USA > California > Merced County > A history of Merced County, California : with a biographical review of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 36
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The oldest of what should perhaps be called the new towns is Atwater. The earliest map of Atwater was recorded on March 15, 1888, with the approval of Ella Stone Bloss, George S. Bloss, and the Merced Land & Fruit Company, by H. N. Rucker, president, endorsed upon it. It was filed at the request of J. F. McSwain & Company. The date of this map is significant; it was the year of the completion of the Lake Yosemite reservoir, the last step in the building of the Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Company's irriga- tion system, the fruition of the dreams of William G. Collier and his associates of the Robla Canal Company, and their successors of the Farmers' Canal Company, whose earlier work had been brought to completion by the ability and energy of C. H. Huffman, backed by the capital of Charles Crocker.
To return to Atwater, the town was laid out about 1888 by the Merced Land & Fruit Company. They held an auction in Merced and sold lots in the new town. The original town lay all south of the Central Pacific tracks, in the portion of the present town where the packing plants and canneries now are. Mr. George S. Bloss, Sr., arrived in 1884. At that time there were only three buildings where the town now stands. The chief of these was a grain warehouse; the others were a little station and a dwelling-house. There was a family living in the warehouse; Mr. Bloss moved into the dwelling-house. With the station or depot was combined a general store and a post office. This is said to have been the first building built in the town. It was owned and operated by John Giddings.
The site of Atwater was originally a part of the huge 117,000- acre ranch of J. W. Mitchell, which included all of the later Dallas, Bloss, and Crane Ranches. Grain-farming was of course the main business of the whole region. Wheat was raised on the heavier lands, rye on the lighter and sandier soil. Barley was also raised. M. D. Atwater, for whom the town is named, farmed here for a good many years, on part of J. W. Mitchell's land, and later on 6000 acres belonging to Stewart, Newell, and a third man. While farming the Mitchell land, he lived about a mile west of where the town is. The 6000 acres which he farmed later was located north of town, extend- ing down from about the present site of Winton to the highway and Central Pacific about where the Fruitland road turns off. Mr. At- water afterwards retired to the ranch east of town now owned by his widow, Mrs. Laura Atwater, and his son-in-law, F. W. Hender-
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son. Two young men named Mix and Bruen, the former a nephew of Mr. Atwater, farmed the 6000 acres for several years during the eighties.
Even as early as 1884 there had been small beginnings made in fruit-raising. There was a considerable orchard on the Buhach Ranch, besides large plantings of the plant from which the insect powder buhach was made. Supervisor Frank Pebley's father had an orchard north of the Central Pacific about opposite Buhach Station. Two retired school teachers had about 80 acres each between there and Atwater, north of the State Highway about where the Shaffer Road leaves the highway. One of these was G. D. Smith; the other was the father of C. C. Boynton. In 1888, the year when the Merced Land & Fruit Company laid out the town site, they also planted the first vineyard, the one now known as the Giannini vineyard. C. C. Mitchell, brother of J. W. Mitchell, came in 1884. He bought 280 acres and built the house where Charles Osborn later lived. About 1890 he planted a peach orchard. About 1891 J. W. Mitchell plant- ed what was later known as the Sierra Vista Vineyard-about 300 acres.
The Fin de Siecle Investment Company's Addition to the Town of Atwater, five blocks long by half a block deep, on the north side of the railroad, was made about 1899. Mr. Bloss bought 36 acres of acreage and twenty lots 25 by 115 feet each, from the Fin de Siecle Company, and from this he has made three additions to the town as its growth warranted it. The first was made in 1904 or 1905, the last in 1921. The Sierra Vista Company have also made three additions. J. B. Osborn bought out John Giddings, the keeper of the first store. Later he purchased a lot on the main corner of the town from the Fin de Siecle Investment Company, and about 1897 he built a store building on it. At that time there were about 100 people in the town.
Subdivision and colonization began in the nineties. Buhach Colony, put on the market by the Merced Land & Fruit Company, was among the first subdivisions. Fruit-growing increased and the growing of sweet potatoes began. It was at this time that the first Portuguese settlers came. Such representative men as Tony and Frank Dutra and John Avila were among the early settlers of Buhach Colony. The Elliott Ranch, just south of Buhach Colony, was sub- divided. Landram Colony was another of the early subdivisions. The Atwater Colony, of three-quarters of a section, was laid out in 1899, and the Fin de Siecle Company's Addition to Atwater Colony a year or so later. These were laid out in twenty-acre tracts. Then came the Jordan-Atwater Tract, five sections, in twenty-acre lots, sold by the Co-operative Land & Trust Company; the Arizona Tract
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and the Martin Tract, 1120 acres, sold by J. M. Martin of Turlock : Gertrude Colony, 640 acres, by Walter Casad of Merced; Fruitland Colony, 1280 acres, by the Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Com- pany; and Casad Colony, 1280 acres, by Walter Casad.
