The Siren's Scream

Thomas White was born in 1946 and grew up in Marin County, just north of San Francis-co. After two years of college, he was drafted in 1966 and sent to Vietnam. Somewhat disillusioned after returning from the war, he let go of his dream of becoming an art teacher and built houses as a carpenter. After working in the Bay Area for six years, he bought two hundred acres of remote and undeveloped land in the rugged foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Over the next forty years, Lightning Ridge Ranch slowly became a real one, with a house, barns, horses, and goats. His handcrafted home on the high ridge offered commanding views of rolling hills, perennial creeks, and distant mountains. His Gold Country landscape was wrapped in lush stands of pine and oak. While working the Ranch, he also established himself as an artist, actor, and woodworker. But the land he loved had been reduced to a charred wasteland during the Butte Fire, bringing back haunting memories of Vietnam. In 2016, Tom sold Lightning Ridge Ranch and moved to the Gold Rush town of Murphys, California.