Bernie Zimmerman explains the Nevada County Historical Landmarks Commission's mission to preserve and promote local history, as Ed Schofield is interviewed in a video filmed at Lyman-Gilmore Middle School by four students; the interview will be publicly available and archived. Schofield, a longtime Nevada County politician and former District 2 supervisor, discusses his birthplace in Nevada County, schooling (Nevada Union High, Ridge Road campus class of 1962, Sierra College), and a deep Grass Valley family history including ties to Camp Beale and Cornish roots. He recounts his start in politics via the Grass Valley JCs, time on the city council (starting in 1975), and his role as public-facing County Fair manager beginning in 1982, including memories of the county fair's history and finances. The conversation covers local development and infrastructure, such as Lake Olympia, Glenbrook Basin, Highway 20/49, the Lake of the Pines group's safety efforts, and growth from about 20–30,000 to about 100,000 residents, along with the Bear River Library project and related civic projects. The interview also touches on social issues, housing, wastewater needs, and Alta Sierra's wildfire risk, concluding with reflections on history's value and Schofield's Cornish ancestry; the video will be released and questions invited.

Full Transcript of the Video:

Hello, I'm Bernie Zimmerman.

I'm the chair of the Nevada County Historical Landmarks
Commission, which was created by the Board of Supervisors in 1969 to essentially to preserve
and promote Nevada County history.

And one of the ways we do that is we conduct the occasional
interviews of people who help shape Nevada County history and today I'll be talking with Ed
Schofield.

But first, we're at the Lyman-Gilmore Middle School, which has a program called
Gilmore News Network under the supervision of Scott Mills.

And this program is all being
put together by four students, Nick, Wyatt, Jesus, and Emily.

And they're behind the cameras
and they're controlling the sound and all of that.

And thank you all very much.

Now, this is going
to be a publicly available video.

When we get to the end of it, there will be links on the
Landmarks Commission website, NevadaCountyLandmarks.

com, on our social media.

So people will be able to
watch it readily, recommend it to friends, and ultimately the original will be stored
in our section of the Searle Historical Library.

Now, as I said, I'm going to be talking with Ed
Schofield, a key figure in Nevada County politics for the last half century or so, recently retired
as a long-term supervisor for District 2.

So welcome, Ed, and thank you very much for agreeing
to be here.

Thank you, Bernie.

And let's just get right into it.

So when and where were you born?
I was born right here in Nevada County.

The hospital is down on Auburn Street.

It's now a
parking lot.

Oh my gosh.

So wasn't the Jones Hospital? No, it wasn't the Jones.

There was
another one.

The Jones was there.

No, this was down on Auburn and off of Bank Street there.

Okay.

And where did you go to school? I went to.

.

.

You didn't go to Gilmore, I'm pretty sure.

No, I didn't.

I went to Belle Hill School.

I went to Hennessey and then, of course, Nevada Union.

Did they have Gilmore School back then? No.

I think it came in a lot of plunge later.

When my kids were in Hennessey and then someone were asked to come up here, we didn't know what
to think of it.

Well, you have a chance to form an opinion now.

So, okay, Nevada Union High School.

And I think I heard that you were in the inaugural class.

We were the first class to graduate from
the high school on Ridge Road in 1962.

That must have been an interesting experience.

And then after Nevada Union? I went to Sierra College.

I got an A degree down there and I didn't
go any further.

That would have been in Roseville? Yes.

Okay.

Yeah, and it was fairly new there.

We used to call it Sahara.

Sahara College because there was really nothing there.

Roseville has changed a lot.

Oh my gosh.

So, let's talk more about your family.

Can you tell
us something about your parents? Yeah, I'm actually fifth generation here.

And my mother's side
first came to the Grass Valley area and they had agricultural and they were out more where
McCourtney Road and that area out in there.

Okay.

And by the time I was born, my grandfather owned
a house on Pleasant Street and my mother just grew up in town.

But the ranch was taken over by
Beale Air Force, well, Camp Beale at the time.

It was an army base.

And they were never able to get
the land back once the war was over.

So, my experiences here were really not agriculture.

More when I got involved with the fair than growing up.

We'll come back to that.