Subdivision in the country lying below Lake Yosemite followed close upon the boom of 1888 which the completion of the canal sys- tem brought. Several of the subdividers along Bear Creek between the lake and Merced have been mentioned in the chapter on Irrigation from the Merced. In the papers of 1889 and 1890 we find large advertisements of V. C. W. Hooper & Son, of lands in Yo Semite Colony (so they spelled it, the latest instance we have noted of the word divided into two). They offered ten- and twenty-acre farms with perpetual water rights, at from $80 to $150 an acre, one-fourth at the end of five years, one-fourth yearly thereafter. The lands of Mrs. A. A. Dunn and John Archer were offered by the Hoopers along with their own. This was in the latter part of 1889. We also see in October of that year an "ad." of Hooper & Son offering orange trees for sale. We see the Merced Land & Fruit Company mentioned again, and W. H. Turner as its secretary. In the April 5, 1890, issue of the Express we find an "ad." of Rialto Colony, only one and one-fourth miles from the court house, where H. H. McCloskey offers lands at $150 per acre with water rights, one-fourth cash.
On June 14, 1890, we read in the Express : "Now that the South- ern Pacific Company have actually let the contract we may expect to see the Oakdale road in process of construction during the coming week." The article goes on to say that the work was to begin at this end, that it will be an "entering wedge for the S. P. machine shops," and that the road will be done in time to move the then current season's crops.
Meanwhile, or rather a little earlier, the San Pablo and Tulare Extension Railroad had been built across the country from north to south on the West Side. The first town map recorded as a result was a map of Volta. It was adopted and approved by the board of directors of the Volta Improvement Company on March 21, 1890, and signed by Antony Pfitzer, vice-president, and C. W. Smith, secre- tary, and was recorded on March 28, 1890. Volta was intended to be the town on the West Side, by its founders. The old Dogtown was more or less completely moved down to the railroad at this point-it was only a short move. The Volta Boosters appear, however, to have reckoned without Miller & Lux, which was quite frequently a mistake on the West Side. There was a map of the Miller & Lux Subdivision of the Town of Los Banos filed on November 28, 1890; the map of the Town of Los Banos, surveyed by L. D. Norton, was not filed until October 29, 1892. Old Los Banos, it will be remem-
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bered, had been established in 1872 by the process of Henry Miller's leasing for five years for one dollar a section of land to Gus Kreyen- hagen on the condition that the latter would start a store. Kreyen- hagen started it, but within a few years, as we have seen, Miller & Lux came to be the owners. When the railroad had proceeded south past Central Point and the partnership got good and ready, they moved their store down to the tracks several miles south of the aspiring Volta and established the largest West Side town there.
Returning to the East Side, we find that same issue of the Ex- press of June 14, 1890, with an item about well-to-do Hollanders choosing Merced County to settle in, and how this brings Merced County to the attention of Santa Clara and Santa Mateo Counties. These were of course the Rotterdam settlers. The "Map of the Town of Rotterdam, Merced County, Cal., situated in the S. W. portion of the N. W. 1/4 of Sec. 28, Twp. 6 S., R. 14 E., M. D. B. & M., surveyed by Chas. D. Martin, scale 100 ft. equals 1 inch" was filed December 2, 1890. The location is on the elevated ground out near Lake Yosemite. In one of Hooper's "ads," of his lands out there he speaks of its picturesque rolling character as an ad- vantage. Irrigation was still pretty young then.
Maps of Dos Palos Colony and of Ingomar appear in 1895. A map of the Town of Dos Palos does not appear to have been filed until the one in 1907. These dates do not represent the beginning of Dos Palos-either settlement. A mid-winter historical edition of the Dos Palos Star published on January 4, 1924, says the col- ony was opened in 1892; that in 1893 Bernhard Marks established a colony on the "dobie" land which lies just southeast of what is now known as South Dos Palos; and that this land proved unsuit- able for the small farmer, and with the consent of Miller & Lux, Inc., the colonists were moved to the present site of Dos Palos Colony. "This move proved to be the salvation of the early settlers, and in the latter part of that year the country began to have the ap- pearance of being occupied by men rather than horses and cattle.
