Louis “Doc” Larsen
“Hey Doc do you ever take a day off?” was the frequent call from passing horsemen. “Not if I can help it!” is the reply that accompanied Doc’s smile and wave. If you took the time to stop you may have been treated to one of his many wonderful stories.
We used to see Louis “Doc” Larsen out working the trails nearly every day. Doc used to say he would wake up thinking about the work he would accomplish and could hardly wait to get started. He would say that if he didn’t get out to do something he felt like a pent up horse, weaving and pacing the stall.
Lou’s colorful character and familiarity with hard work began at an early age on the family farm. By the age of 3, his Irish mother taught her eight children to turn the butter crank to make butter which she sold for a few extra pennies. His Danish father enlisted his son’s aid by age six to help with the mule-drawn plowing. Lou sat astride 16 hand mules that, more than once, drug or stepped on him.
In the 1920’s, the Larsen family acquired land in Sanger, California, to grow wine grapes. The family put all their time and money into the vineyard and wine making. When Prohibition came, the farm and vineyards were lost. Lou’s father went to San Mateo to get work. His mother remained behind bringing in the last grape crop on her own then followed him with the family to San Mateo.
Lou had many tales of those early days in Sanger. His dad would sample each barrel of wine. If it was bad, he would curse and yell. Since waste was out of the question, Lou would mix the bad wine with the livestock feed. This would cause normally docile cows to bawl all night and chickens to fight and crow until they passed out. This experience left a strong impression of the negative effects of intoxication.
When his mother was alone on the farm, she would take care of the children and take the crops to market in the mule-drawn buckboard. Gentlemen then, as now, often volunteered to back up a ladies’ rig for her. Lou’s mom would ‘holler’ “get your hands off my mules” and back the mules up better than most. He was very proud of his mother’s strength and accomplishments.
The great hallmark of Lou’s undaunted spirit was his ability to focus on the good in every bad situation. In looking back, he would tell stories about how very sad he and his family were at loosing everything and having to leave Sanger. The adjustment to the new place was difficult and painful. Lou recalled, while in Sanger, he and his brothers and sisters, like the other children, often went without shoes. He recalled that in San Mateo the other children made fun of his being barefoot. Lou recalled, he felt he didn’t fit in. Lou and his siblings were terrified of meeting people and they would hide behind their mom or cover their faces. But Lou, always looking on the bright side, realized that if he hadn’t left Sanger and moved to San Mateo, he would have remained, as he would say, “a painfully shy sod buster.” So, it turned out to be a good turn of fate.
In San Mateo, the Larsen’s lived in an old homestead house on the Burrell Ranch. Willie Tevis owned the nearby Homestead Riding School where Lou discovered his love for horses at the age of nine while exercising polo ponies and tacking up horses for the city folk. Later, he led moonlight rides to Belmont, to the delight of the ladies. The girls loved his tight Levi’s, riding skills and charm. It was said “Lou could charm a snake out of it’s skin!”
While Lou was there, the seeds of the Tevis ride were being planted with Wendell Robbie and Willie Tevis. They would experiment, with the riding of a horse 100 miles in 1 day, around the Bay Meadows Race Track. Lou participated as they formed their ideas and plans that would someday be the now famous Tevis Endurance ride.
In 1937, 17 year old Lou was nearly killed while in retreat after viewing a forest fire. He was riding on the side boards on a big truck, when he was smashed between 2 vehicles. The running board of the other car came up and over his left foot and door handle jammed into his right leg. Lou was thrown over an embankment and into the fire. He could not escape because of his two broken legs. His left foot was half severed. He was rescued, dragged up the hill and thrown into the, drunk, Dr. Horton’s car for a bouncy ride to the hospital. So dirty and covered with ashes, he was kept outside on a gurney. He was finally brought in and treated with Morphine, cleaned up and wrapped head to toe. Yelling and strapped down with leather through out. He was in the hospital for 3 months.
After his recovery, Lou found the readjustment to school so hard that he quit school and left home. In typical teenage fashion, Lou rode off on his green broke three year old horse with only a blanket, tarp and 75 cents for bread and jam. He rode the 65 miles from San Mateo to Gilroy in about thirty hours. (He was an endurance rider before the sport was popular.) Out to seek his fortune and show the world his worth, Lou worked incredibly long hours for what turned out to be little or no pay. After a few years of various low paying jobs, Lou thought he would go into the service, but he was rejected due to the injuries suffered in the fire. This was a very low point in his life yet he views it as an important turning point.
He would use the time that he would have been in the service to finish his education. . It was long, hard, and tough, but as always Lou was up to the challenge. He worked a hay press and saved every dime to put himself through school. He like being a cowboy on ranches and in rodeos but didn’t bring in enough money.
Lou first met Shirley Rice, “six-gun Sam” or “Sammy” at a rodeo in 1938 at the Nugget Ranch. Her friends dared her to ride in the Women’s Calf Riding event. She needed a glove, bull rope and chaps. A tall handsome cowboy, named Louie Larsen, loaned her his gear. Lou came up after she won the event. He patted Prince on the rump and said,”It was my chaps and glove that did that!” Sammy thought Lou was being a real smart aleck! She was 13, he was 19.
