Northern California and southern Oregon tried in the early forties.
In October 1941, the mayor of Port Orford, Oregon, Gilbert Gable, announced that the Oregon counties of Curry, Josephine, Jackson, and Klamath should join with the California
Darker areas show
counties of
the State of Jefferson,
Del Norte,
as proposed by Gilbert
Siskiyou, and
Gable in 1941. Modern
Modoc to
versions of the movement usually
form a new
include the lighter
state, later
areas as well.
named Jefferson. [4]
On November 27, 1941, a group of young men gained national media attention when, brandishing hunting rifles for dramatic effect, they stopped traffic on U.S. Route 99 south of Yreka, and handed out copies of a Proclamation of Independence, stating that the state of Jefferson was in “patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon” and would continue to “secede every Thursday until further notice.” [5]
The secession movement came to an abrupt end, though not before John C. Childs of Yreka was inaugurated as the governor of the State of Jefferson. [6]
The first blow was the death of Mayor Gable on December 2, followed by the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. Secessionists focused their efforts on the war effort, which crippled the movement. Coincidentally, the “state of Jefferson” was one of the few places in the continental USA to be the subject of an attack during World War II, when Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita dropped bombs on the Oregon Coast near[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_(proposed_Pacific_state)
According to the TV History Channel, Jefferson was the initial chosen name for the area that later became the State of Colorado.