This should not be understood as contradicting the statement that Dos Palos was a colony founded by Miller & Lux. The use at this time of the name Miller & Lux, Inc., appears not to be strictly correct, however, if we are to judge from the "Map of that part of Dos Palos Colony that lies in Merced County." It was surveyed by H. Wanzer and dedicated January 11, 1895, by Henry Miller, surviving partner of Miller & Lux-clearly a partnership and not a corporation. This map was not filed for record until July 15, 1896.
"In the month of February, 1893," says the article in the Star, "the first fruit tree was planted by an early settler and the inhabitants began an active campaign of cultivation and otherwise improving their
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land. .. . J. O. Hoyle opened up a store on the corner of Elgin and Cornelia Avenues. It was a success, and he had the first post office in the colony. F. A. Bennett opened an exchange in the summer of 1896, with a cash capital of $10, it is said; it afterwards grew to be the Dos Palos Colony Rochdale Association. O. D. McPherson early estab- lished a broom factory. L. B. Woodruff, now a job printer at New- man, established the first paper in the colony, the Colonist. The News was the second paper. The first number of the Dos Palos Star, the present paper, was issued on July 9, 1897, by Mr. Bowen; he became postmaster in 1898. By January 1, 1899, there were six hundred peo- ple in the colony. The town which grew up as the center of the colony was first known by the obvious name of Colony Center, but this name gave way to the longer established one of Dos Palos, from two tall poplar trees, long dead, which stood on the site of the village.
The "Town of Dos Palos" is what is commonly called South Town, to distinguish it from Colony Center. It is the town on the San Pablo and Tulare Extension Railroad. The map of it was filed on July 22, 1907. It was a Pacific Improvement Company town, and the certificate attached to it is dated May 23, 1907, signed by the company by A. D. Shepard, secretary.
The certificate on the map of the Town of Ingomar of its subdivi- sion into lots for the purpose of sale was made on October 7, 1895, by the Pacific Improvement Company, by F. S. Douty, secretary, and the map was recorded on October 10, 1895.
Maps of only two more towns appear before the end of the cen- tury, both in 1896, in which year the San Joaquin Valley Railroad, or Spreckels Road, was built through the county. It was soon taken over by the Santa Fe. One of the two towns was Le Grand. The "Map of the Town of Le Grand, Merced Co., Cal., on line of San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley R. R., S. W. 14 of Sec. 17, T. 8 S., R. 16 E., M. D. M., Surveyed by W. P. Stoneroad, August, 1896," was filed September 5, 1896. It had endorsed upon it a certificate of approval by Luella J. Dickenson, which states that she changed the names of seven of the streets before approving it. The streets after the change were: Parallel with the railroad, on the south side, Broadway, Wash- ington, and McDowell, and on the north, Canal and Cottonwood. At right angles to these and the railroad: Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. Running due north and south on the west side of the town, Dickenson Avenue; and running east and west along the south side, the county road.
The map of the town of South Le Grand, surveyed by W. P. Stoneroad in October, 1896, was filed November 12 of the same year, at the request of Nels Ipson. The name is spelled "Ipson" where he signed it; elsewhere, "Ipsen." There are three blocks in a strip one
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block wide south of the county road, and between Block 1 on the east and Block 2, just west of it, it "Ipsen" Avenue.
"The Map of the Town of Geneva" (now Whitton), recorded November 25, 1896, will probably puzzle comparatively late comers to the county as much as the town of Dover. Both of these were early names of Planada. The owner who dedicated the streets to the public was James Bean, and the certificate is dated at San Jose on November 20, 1896. There is a later map of the Town of Planada, surveyed by E. D. Severance, and recorded on January 30, 1911.
The town of Gustine is the first appearing in the new century. The map of it, surveyed by F. P. McCray, was recorded on November 14, 1906. The certificate attached shows that it was subdivided by Miller & Lux, Inc., by Henry Miller, president, and David Brown, secretary, September 29, 1906. There is an acceptanceof the streets by the board of supervisors. Gustine was built by Henry Miller as a rival town to Newman, across the Stanislaus border, founded by the rival Simon Newman Company. It is said to have been named for Miller's daughter.
There is no map of record of the Town of Stevinson. The acreage subdivision there begins, as indicated by the maps on file, in 1903. The acreage property was land belonging to James J. Stevinson. The town of Stevinson was begun a few years later than 1903 and was built on land of Miss Sara B. Collier.
