents with the purest drinking water in the state. Malin also saw the arrival of electricity in 1922, which transformed the area’s economy. Electricity was a welcome convenience for Malin homes and businesses; however, it transformed the area’s agricultural industry by opening up land in the Malin irrigation district.

Malin Irrigation District encompasses 3400 acres of land east of Malin, between Turkey Hill and Bryant Mountain. This land lies uphill from the existing irrigation canals so it was not cost effective to irrigate. Electricity made it affordable to pump water uphill out of the main irrigation system to the top of Turkey Hill. From there, water could flow through canals throughout the Malin irrigation district. Mike Stastny was in charge of construction, and W.C. Dalton financed the digging of two main canals and installation of irrigation pumps. Finally, in 1923, the land was opened for settlement.

The Klamath Land and Livestock Company, incorporated in 1920, owned three quarters of the land available in the Malin irrigation district. W.C. Dalton, the company’s owner, offered parcels of this land at reasonable prices. The reasonably priced land and booming potato industry attracted local farmers as well as farmers from across the country to the Malin area.

The arrival of electricity did more than help the farming industry; it also increased the potential of creating new industries in the area. In 1923, John Reber, a European immigrant, constructed a cheese factory in Malin, which would impact the area’s economy for the next three decades. New migration to the area also increased the need for lumber. George McCullum responded to this need by building a lumber mill three miles southeast of Malin in 1926. The new mill replaced the Worlow Mill, which ceased operations in 1925. McCullum’s mill had a capacity of 35,000 board feet per shift and provided forty full-time jobs to local residents.

Increased migration to Malin also influenced the community’s entertainment industry. In 1924, Vaclav Kalina purchased an abandoned school building from Klamath County School District. He moved the building to the center of town and remodeled it for use as a new recreational facility. The new hall replaced the original recreation hall, which had become too small to accommodate the large crowds events were attracting.

Kalina continued Malin’s tradition of holding dances in his new hall, much like the one at the original Malin recreation hall. He also used the facility as a movie theater. For theater seating, he used folded wooden chairs connected in groups of five. Once the movie was over, employees pulled the chairs to the side to make room for a dance. Many dances lasted until dawn with a midnight snack offered for a quarter a plate.

Kalina kept up with innovations in the movie industry. In the late 1920s Hollywood movies started featuring sound. To keep up with the times, Kalina built a modern show house next to his original building in 1930. Other industries in the area also modernized in the early 1930s. In 1933, McCullum’s mill was converted to steam power which increased its capacity and reduced the need for animal power.

The most impacting innovation in the early 1930s however, was the arrival of the Great Northern railroad. The railroad provided an outlet for Malin’s industries to the national and world markets and helped in expanding the community’s booming potato industry. By the mid 1930s potato farming represented more than fifty percent of the Klamath Basin’s total income. The heaviest shipments, 1086 train cars, were shipped out of the Great Northern railway station in Malin.

During this time-period, potato farming was labor intensive, especially during planting and harvest. People flocked to the area from all over the U.S. in search of work. After initial arrival, many of these people stayed as they found work in other local industries. Others were migrant laborers who left after harvest. Some others took advantage of the local economic conditions and went into the farming business for themselves.

During the 1930s, the Malin Cheese Factory also expanded and was a vital part of the Malin area economy. The dairy cows of many local farmers supplied the milk for the cheese factory. Money received from the sale of milk to the cheese factory was important to local farmers as it supplied the only steady income many farmers received. The Malin Cheese Factory was well known throughout the west coast of its excellent cheese. By 1937, the Malin Cheese factory was producing 650,000 pounds of cheese annually. The company sold 20 percent locally while shipping 80 percent to the San Francisco Bay area.

In 1935, another food processing industry was introduced into the Malin economy, with the opening of the Malin Turkey Farm. The grasshopper infested hills north of Malin and the community’s proximity to the Great Northern Railway, made the area perfect for such an enterprise. By 1937, the farm was processing 41,000 turkeys annually making it the largest turkey farm in the U.S.

