Juniper Acres, California

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A small community of about two dozen homes and summer cabins located at Juniper Flats, along the north side of South Fork Canyon. Also known to some people in Alturas as Wormville, in honor of a bait shop that fronted Jess Valley Road from the mid 60 through the late 80s.

In the 1950s through early 1960s, the community was previously located at the Depression-era Little Meadows CCC Camp, about a mile east of this location, which was built on property the federal government leased from the private owner. In 1964, following a dispute between a local resident and a National Forest official, the official had an official-looking section corner "brass cap" installed at the northeast corner of the current location of Juniper Acres. Only the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is authorized to place brass caps, so this was illegal.

The new section corner moved property lines about 700 feet the west and 200 feet to the north, placing the CCC camp and the community on National Forest land. Modoc National Forest then evicted the entire community, forcing them to move what they could, and then bulldozed the historical CCC camp as if it were merely a squatter's camp.

According to the new, (in 1964), property boundaries, the forty-acre parcel owned by the community was located on a slope so steep that building on it would be impractical, so the owner sold it and purchase a 7.5 acre parcel about a mile down the canyon, to which the community moved.

Over the years, numerous other parties, including a number of newer National Forest officials looked at the "brass cap", and could not reconcile it with any other survey markers, and eventually in 1984, the National Forest had the entire area officially surveyed to determine where the section corner really was.

The 1984 survey placed the community's current location on Forest Service land, except for the northern 200 feet, which were on a different privately owned parcel, so the Forest Service once again told the community to move, threatening to bulldoze anything that remained on their land.

Members of the community requested to BLM to have the brass cap made an official section corner, because even if they were given, traded, or sold the land their homes were on, new building permits would be required for each home, because they were on different property than that for which their existing permits were issued. This request was denied, so they filed suit to have the federal court order BLM to make the section corner official, but BLM removed the brass cap while the case was still pending.

Resident then pleaded to numerous federal agencies, legislators, and executive officials, with the result that Modoc National Forest not only traded the land the community was on for land that the community owned, but also obtained the land that the northern 200 feet of the community was on, to include in the trade, and persuaded the county planning commission to revise the the existing building permits to the correct locations of the homes.