Irwin City was founded in 1907. The "Map of Irwin City, being a replat of a portion of Hilmar Colony, Merced County, Cal.," sur- veyed by George S. Manuel, March 30, 1907, and dedicated by W. A. Irwin the same day, was recorded on May 8, 1907. The board of sup- ervisors rejected the streets. The map shows the "I. C. & S. W. R.R."
It will be most convenient to leave the strictly chronological order and deal with Hilmar Colony and the town of Hilmar here with Irwin City. The town of Hilmar was not established until 1917, when the Tidewater Southern Railroad reached its site; Hilmar Colony, how- ever, was established before Irwin City, in 1900 or 1901. Gust John- son, who is a pioneer settler of the colony, came there in the spring of 1903, and that was the year in which most of the settlers came. It was largely a Swedish colony. The land was originally owned by J. W. Mitchell. He used to back men who wanted to farm portions of it to grain, but the grain-farming was a good deal of a gamble, produc- ing perhaps two crops in five years in the blow sand there. Eventually Mitchell had to take a good deal of the land back. As W. J. Stockton tells us of Henry Miller, Mitchell backed his men as long as they wanted to keep at it, furnished them seed and was always willing to give them another chance.
The Fin de Siecle Investment Company handled a good deal of the land. Mr. Johnson states that the deed to his own land came
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from the Richard estate. N. O. Hultberg and A. Hallner were the men who promoted the colony. Hulberg, who had been a minister, became a real estate man. Andrew Hallner was an old newspaper man and also a preacher. There was a man named Soderberg associated with Hultberg, and Hallner became their manager and publicity man. Hultberg had been a missionary in Alaska, and Soderberg had been in Alaska also. They had made a little money there. They returned to Alaska in 1904 and placed Hallner in full charge, at Turlock, which was headquarters. It was the only town in the entire settlement then. Hallner was largely instrumental in obtaining settlers. The greater number of them came from Minnesota and Nebraska ; and as has been said, the heaviest settlements were made during 1903 and the fol- lowing winter.
Mr. Johnson recalls the early days in the colony vividly with an account of a fight which he and his family had to save from the grass- hoppers twenty acres of orchard which they had planted. The grass- hoppers bred in the uncultivated ground north of the canal of the Turlock Irrigation District, and when they had attained an age to move they advanced on Mr. Johnson's little oasis in the desert in mass formation. Mr. Johnson tells how he hauled dry manure from an old grain ranch for smudges, and he, his wife, five children, and a hired man worked for three weeks to get the grasshoppers through the orchard, and finally saw them fly away. Pioneer days were not so many years ago in Hilmar Colony, but the industry of the thrifty people of that section has conquered grasshoppers and other pioneer difficulties and made Hilmar one of the most flourishing sections of the county.
Irwin came up from Santa Monica and laid out Irwin City in 1907; the town of Hilmar was established in 1917, when the Tide- water Southern arrived. Mr. Beers of the railroad wanted the people of Irwin to move their town up to the railroad; but they refused to do it, and the two towns stand close together on the paved county highway which extends from the Milleken Bridge across the Merced to the Stanislaus line and connects with a Stanislaus County paved highway which continues it into Turlock.
The "Map of the Townsite of Hilmar, being Lots 82 and 83 of the Hilmar Colony . . . " was surveyed by J. C. Lindsay of Stockton, and dedicated on May 7, 1917, by B. T. Cowgill; the streets were rejected the following day by the board of supervisors, and it was recorded. The "Map of the Townsite of Hilmar, No. 2, Blocks 1 & 4 of the Townsite of Hilmar, Merced County, California," was sur- veyed by A. E. Cowell and W. E. Bedesen, certified by them and dedi- cated by B. T. Cowgill on June 3, 1918, accepted by the supervisors on June 6, and recorded on June 7, 1918.
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Hilmar has a $40,000 Swedish Lutheran Mission Church, which was dedicated in the fall of 1921, and subscriptions for which were taken in the summer of 1920. A man prominent in the colony and in the building of the church was John Brynteson, who had known Hult- berg in Alaska, who had bought 800 acres of land in the colony, and who comes there from time to time from his home in Sweden. He contributed $4000 towards the church. Irwin also has a church, in ad- dition to the one at Hilmar. The community's size now may be judged from the fact that there are 130 pupils in the Hilmar Union High School and 265 in the Elim Union Grammar School, the latter having its schoolhouse between Hilmar and Irwin. The Hilmar Union High School was started in 1911. It has issued bond issues of $28,000 and $6000, and the high school building, completed in 1919, repre- sents an investment of $35,000.
