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As It Was: Dr. Charles Pius Serves Yreka for 20 Years

For many years, Dr. Charles Pius practiced medicine in Yreka, Calif.

Born in New York in September 1883, Pius relocated to San Francisco, where he graduated from the Cooper Medical College in 1906.

He spent two years in San Francisco as an intern before serving as a steamship surgeon and entering private practice in Santa Barbara.  In 1910, Pius moved to Yreka, Calif.  When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Pius enlisted in the medical corps, serving in Serbia and receiving the rank of captain.

Back in Yreka, Pius returned to private practice, worked for the Yreka Railroad, became the county health officer, and the superintendent of the Yreka Hospital.  In 1929, Pius oversaw an epidemic of scarlet fever, with 21 cases reported in the county.  He suspended schools in Hornbrook and enacted a quarantine in Dunsmuir.

In May 1929, two members of the hospital board unsuccessfully attempted to oust Dr. Pius as superintendent of the Siskiyou County General Hospital after a Shasta County woman was refused admittance to the hospital.

In 1930, Dr. Pius retired and turned his practice over to Dr. W. C. McBride.
 

Source:  Yreka Preservation Corporation. Yreka Echoes. October ed., Yreka, www.yrekapreservation.org, 2016, pp. 1-2. Rpt. of History of Sacramento Valley. Vol. II, 1931.

Gail Fiorini-Jenner is a writer and teacher. Her first novel "Across the Sweet Grass Hills", won the 2002 WILLA Literary Award. She co-authored four histories with Arcadia Publishing: Western Siskiyou County: Gold & Dreams, Images of the State of Jefferson, The State of Jefferson: Then & Now, which placed in the 2008 Next Generation Awards for Nonfiction and Postcards from the State of Jefferson.