Elusive State of Jefferson: A Journey through the 51st State

By 1941, a nascent statehood movement began to coalesce into an active and explicit secession campaign seeking to carve from Northern California and Southern Oregon a new State of Jefferson. Yreka, California, home of the secession movement, was named the temporary state capital. Local proponents, Members of the State of Jefferson Citizens Committee, began to stop traffic along Highway 99 at armed roadblocks to pass out political broadsides – their Proclamation of Independence. And, in Dece...