Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Cedar Slope, CA

Cedar Slope is an unincorporated census-designated place in Tulare County, California, a small mountain cabin community in the Sierra Nevada reached by 37 curvy miles of California State Route 190 from Porterville, climbing about 5,525 feet along the way.

The site was first occupied in 1881 by the artist and seamstress Nellie Marshall, and nearby Marshall Creek is named after her.

The modern community dates to 1945, when Les and Ruth Bailey and Fred and Hazelyn Hopkins bought 80 acres of the original homestead, and in 1947 Tulare County approved the tract that authorized the area's first cabins - many of them built by World War II veterans.

Cedar Slope has run its own water system since 1947 through the community-owned Cedar Slope Mutual Water Company.

The Cedar Slope Inn, rebuilt after the original store on the Highway 190 site burned down in the late 1960s, served for decades as the community's bar and live-music venue.

In September 2020 the Sequoia Complex Fire largely destroyed Cedar Slope, burning 57 of its 65 cabins and heavily damaging the nearby McIntyre Grove of giant sequoias.

The 2020 census counted just 10 residents in Cedar Slope, up from zero in 2010, and all 37 of its housing units were recorded as vacant - a seasonal second-home community rather than a year-round town.

Cedar Slope sits at an elevation of 5,584 feet, and its students attend schools in the Springville Union Elementary School District and the Porterville Unified School District.