But let's get
back to your maternal lineage, if I can use that term.

Where were they from? Right here.

When they came here? From where did they come? I go back to, what is it, Redmond Cornwall.

Oh,
I've had some corny blood in me.

My dad comes from New York.

Because he was at Camp Beale,
he was learning how to drive a tank.

So, your family ranch would have been almost
like out by perimeter road that far out.

Yes, there's quite a ways out.

So, I'm guessing then
on the maternal side, the migration occurred around the 1860s or so.

That's when a lot of
folks left Cornwall because the mines were drying up, so to speak.

That's exactly right.

I had uncles and my dad actually worked in the North Star Mine for a short time.

But I had uncles
that, I mean, that's what they did.

They worked in the mines.

So, they all would have been hard rock
miners, I guess.

Yes, they were.

I don't know what my dad was.

He didn't like it.

He was there
only a short time.

That's interesting.

So, they bought a ranch.

Somebody was obviously, I guess,
what, farming it? Yeah, they were actually farming it.

It was more agriculture.

I honestly don't know.

I think they planted almond trees.

My mother said that my mother didn't like it out there at all
because there were always rattlesnakes out there.

She didn't like those.

And she said,
I really never knew why they'd bought so far out of town.

But obviously, when they came to this
area, it was just, everything was more rural.

Yeah, certainly in those days.

How many, how large
a, what was the maternal name? Tratton.

Tratton.

T-R-A-T-H-E-N.

Tratton.

My grandfather was actually
a mayor of Grass Valley at one time, yeah.

Oh, really? I'm guessing that you're going to tell us that
may have helped you get into politics or at least.

I don't know.

Well, is there still a large
Tratton family around in this area? Yeah, there's several Trattons, yeah.

Yeah.

And you say the
Schofield side came from New York? Yes.

Whereabouts? A little town called Beacon New York.

I know the
area.

Actually West Point.

We would always go up to West Point when we were out there.

So, let's get back now to you.

After schooling, what did you do?
I got married.

Wise move.

I got married.

I had children.

How large a family do you have? I have three children, yeah.

All right.

You must have started
working at some point to support your family.

Well, I actually started working for a vending
company.

It's called Hathaway Vending.

He had, at that time, there were cigarette machines
everywhere.

Oh, yeah.

And that was the main product that we were selling was cigarettes from
cigarette machines.

We had pinballs and jukeboxes, that type of thing.

Now, at some point, you got
into politics and I guess we've already, you've given us a little bit of a hint.

When did you
first get involved in politics? You know, I seem to have always been a joiner.

So,
when I had the opportunity, I joined something called the Grass Valley JCs.

And the JCs were
quite active politically.

I know just before my time when I joined, they had staged a protest
on Old Highway 20, trying to get the word out that here's a road that really needs to be.

It was the start of what 20 is right now.

So, I joined that group.

It was quite political and
the JCs had an age limit.

And once you hit that age limit, you're gone.

You're out of, so,
to me, the most natural thing to do at that time was to run for the city council, which I did.

That's a natural segue.

And I guess you won.

I did win, yes.

So, when was this? What year? 1975.

And the Highway 20 got me interested now.

So, is this one, there was the controversy about
whether there was going to be a freeway that was supposed to go all the way from Fort Bragg up to
Highway 80 or is this a different one? I don't know that, Bernie.

The opposition that I saw,
the protest was, I think they actually stopped traffic.

And you can imagine, I mean, here's a
state highway with the curves and bends they have on it.

So, they were just looking for a new route.

But I don't recall anything about going all the way up there.

Be nice.

They've made some good
improvements on that.

Yes, it's quite a bit different than what it must have been.

So, let's
go to, you mentioned the county fair.

So, how did you first get involved with the county fair?
Well, actually, I was on the city council.

I was on it for over seven years.

And I was actually
going through a divorce.

And I felt I needed to leave the area to kind of find other places for
work.

I ended up in San Jose for like seven months.

And I had a very good friend who was
Dennis Hill.

And Dennis was the mayor of the city of Grass Valley.

And he's the one that said, Ed,
they need a fair manager out there.

And we need to get you back up here to Grass Valley.

