More Information
Tales
from "Old Hutch": Selected Stories from "Notebooks of the Old
West" by W. H. Hutchinson
Stories about the Old West in northeastern California
About the Author
William Henry “Old Hutch” Hutchinson was born on August 13, 1911, in Denver, Colorado. He worked as a horse wrangler, a cowboy, railroad fireman, and a miner "to keep body and soul together while evading formal education." When his hopes of becoming a pilot didn't work out, Hutchinson went to sea in 1933. He served as lieutenant commander in the U.S. Maritime Service in WWII and saw duty in the South Pacific, North Atlantic, and Mediterranean.
In 1946, Hutch, his wife, and two sons moved to 160 acres of red dirt foothill land in Cohasset, California, where he began his career as a writer. The family relocated fifteen miles away in the valley town of Chico in 1958-1959.
Hutchinson sold more than 150 fact and fiction articles to several popular magazines. He had his own weekly radio and television programs. He authored fifteen books including Oil, Land and Politics: The California Career of Thomas Bard which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He worked as a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and contributed to the Chico Enterprise-Record including numerous letters to the editor. He taught as CSU, Chico, until retirement in 1979. W. H. Hutchinson passed away March 11, 1990.
