WHAT WOULD YOU CALL a place described in its official introduction to visitors as “a collection of wooden, tin-roofed buildings … [that] keep out the elements, but not entirely. The local wildlife is often as at home in them as the people who use them on a more temporary basis”?

To biology professor Vesta Holt, who loved this region and began bringing students to the area in the late 1930s, it was a dream come true. To Professors Raymond J. Bogiatto, biology, and Frank Bayham, anthropology, it’s a Cadillac, “a plush Cadillac” they rediscovered at the end of a 30-minute, rock-strewn ride down a dirt road in remote Lassen County. We’re talking about CSU, Chico’s Eagle Lake Biological Field Station, where the facilities are truly extravagant, especially compared to what was there in 1944, when Holt led her first biology field class to Eagle Lake.

The field station was Holt’s brainchild. With her students, she camped out and rented cabins wherever she could to hold field schools, notes current station director Bogiatto. But she wanted something permanent. Included in her dream was starting a biological honor society for students, named Omicron Theta Epsilon. Omicron members spearheaded the efforts to raise the initial money and buy the land for the field station.

In 1944, Holt wrote: “In order to extend our working environment yet avoid the shortcomings of field trips, we have long dreamed of a field laboratory station in an environment quite different from that near Chico. Now it looks as if our dream might come true.”

That year, the student fund reached $335. All they needed was a site, and Holt had her eye on Eagle Lake, 125 miles northeast of Chico at the edge of the Lassen National Forest. With its proximity to Chico and converging ecological regions, including the lake itself, it was, in biological terms, “quite ideal,” she wrote.

The first regular session at Eagle Lake was held in 1945 at a hunting resort about a mile from the lakeshore. The next year, Holt was joined by new faculty member Thomas Rodgers, who would direct the station from 1963 to 1964. The housing facilities included very old and primitive wooden buildings, and an old chicken house was used for one of the two laboratories.

Holt wanted something permanent close to the lake, however, and in 1946 a two-acre site was chosen near the estuary of Pine Creek. When progress stalled due to lack of funding, the university rented Eagle Lake Resort on the lake’s southwest corner in 1953. Then in 1955, a forest fire burned through the west side of the lake, destroying two resort buildings.

Finally, the university purchased 23 acres on the lake’s eastern shore from the Bureau of Land Management with money donated by Omicron. “The agreement was, the land is ours forever, as long as we keep our activities academic,” explains Bogiatto. “For that reason, the going rate was extremely cheap—$2.50 an acre.”

The first station buildings were completed in 1964, and the station was dedicated in 1968. In 1970, the station was expanded to 63 acres.

The abundance and diversity of animals and plants that inhabit Eagle Lake and the Modoc Plateau allow for a wide variety of classes to be held at the field station, some of which have resulted in exciting discoveries.

In the summer of 1951, a CSU, Chico student and a biologist came across some pale and primitive creatures. “This was the year of the cave cricket—the year that Mr. Harry Chandler, biologist for the Department of Fish and Game, and Bill Kamp (perennial student) discovered the occurrence of Grylloblattids in the ice caves of Brockman Lava Flats,” wrote Rodgers in a historical account of the field station. “These little relatives of crickets and cockroaches were known before only from two isolated peaks on the Sierra Nevada, in two or three similar places in Oregon and Washington, and in many places along the edges of permanent ice in Canada. They thus provide a classical example of a relic population that has persisted since glacial time. Kamp continued research on these insects and, like many perennial students, became a college professor.”

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, with increased interest in ecology, the station was very active. Bogiatto taught his first field biology course there in 1987. “I took over the directorship in 1989,” he recalls, “and since then we’ve been teaching anywhere from two to four summer field courses every year.”

Also in the late ’80s, the area became a major center for basic research and teaching in archaeology. Bayham has recently developed a research agenda that focuses on the cultures of the region, and he and his colleagues regularly teach intensive field courses such as zooarchaeology and field ecology. UC Davis also offers fisheries and wildlife courses onsite.

The main laboratory, Vesta Holt Hall, is closest to the lake. While its five work rooms have doors, according to the visitor’s brochure, they’re usually left open “so the cries of discovery and frustration” can be heard throughout the laboratory. Other buildings are named after prominent faculty and supporters—Bob Ediger Hall, Elvin Shepherd Hall, Roger Lederer Cabin, and Alice Stone Cabin.

Recently a new conference facility was added on the compound, overlooking the lake. While its spit and polish will provide a more comfortable setting for meetings, conferences, and retreats, it’s the now-quaint wooden buildings—three of which are named Omicron, Theta, and Epsilon—that most honor Vesta Holt’s love of the wilderness.

About the authors

Zu Vincent is a freelance writer and former CSU, Chico student. She drove to Eagle Lake in a 1950s state vehicle, which made the trip often in the old days. Ironically, the aging truck rescued field station participants when their new vehicle got a flat tire.

Linda Moore is an editorial assistant for Public Affairs and Publications at CSU, Chico. She earned her B.A. in English in 1999 at CSU, Chico and is currently working on a master’s degree.