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Volume 075-4 - October 2021 (10 pages)
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Page: of 10
NCHS Bulletin October 2021
The gun delivered to Grass Valley, a 107-millimeter Russian-manufactured siege gun, was presumably captured
by the Germans on the Eastern front, and moved to the
Western Front, where the Americans captured it. The
challenge for the town was raising over $400 to transport
the gun from the East Coast. After nearly a year, the gun
arrived at the narrow-gauge railroad station in May 1926
and was set on the slope as if guarding the park’s outdoor memorial.”
s ᰀ椠᐀㬀簀 -.Mie t
Saurin King Clock. Courtesy Searls Historical Library.
Saurin King’s Haunting Memory
The most elaborate addition was dedicated to the memory of a sailor, Grass Valley native Saurin King, born in
1891. The son of a Maine lumberman and a native Californian, King attended Washington School and graduated
in 1910 from the Grass Valley High School. He attended
Armstrong Business College, taught by the energetic
Elmer and Elizabeth Angove Armstrong. He later graduated from the University of California agricultural
school at Davis. King enlisted in the U. S. Navy shortly
before America entered the war and was with the signal
corps on a battleship in Hampton Roads, Virginia when
he contracted influenza and succumb to pneumonia. He
died in October 1918 at 26 and had been in the prime of
health before his illness.”
No mourners lined the tracks as King’s coffin progressed
from east to west across the country, and the only ceremony was the care given his remains by freight men and
porters. It was a different scene when his coffin arrived
in King’s hometown. An honor guard met his remains at
the depot, including the local militia, Native Sons, Masons and the student body of Grass Valley High. Much
the town’s citizenry escorted the coffin to the Greenwood
Cemetery, where King’s parents, siblings, extended family
and friends were gathered.
Flags flew at half-staff at
the high school.”
Soon after the Memorial
Park dedication in 1921,
Elizabeth Armstrong told
the Chamber of Commerce the current and
former Armstrong College
students wanted to add a
Saurin King memorial to
the park. Later in 1922
the Saurin King Fund,
sponsored by the business
college and the Women’s
Improvement Club, began
holding events, including
whist and bridge parties
in the Community House
and a concert by “piano
prodigies” at the Strand
Theater. The performances
of an 11-year-old girl and
15-year-old boy were a
tribute to King, who had
been a gifted pianist.”
Saurin King portrait. Courtesy
Searls Historical Library.
There was something
remarkable about Saurin King for Elizabeth
Armstrong to repeat his
story year after year to
business school students,
and for those students and
alumni, and the woman
of the Improvement Club,
to help and sustain her
through years of effort. At
last, nine years after fund-raising began, on an expanse
of lawn, work began on a massive clock, shaped like a
mantle clock but eleven feet tall and composed of quartz
rock, river pebbles and petrified wood. Anyone could
read the 16-inch, illuminated clockface day or night and
it assured mothers their children would know when it
was time to come home for dinner. The completed clock,
Russian-manufactured siege gun.
Courtesy Linda K. Jack