By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
The school that Mary Putnam Henck had built; it now houses County Fire Station 91.
Joseph E. Henck and his uncle and father purchased the 440 acres that have become Skyforest from the Kuffel family. The Kuffels were an early pioneer family, who have a canyon named for them. They had homesteaded the area in 1895. The sawmill they intended to run had burned down before it had a chance to operate, so what became the Skyforest area was one of the few areas to have the original large forest trees left.
The Kuffel family’s wood cook stove that the Hencks used when they first moved to Skyforest. (From the photo collection of Rhea-Frances Tetley)
The Kuffels planted apple orchards for apples to sell and raised food crops for their large family. They had gravity water in the house from the spring but not flush plumbing. It took several years to complete the purchase.
Joe and Mary Henck and their children intended to move to the mountain to develop the Arrowhead Lake View Forest subdivision, now known as Skyforest. They planned to move into a house the Kuffels had built in 1910, but Mary wouldn’t move up to the mountain until the family had a home with indoor flush plumbing. So, Joseph focused on building an addition with plumbing to the house while Mary stayed in Hemet. (As it evolved years later, the Skyforest water company was run from the Henck house.) When the family did arrive in 1923, they had a phone, heat from a wood burning stove and finally electricity arrived in the area in 1928.
Mary Putnam Henck was born in 1882 in River Falls, Wisc., and died in San Bernardino in 1963 after living four decades on the mountain. She saw a lot of change during those years, some of which she made happen through her imagination and determination. She was an accomplished woman her whole life.
Growing up in Los Angeles, she graduated from UC Berkley in 1903 at the age of 20. She was a world traveler, visiting Egypt and Europe. She was the first female vice principal of any Los Angeles high school, beginning with being vice principal at Jefferson High School and finishing up as vice principal at Manual Arts High School.
She met Joseph when they were both visiting Big Bear one summer with their families. Mary was 35 and Joseph Ellery Henck was 29; he owned a 1912 Oldsmobile Touring car, as he worked for his uncle who was a developer.
The program to the 1923 Ramona Pageant in Hemet that Mary Henck helped develop.
They married, moving to Hemet intending to farm oranges, but that didn’t turn out well. While in Hemet, Mary worked as a substitute teacher, served on the Hemet school board, became vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and helped begin the Ramona Pageant. She also gave birth to three children and was pregnant with a fourth when the family moved to Skyforest in 1923, just before the first Ramona Pageant was performed.
Mary and Joseph Henck moved to the mountains because Joe, his uncle and father had purchased the Kuffel’s 440 acres, intending to develop it into vacation and full-time cabins. Joe opened the J.E. Henck Mercantile store on the corner of the state road and Kuffel Canyon and, along with developing the lots and installing waterlines for the subdivision, he kept busy. Joseph enjoyed making ponds, cutting in roads and moving dirt with his tractor.
Because there was no school in the mountain area for her 5-year-old son Putnam (aka Putty) to attend in Skyforest, Mary Putnam Henck, since she was a former teacher, wanted a school. She went around the area looking for school-aged kids and persuaded the operators of Lake Arrowhead Village to loan them a room to use during the winter months; she convinced the county to provide the materials necessary for the school. She enrolled 13 students for 1924. She was quite a motivator when she had a good idea and was willing to work hard to get things coordinated. She was the first teacher.
Mary Putnam Henck in her 20s.
After one week, over twice the number of students expected, 27, arrived to attend school and were enrolled, including the Dexter children from the Twin Peaks area. Soon a second teacher was hired. Because of the swift growth of the number of students, in 1926 Mary encouraged the voters, who were mostly parents, to pass a school bond and a new school was quickly built for the next school year for first through eighth grades. That substantial two-story building was built near the entrance to Lake Arrowhead Village and now houses County Fire Station 91.
The school’s classes remained in that building until the late 1940s as the number of students continued to increase. Finally, the school moved to the Rim area where Rim High is now built, for first through eighth grades; some of those original classrooms are still in use.
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