Orange County Biographies GEORGE A. COOK Transcribed by Kathy Sedler This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives the pioneer merchant of Lugonia and Redlands, also the first Postmaster there, has been a citizen of the Golden State since 1879. He came from the far East, being born in Litchfield County, Connecticut. His father died when he was a boy, and he had his own way to make in the world. He began as a clerk in a store, then as clerk on a steamer from New York to New Haven, and was subsequently agent for the New York & Boston Express Company. He came to California for his health, and being pleased with the mild climate determined to make it his home. He bought ten acres of barren land in Lugonia and put half of it in oranges. His was the third house built in the place. Two years later he started the first store, which in a short time he moved to the corner of Terrace and Orange streets. This store-room was 10 x 10 feet, and he had to enlarge it three times in three years. Two years ago he sold the store and has since carried on the real-estate business. He lives in a beautiful residence on the Terrace, from which he has a most magnificent view of the whole valley. It is both interesting and amusing to hear Mr. Cook tell how the jack-rabbits used to destroy the young trees, and how they got up a bounty, and offered ten cents for every rabbit scalp; and how, after he had contributed liberally to the common fund, and had brought in a dozen or more scalps and claimed his ten cents bounty per scalp, it was not paid. He laughs and says, " It remains unpaid to this day." SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California� Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 896-897