Long Time Past: Baird Station and the McCloud Wintu

The U.S. Fish Commission's Baird Station, established on the McCloud River at the northern end of the Sacramento Valley in California, was the first salmon hatchery on the North American Pacific Coast. During its early period of operation (1872–1883) under the supervision of fish culturist Livingston Stone, Baird Station produced a reliable and seemingly limitless supply of chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) eggs for the stocking of eastern U.S. streams and for shipments to overseas countries. The local native people—the McCloud Wintu—played a vital role in the station's operations. Their cultural and economic entwinement with the salmon resource and contribution to the station's mission were recorded in Stone's official reports. That near‐forgotten story is retold here for new generations of fisheries workers—of the fish that once were, and of a people