BURSON -- August 25, 2006 -- One hundred and twenty-five years after its founding, residents of the Calaveras County town of Wallace and their neighbors will for the first time in history honor the man after whom the town is named.  In 1882, John Wallace surveyed the railroad line that went through the area; his son, John Herbert Wallace, then surveyed the townsite itself. 

A special ceremony sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History (SPWCH) will be held at the Wallace Family plot at the Stockton Rural Cemetery at 11 a.m. on Saturday, September 16, 2006.  Expected to be in attendance are direct descendants of John Wallace and other town pioneers as well as representatives of various local historical societies.  The SPWCH recently helped restore the Wallace gravesite.

John Wallace was a ‘49er from England whose engineering skills were first put to use by the Tuolumne Water Co. and then as Surveyor for San Joaquin County before he laid the line for the San Joaquin & Sierra Nevada Railroad which connected Lodi and Valley Springs in the early 1880s.  He was also an older brother of Alfred Russel Wallace, one of the most famous naturalists of the age.

For more information on the commemoration, please contact Sal Manna at the Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History at (209) 772-0336.