And, you
know, one thing led to another.

And obviously, I honestly didn't think it was really going to happen.

And I got a call from Earl Shine, who was the interim manager at the time.

And I was at my
mother's house.

And he said, the job is yours if you want it.

Well, I want it.

I looked at my
mother and said, what do I do now? So, when was it that you became the fair manager? 1982.

Okay.

November of 1982.

That's about the time.

We moved up here in 79.

So, I'm sure by 1980 or so,
we were attending the fair.

Our kids used to love it.

Yes.

So, let's talk about the fair.

I was reading Tannis Thorn and Vincex Book about Lake Olympia.

And, of course, there's a big section
in there about Glenbrook and the park and all that.

So, as I understand it, in the 19th century,
the fair, for a while, alternated between the grounds we have now, which I think were called
Wyatt's, something like Watt Park.

Watt Park.

And the Glenbrook area.

Do you know anything
about why that was or how that came to be? I honestly don't remember.

I remember Lake Olympia
vaguely.

But I don't remember the racetrack and that kind of stuff.

It had disappeared pretty much.

The track had disappeared pretty much by around the 20s or 30s.

So, there you go.

But I'd never
remember the fair being up in that area.

I remember the fair being in the back of the veterans.

That's another location on me.

Well, if you read the beginning of that book or talk to Tannis Thorn,
apparently for some years in the 80s and 90s, they held the fair out there.

And some years
of yoyo back and forth.

That was a very nice area of what I know of.

Oh, yes.

And we've landmarked the Glenbrook Basin area.

We're now trying to do something with
the City of Grants Valley about Lake Olympia.

There's a lot of development going on around
that area and a lot of the historic sites are going under apartment buildings, hotels and what
have you.

Now, one thing that I've always been curious about is there's something called the
17th Agricultural District that Nevada County is part of? Most people don't realize that
the fairgrounds here is a state agency.

The 17th District Agricultural Association.

It's not a county.

It's not part of the county.

Only we call it the Nevada County Fair.

We do.

Yes.

Well, and you know, the county fair, our county fair, is regularly recognized as
probably the best fair in the state.

Can we give you a lot of credit for that?
You know, it's always been a special fair.

Yeah, I'll take credit for the time I was there.

And the people around me that really made it work.

But yes, it was 25 cents to come in.

And I can
remember thinking that can't possibly be.

And I looked at the budget.

That's a lot of quarters.

And I looked at the budget and what they had done in 1982.

They had 100,000 people there.

It was
amazing.

It's not a 25 cents anymore.

No, it's not.

And unfortunately, I have a lot to do with that.

So moving on to the Board of Supervisors, when did you get elected the supervisor for District 2?
Well, my last year at the fairgrounds was 2008.

And about January 4th of the following year,
I was sworn in as the District 2 supervisor.

And you retired as of the end of last year,
as I understand.

What were some of the things that you've accomplished as
supervisor for District 2 that you're most proud of? Well, I look at a couple things.

One of them in particular is the library, the Bear River Library that's down there now.

We had a
great partnership with this high school down there.

But you as an adult could not go into that
library when the schools were in session.

So to have a separate library now right off Combee
Road there, I'm quite proud of that.

And the kids section actually has my name on it.

So
I'm very proud of that.

But also, and I think they're probably working on it right now,
we're getting ready to, a class one path that goes from the Bear River area all the way down to
Higgins Way, which brings you into that new shopping.

And the kids walk it all the time.

The cross-country team runs it all the time.

So I think I get a lot of credit for that.

Well deserved.

Now, you've observed Nevada County for, I guess about 80 years as I'm counting.

What are some of the significant changes you've seen? How has the county changed?
Well, I think the biggest one is the freeway coming through.

That was huge.

If you can imagine the
old highway, and there was always a logging truck that you were behind.

That was the main thing that
really I think have changed.

I'm quite proud.

I was on the Nevada County Transportation Commission
during my whole term as a supervisor.

And just looking, my focus as district two
was South County.

And just looking at the improvements that have been done to Highway 49
and starting in 2026, continued improvements to bring you in from Lebar Meadows all the way into
Grass Valley.

I think that's just incredible that we've been able to do that.

