Hugo was always careful not to trap out the specie and left an area time to replenish. The sale of his furs earned him between $40.00 and $100.00 per year. His trapline ran mostly between Horse Sign Creek and Collier's Creek. He trapped and shot bear, panther, martin, mink, ringtail cat, coon, fox and skunk. He had a homemade pipe that he used to smoke ground-up laurel bark. He subsisted mostly on acorns, roots and wild game. He left his homestead occasionally to get money, but most of his time was spent on the Illinois. The only groceries he bought were flour and coffee. Most of his supplies he obtained from Gold Beach or Selma. His order would arrive by train and he had to travel 50 miles to West Fork to pick it up. To obtain tools, Hugo ordered from a catalogue. It became his home for the next 27 years. He cleared the land of rocks to make a pasture and garden space. The only building on the property was an old miner's shack. Hugo crossed the river and homesteaded a place there. When he came back he found that Phillip Hancock had homesteaded the meadow while he was gone. He needed some money, so he went to Crescent City and worked that winter. In 1906, Hugo found a meadow and decided to homestead it. The trail at that time only went as far as Bald Mountain and they had to blaze trail from there to Silver and Indigo Creek. They prospected along Josephine Creek and Cyon Creek and then headed down river. He went to the Klamath River country and got a partner and the two of them came to the illinois River in 1906. He came to the United States in 1904, arriving in New York and continuing on to California. Hugo Mayer was an unnaturalized immigrant that was born in Suhl, Germany, in 1884.
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