The Friday Flyer • May 13, 2016

CANYON LAKE’S NEWSPAPER • MAY 13, 2016
Lake to get new round of alum
Learn to Ride Day is treatments, starting Monday Pg. A3 this Sunday in North
Faithful gather at Lodge to pray for community and country Pg. A8
Museum of area history to open this month
Ski Area Pg. A10
BY SHARON RICE
EDITOR, THE FRIDAY FLYER
Canyon Lakers may think of Menifee as little more than a neighbor to their east. But Canyon Lake’s history is part of Menifee Valley’s history. Canyon Lake pioneer Elinor Martin is president
Canyon Lake pioneer Elinor Martin has been instrumental in creating the new Menifee Valley museum that opens May 22. Here she stands with a display about the history of Canyon Lake and a tri-fold about the Evans family, resting on a quilt made by her grandmother Ella Evans. Below is the fish camp her family operated at what is now Indian Beach.
of the Menifee Valley Historical Asso- ciation and has written a pictorial his- tory of Canyon Lake called “Images of America: Canyon Lake.”
Her family’s history is Canyon Lake’s history; and that’s why the grand open- ing of the Menifee Valley Historical Mu-
seum on Sunday afternoon, May 22, is something Canyon Lakers will appreci- ate attending. And it’s possibly the clos- est thing Canyon Lake will ever have to its own museum.
Elinor’s great-grandfather, J.B. Fer- rell, was the first recorded settler to pur- chase land on what is now known as the Audie Murphy Ranch. He settled there in 1887 and, a few years later, his son- in-law Henry Evans moved from San Bernardino to what is now the east end of Canyon Lake. Elinor’s father, George Dewey Evans, was born in 1898 when the area already had come to be known as Menifee. He raised his family on land near the current Loma Linda Hospital.
“When I was young, we lived part of the year at that ranch and, in the sum- mer months, we would move to Rail- road Canyon Reservoir, which is now Canyon Lake,” says Elinor.
In 1882, when the California South- ern Railroad began service between Per-
ris and Elsinore, the area was known as Railroad Canyon; but after three wash- outs, the line was abandoned. The Tem- escal Water Company later purchased the land and constructed the dam (com- pleted in 1929), thus creating Railroad Canyon Lake. The Evans family operat- ed a fishing resort there for 30 years un- til 1968, when Temescal developed the private community of Canyon Lake. Eli- nor’s book about Canyon Lake is filled with early pictures and descriptions of the fishing resort and Canyon Lake’s de- velopment.
Don Martin was born in Perris. His ancestry there goes back to the late 1890s when his grandparents, Fred and Mag- gie Dunsmoor, arrived in Perris, along
CONTINUED PAGE A14
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY ELINOR MARTIN