Lou dated one of Sammy’s older girlfriends but Lou found her to be too fast for him. The girlfriend recommended Lou date Sammy, saying “After all, you are both so fond of riding horses and love animals.”
A few years later, when Sammy was 16, Lou worked at a ranch where she rode. One day, Sammy jumped up behind Lou to ride double. When she slipped her arms around his waist to hang on tight, it sent chills up his spine. They began to see more of each other. They managed to enroll in the same college keeping their budding romance a secret from Sammy’s parents.
When Sammy’s dad discovered they had serious intentions, he took Lou to his very expensive private club and spent 4 hours telling Lou he would not ever be able to support Sammy in the manner to which she was accustomed. Lou didn’t know whether to be heartbroken, humiliated, or angry. By the end of the conversation, Lou was more determined than ever to marry Sammy, finish Vet School and do what ever needed to be done to make a life with Sammy.
Louis, determined, made it through Vet school and graduated in 1949. Sammy’s dad saw his determination and realized there was no way he could keep the two of them apart. In 1947, he allowed them to marry. It was a very small garden wedding and no one thought that they would ever last. September 1st, 2009, they celebrated their 62nd Wedding Anniversary.
After Vet school, Doc took a job treating large animals, mostly cows. One of his stories he would tell was how he did surgery to save a cow that was trying to deliver an ‘inside out calf, (that is where the skin and hair is on the inside and the organs on the outside.) He only had a 75 watt bulb for light and he would remark ‘there were flies everywhere’. He propped the cow up between two bales of hay, did the surgery, and saved the cow. He became a legend to the ranchers, however, he knew this would be short lived. One day he knew he might arrive too late. This was a turning point for Doc. He decided that he really wanted to do more surgery. Most of the Northern California Farmers didn’t find it cost effective. He wanted the chance to perform surgery to save animals. Doc took a job with Dill Veterinary hospital and settled down and started his family in the San Fernando Valley in 1951. Eventually, he saved up and opened his own practice in Pacoima, in 1958.
Doc, Sammy and their 3 children, James Louis, Linda Shirley and Sandra Rae, moved to Riverwood Ranch in 1967. To the everlasting delight of local horseman, he began to work on trails and make them safe and scenic. As a family they rode on all the trails and competed in many endurance rides including many completions at Tevis. They have been on many pack trips into the Sierras. Doc has built hundreds of miles of trail.
In 1975, after a huge wild fire, the brush was burned away so Doc could see where to put a trail joining Big Tujunga with Little Tujunga, the original ‘Doc Larsen’ Trail. Unfortunately, the first trail washed out in the floods that followed the fire. He had to begin again rebuilding the trail. While only a few miles of trail bear his name, his outstanding trail building techniques are visible all over the Angeles National Forest as well as in the Sierras.
Doc was one of the foremost trail building experts in the country. He never cared much of seminars and forums. Mostly he felt he was too busy building trails to go to them but he would tell a story about how the forest service sent him to a seminar on how to drive a tractor and use a chain saw. This one was actually useful because he was used to an axe and a mule drawn single blade plow.
He was always available to help anyone with building difficult trails or maintenance problems.
If you had the chance to work with this wonderful man, you found it to be one of the most uplifting experiences of your life. If you got him to tell you more of his adventures, all the better. He was a gifted story teller.
We trail users are most fortunate to have had this selfless dedicated individual in the forefront of trail building. Doc’s legacy will be the trails for our Children to enjoy.
Dr. Louis "Doc" Larsen DVM, 89, passed away in his home in Sunland, California November 8th, 2009 with his family around him. He was thankful for a full life. He was born on January 5, 1920 to Louis and Mary Dean Larsen in Fresno, California. He received his doctorate of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University in 1949. He practiced veterinary medicine from 1949 to 1987 opening his own practice in 1958 "Pacoima Veterinary Clinic" in Pacoima, Ca.
He married the love of his life Shirley "Sammy" Gertrude Rice September 1, 1947. They met at a rodeo. He is survived by his wife, three children and a grandchild; James Louis Larsen (deceased age 44), Linda Shirley Warnekros, Sandra Rae Hall and Shirley Jeanne Hall.
"Doc" was an avid horseman, completing the world famous 100 mile Tevis Cup 3 times, is renowned for his work on trails including the legendary Doc Larsen Trail in the Angeles National Forest. He received honors from the House of Representatives, the State of California, the City of Los Angeles, the Department of Agriculture, and the Forest Service for his work on trails across the State of California.
A memorial celebration will be held Sunday November 15, 2009 from 1pm to 5pm service at 2:30pm at Middle Ranch 11701 Little Tujunga Canyon, 91342.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made to ETI (Trail Maintenance), Backcountry Horseman and American Cancer Society.