Colusa County Biographies

JOHN F. FOUTS

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


            Few men are better known throughout the county than this pioneer of 
the State, John F. Fouts.  He was born in Preble County, Ohio, April 26, 1829.  
When he was ten years old, his family removed to Lee County, Iowa, where he 
lived seven years, moving, afterwards, to Davis County and Burlington, in the 
same State, at which latter place he resided till the spring of 1850, when he 
decided to come to this State.  He set out on this long, and then adventurous 
journey, coming by way of the North Platte from Council Bluffs and Fort Hall, 
along the old Downieville road.  He was over five months making the trip with 
ox-teams.  He located in the town of Meridian, Sutter County, where he farmed 
and carried on a merchandise business till 1863.  In 1860 he put in the first 
ferry-boat across Sycamore Slough, at Meridian, and was the chief instrument in 
laying out and building up that place, which promised to attain large 
proportions till a flood came along in 1867 and retarded its progress.  In 1868 
he built a steam saw-mill in the mountains, four miles south of Fouts Springs.  
These springs, whose reputation for healing waters is universally acknowledged, 
were located by Mr. Fouts in 1874, and opened to the public in June, 1874, when 
the hotel was completed and cabins ready for occupancy.  Mr. Fouts sill resides 
at the Springs, in the midst of most romantic scenery, and to our mind the most 
charming and delightful bit of landscape in the whole Coast Range.  He was 
married, June 5, 1853, in Peoria County, Illinois, to Miss Elizabeth O�Neil, by 
whom he has had three children.
 
�Colusa County� � by Justus H. Rogers � Orland, CA � 1891 � pp 423-424