And that started with
a small group of people down in the Lake of the Pines area there.

I don't take all the credit,
but that group of people felt there was too many deaths that were happening on the highway.

And they're the ones that really got things rolling and really went after Caltrans and said,
look, we got to make this fair.

Well, it certainly has, it certainly changed a lot in the years that
I've been up here.

Of course, the county is, I'm thinking back, when we moved up here, I think the
population was somewhere in the 20,000s.

I remember it wasn't, hadn't gotten to 30,000 yet.

And what
are we, about 100,000? About 100,000.

But it's been that way for quite a while.

Quite a while.

Yeah.

And what do you think of all this growth? Does it even trouble you? Stop lights now and
you know, all that kind of things? So we were talking about the growth in the county.

I remember,
I think it was either the second traffic light when it came up.

There was a lot of controversy.

I think it was coming in around Glenbrook somewhere.

And of course, now there are
sort of traffic lights everywhere.

But one of the things that struck me about the way,
and I don't know whether the Board of Supervisors did this or who did this, is that
the quality of life in the county really hasn't changed much.

It seems like the growth has been
concentrated in a few areas.

But you know, within a few minutes, while you were mentioning,
for example, the trails that we're talking about from the Bear River School, you can still get out
very quickly and hike and cycle and do things like that.

Well, that's very true.

But at the same
time, like I live in Alta Sierra now, not in Grass Valley.

And you think about things that have
changed.

What do you think the biggest issue of Alta Sierra is? Wildfire.

Wildfire and evacuation.

So I mean, that's a huge change that's happened.

And I tend to look at a lot of these other changes
that homelessness.

I do remember my mother talking about the 30s and the recession.

And just like Gage McKinney's book, there was no recession here.

But people would come in and even
up where they live, they talked about the hobos that were coming and looking for work.

Nowadays,
we have homeless.

And it's a huge issue, even in our little town, the drug issues are right here in
Grass Valley, that a lot of those issues, at least when I was growing up, and as far as I could see,
wasn't that much of an issue? Well, we always had a, so I live out in UBET.

And when you get into
the more remote areas around the Tau National Forest, BLM land and so on, there's always been
squatters out there.

They've always been people doing drugs.

So we've lived with it for 50 years.

I think there's a lot more of it going on now.

I think there's a lot more of everything going on
right now.

Well, in the county, of course, has a lot of services.

And a lot of those services
are focused in that Glenbrook-Runswick area.

So unfortunately, you see a lot of that
of those issues right in that area.

And you have to have, to offer the services,
you have to have the wastewater treatments and all the other services that go with it.

So
it's Grass Valley and Nevada City is where the county focuses on putting homes and houses and
places that we could put people.

My wife is fond of telling people that Nevada County is such a
greatly, a great run county.

She's a big admirer of all the, you know, the county staff, all the
people that we've had to deal with over the years.

And I think supervisors must get a lot of credit
for that because you're hiring a lot of these people.

Yeah, I think maybe the supervisors do.

But I agree with your wife, Bernie.

There's just an incredible group of people up there.

They enjoy what they're doing.

It's just amazing.

I miss being up there because I don't ever remember
a day when walking down the hall thinking, oh, I don't want to go into my office.

There were days
walking down the halls that maybe I didn't want to be in that hall.

But going into my office was
always a really fun thing.

You've always been a strong supporter of the Landmarks Commission
and have impressed me with your respect for history.

What do you see as the importance of
history in people's lives? Well, of course, growing up here, as I get older and older,
I just think it means more and more to the people that live here.

And I'm just amazed at what you
guys do and what you've been able to put together as to what we recognized 20 years ago.

Probably
we didn't do and have this nearly as much as what you put together.

And I don't know.

I just think
it's, I've never been a person that really went back, looked at my family.

I do know I have Cornish
ancestry there.

I think that's wonderful, which means more and more to me now than it ever did
when I was a youngster.

So it's very important, Bernie.

Do any of you kids have any questions
for Supervisors Schofield? All right.

Well, in that case, we'll bring this to a close.

Thank you
very much for your time.

And you'll get to see yourself on video pretty soon.

Do the pleasure, Bernie.

Thank you.