History, Modoc, Lava Beds National Monument 

Humans have inhabited the Lava Beds country of northern California for thousands of years. The Modoc War unfolded there in 1872 and 1873, when the United States sought to remove the area's ancient inhabitants in favor of white settlers. The war ended with the forced removal of Modocs from their homeland. No other event in the area's history matches the drama and tragedy of that war. Yet the Lava Beds have also been the site of many other important stories. Among the jumbled lava flows, the sagebrush, and juniper trees, people have built homes and a roadside dancehall, set fires and suppressed them, hunted deer and sought solitude. They have brewed moonshine liquor, grazed cattle, sheep, and horses, explored caves and the battlefields of the Modoc War. In 1925, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the area a national monument. In the Great Depression, hundreds of young men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps lived in the monument building roads, trails, and buildings. Administered by the National Park Service, Lava Beds National Monument is preserved to this day for its Modoc War battle sites and the dense network of lava tube caves, fumaroles, lava flows, and other natural features that define this remarkable place.