By 1940, Malin was a successful flourishing community. A 1941 account of Malin’s businesses is evidence of this prosperity. The account reported Malin had eight gas stations, two general merchandise stores, one variety store, one drug store, one bakery, two beer gardens, one hotel, one shoe shop, two garages, a lumberyard, a cheese factory, and a blacksmith shop, a considerable number of businesses considering Malin’s population of 535.

The Malin area would again be impacted greatly with the advent of World War II. Local mills increased production and added shifts to supply lumber for the new Naval Air Station in Klamath Falls, and the Japanese internment camp at Tulelake. Potato prices skyrocketed until the government imposed a price ceiling at $2.40 per hundred weight.

Not all sectors of Malin’s economy benefited from the war. Many local farmers sold their milk cows to invest in the booming potato industry. Local dairies sold their milk supply to the federal government, for use at Camp Tulelake. The Malin Cheese Factory could not compete with the price offered to the dairies by the government. With no milk supply, the cheese factory was forced to close its doors.

Malin’s entertainment business however, flourished during the 1940s. By 1940, Kalina’s original dance hall was too small to accommodate the large crowds it was attracting, so Kalina tore the building down and replaced it with a much larger structure. The $15,000, air cooled building was the most modern dance facility in the region.

Kalina provided the community a wide range of entertainment. Besides the movies and the dances, the hall hosted boxing matches on Friday nights, where local men could compete for a $25 prize. On Saturday afternoon, the hall acted as a roller skating rink for local children. The most interesting events however, were the big name bands Kalina booked to perform there.

In the 1940s, the nation entered the big band era. To go along with the weekly Saturday night dances, once a month, usually on a Sunday, Kalina featured a big name band. The list of superstars that played in Malin is nothing short of incredible. Lawrence Welk, the Dorsey Brothers, Phil Harris, Wayne King, and Harry Owens and the Royal Hawaiians, were just some of the many performers to play at the hall. The stars would draw crowds from miles around. Many times there was not enough room for everyone to dance, so many people just enjoyed the evening listening to music.

The Movie Theater and dance hall were the focal point of area entertainment until the introduction of television to the area in 1958. That year, Kalina closed his movie theater and reduced the dance hall schedule to about ten dances annually. However, the hall continued to be important to Malin. Many public functions, and roller skating two days a week, continued for the next thirty years.

After World War II, Malin experienced another boom. In 1947, the federal government opened up thousands of acres of land just south of Malin to veteran homesteaders. Once again, there was an increased demand for lumber.

In 1946, the Loveness brothers from Canby California purchased the McCullum Mill. For the first few years, the Loveness Mill maintained a steady capacity. The company’s big break came when plywood companies began using white fur in their production. To keep up with demand, the mill converted to electric and air power in 1950. This improvement increased the mill’s capacity to 65,000 board feet per shift.

By the late 1950s, the Loveness mill was the industrial leader of the Klamath Basin and the company employed over 80 full-time employees. It was a mainstay in the area economy until economic hard times hit the timber industry in the late 1970s.

Today, Malin continues to move forward. Its large 36 acre park, complete with Olympic size swimming pool, is unusual for a town of its size. From the Oregon State Babe Ruth baseball tournament to the Malin Park Cruise, the park offers a wide variety of activities that draws thousands of visitors to Malin each summer. People from all over, especially Mexico, have recently moved into the area finding opportunity in many different fields. These new immigrants have brought with them a rich culture which has enhanced the community as a whole.
Today, like throughout its history, Malin represents what is right about rural America. Malin’s history is about neighbor helping neighbor, and hard working people creating their own opportunities. Although Malin has seen many changes, one thing that has never changed is its strong community spirit which is envied by other communities in the area. A community spirit which will continue to help Malin grow throughout the years to come.