The Yreka Journal ran this announcement on July 16, 1887: “The new town of Mott, near the town of Sisson in the Mt. Shasta neighborhood, was named after Mr. Mott, the energetic and popular roadmaster of the Railroad Company, who supervises the wagon road building for accommodation of the railroad’s construction of its track, and repairs or replaces roads where the track damages or follows established roads. The North Star is the new newspaper being published in this town, the paper having been started recently by Goldsten and Kernan.”
The community of Mott no longer exists, although Sisson became today’s Mount Shasta City.
Mott grew rapidly, adding lumber mills, businesses and homes, and remained a thriving community for many years. Several early businessmen included sawmill owner J.J. Scott, who emigrated from Canada; Eugene Sheldon, a chemist from New York; and Edward A. Baker, a carpenter from New York.
Like other boomtowns that grew beside the early railroads, Mott began to decline. With mills shutting down and the railroad tracks torn up, little was left for the community to build on. And everything moved to the town of Mount Shasta City or other nearby locations.
Source: Great Register of Siskiyou County. Yreka Journal, 1898. 44-45; Rippon, C. B. “Cy.” "New Town of Mott." North-South Trail Three Pans of Dirt Sisc-Kaou-Siskiyou… Ed. Cy Rippon. Spring ed. Weed: Cy and Sally Rippon, 1975. 92. Print.
