We want to educate our community about the advantages of buying fresh, high quality produce and agricultural products from farmers in Bella Vista and Palo Cedro.

• To promote recognition of the Bella Vista and Palo Cedro area as viable farming area conductive to fresh, healthy produce and products.
• To provide a forum for educational instruction in growing crops, raising safe and productive meat, and value added products.
• To provide resources, facilities and services beneficial to the residents within these two communities and its surrounding counties.
• These services and resources include and are not limited to education, promotion of healthy eating, support and cooperation among the farmers and general public.

Farming and Ranching Have Deep Roots in Bella Vista and Palo Cedro

Back in the 1850’s when Redding was only a bump in the road, the residents of Bella Vista and Palo Cedro shared a common shopping center.  It was the bustling town of Millville.  Everyone from Shasta, Tehama, Trinity and Siskiyou counties journeyed there to get their flour.  The Millville Flour Mill’s big grindstones, powered by the water of South Cow Creek, anchored all of the commerce in town, including blacksmithing and the General Mercantile Store.  Until 1872, all of the grain came in by horse-drawn wagons traveling over very bad dirt roads.

Bella Vista got started as a community when the Shasta Lumber Company purchased the big Gipson Ranch and built a 32 – mile long flume to carry its logs from Hatchet Mountain to it planing mill and box factory.  This flume was a masterful engineering project built without even one computer.  The box factory was located about a mile and a half east of the current intersection of Highway 299 and Deschutes Road; in 1897 Terry Mill purchased the company and improved and enlarged operations.  This in turn attracted many people to the town that one of his employees named Bella Vista, for the beautiful views available at the top of many hills.  Palo Cedro means cedar tree in Spanish.

Terry Mill hired Chinese men to cultivate a big garden near the factory, to help provide food for all of the workers.  Around this time many people put down roots in the area, claiming large tracts of land under the homesteading agreement of 1849.  Farmers and ranchers in Bella Vista and Palo Cedro utilized sustainable methods in order to protect the soil and get the most out of it.  There was dry land grazing in the winter, and in the summer cattle drives moved the herds to mountain pastures in Burney, Fall River and Shingletown.

The growing communities of Bella Vista and Palo Cedro opened schools around 1888 and in 1893, Post Offices further established these places as bona fide towns.

Bella Vista stored drinking water from the flume at night and pristine South Cow Creek and had dug wells provided drinking water for Palo Cedro.  Cow Creek provided some irrigation water for Bella Vista via a ditch.

Water access has always been an essential part of farming and ranching.  After the Shasta Dam was built in 1945, the Bella Vista Water District contracted with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for its water supply about 1963.  Small farms continue to flourish in these communities, offering a wide variety of farm and ranch products, including beef, fruit, pasture hay, chickens, eggs, goats, pigs and riding and show horses.  Bee keeping is a multi-million dollar operation in Palo Cedro.

The future of Bella Vista and Palo Cedro lies in passing on our knowledge and deep respect for the land and all of it products to our children.

Our Charter

The Country Farm Trail Association is a non-profit coalition of agricultural and horticultural farmers within the Bella Vista and Palo Cedro area.  The CFTA is a non-profit association recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) tax exempt association.  The association is not being organized for the private gain of any individual.  Each farm operation under the membership of the Country Farm Trail Association will be considered an independent entity.  The Country Farm Trail Association has been organized to protect and preserve its name and to maintain the integrity of the membership under that name.