The town of Cressey was founded by the Crocker-Huffman Land & Water Company. The certificate accompanying the map is dated September 16, 1912. The survey was made by Cowell and Bedesen. The map was recorded September 26, 1912.
Maps of Arena and Delhi were recorded in 1911. The survey of Arena was certified March 9, 1910, by A. E. Cowell and G. E. Winton. The certificate of subdivision was executed by the Hunter Colony Company, by George T. Hedges, president, and A. F. Paddie, secretary, in Linn County, Iowa, March 31, 1910. But the map was not recorded until December 30, 1911. The "Map of the Town of Delhi, comprising those portions of Sections 5, 8, and 9 in T. 6 S., R. 11 E., M. D. B. & M., lying south and west of the right of way of the Central Pacific Railroad Company and marked on the map of Shank's Delhi Tract 'Townsite'," was surveyed by Cowell and Bedesen and certified by them September 20, 1911, dedicated by Edgar M. Wilson the same day, and recorded October 7, 1911.
The "Map of the Town of Winton, comprising all of Lots 111A, 112, 113, 121A, 100B, and parts of Lots 98B, 99B, 97B and 128 of Merced Colony No. 2," was surveyed by Cowell and Winton and rec- orded April 24, 1912, at the request of the Co-operative Land & Trust Company. The name Winton was more or less an accident. It was first called "Winfield"; but the Santa Fe had one "Winfield" on their lines and refused to stand for another, and in the observance of an economy which sought a substitute that would involve the minimum of painting out on existing signs, they changed the last syllable and made it Winton.
Amsterdam, on the Oakdale Branch, was subdivided by the Pa- cific Improvement Company. The certificate attached to the map is by Wm. H. Crocker, vice-president, and A. D. Shepard, secretary. It is dated April 2, 1912, and the map was recorded July 30 of the same year.
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Aladdin, on the Santa Fe north of the Merced River, was sub- divided by Edgar M. Wilson and J. K. Mills in 1913. The map was drawn by Cowell and Bedesen and recorded November 18, of that year.
El Nido, about twelve miles south of Merced, has no map of rec- ord. A store and post office adjoining the district schoolhouse serve a thickly settled farming community largely devoted to dairying.
North of the Merced River, on the Oakdale Branch, is Ryer, a grain-shipping point.
Arundel is a switch on the same line just south of the river.
On the Santa Fe, north of Aladdin, is Cortez Station.
On the West Side Railroad, between Gustine and Ingomar, is Linora Station.
On the Santa Fe, north of Merced at Hoff, is a tomato-packing plant.
South of Merced on the same line six miles east is Tuttle, where there are two large warehouses formerly used for grain, one still de- voted to that use and the other to the purposes of the California Packing Corporation, which has its big Del Monte orchard extending from Tuttle to Planada.
There are also grain warehouses and switches further south on the Santa Fe in this county, Burchell between Planada and Le Grand, and Marguerite south of Le Grand. On the Yosemite Valley Rail- road, between Merced and Hopeton, there is a switch at Eden.
Merced County now has five incorporated towns. We have al- ready told of the incorporation of Merced itself in 1889. Los Banos was the next to incorporate. The petition was filed April 2, 1907, and the election called for April 30. On Monday, May 6, the board of supervisors canvassed the votes and found 83 for and 15 against. J. D. McCarthy, J. E. Place, J. V. Toscano, W. T. White, and A. Gen- elly were elected the first board of city trustees, with 99, 96, 91, 70, and 65 votes respectively; J. J. Sweeney, clerk, with 96; S. B. Dis- mukes, treasurer, with 61 ; and Joel Webb, marshal, with 62 votes.
The election to incorporate Gustine was called on October 1, 1915, and held on November 1. There were 114 votes for and 27 against. There were 22 candidates for city trustee, 7 for clerk, 4 for treasurer. The office of marshal had become appointive. D. T. Haley, with 100 votes; Peter Bladt, with 133; W. W. Wehner, with 79; George M. Currier, with 108; and J. R. Jensen, with 128, were elected trustees. W. L. Chappel was elected clerk, with 118 votes, and C. W. Hawks, treasurer, with 122 votes.
The petition for the incorporation of Atwater was presented July 3, 1922, and the election held August 11. There were 140 votes for and 20 against. Charles Osborn, with 103 votes, Clarke Ralston, with
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100; George Bloss, Jr., with 103; A. R. Neves, with 99; and T. A. Wayne, with 97 votes, were elected trustees; and there were 21 scat- tering votes. A. T. Rector was elected clerk, with 95 votes; and B. D. Garlock, treasurer, with 95.
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