I'm Free on Thursday

Some fun recovered history from Bill Kauffman: the saga of the State of Jefferson, a handful of counties along the California-Oregon border who attempted to secede from Sacramento and Salem. Here is the zone's proclamation of temporary autonomy:

You are now entering Jefferson, the 49th State of the Union.

Jefferson is now in patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon.

This State has seceded from California and Oregon this Thursday, November 27, 1941.

Patriotic Jeffersonians intend to secede each Thursday until further notice.

For the next hundred miles as you drive along Highway 99, you are travelling parallel to the greatest copper belt in the Far West, seventy-five miles west of here.

The United States government needs this vital mineral. But gross neglect by California and Oregon deprives us of necessary roads to bring out the copper ore.

If you don't believe this, drive down the Klamath River highway and see for yourself. Take your chains, shovel and dynamite.

Until California and Oregon build a road into the copper country, Jefferson, as a defense-minded State, will be forced to rebel each Thursday and act as a separate State.

(Please carry this proclamation with you and pass them out on your way.)

STATE OF JEFFERSON CITIZENS COMMITTEE
TEMPORARY STATE CAPITOL, YREKA

"Inauguration Day," Kauffman writes, "featured a torchlight parade through Yreka led by brother bears named Itchy and Scratchy. Marchers carried signs reading OUR ROADS ARE NOT YET PASSABLE, HARDLY JACKASSABLE; IF OUR ROADS YOU WOULD TRAVEL, BRING YOUR OWN GRAVEL; and THE PROMISED LAND–OUR ROADS ARE PAVED WITH PROMISES. Well, look–Mayor Gable had been a flack for the phone company, so don't expect poetry on the order of 'Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.'"