History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches 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, Volume I, Part 52

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches 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, Volume I > Part 52

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"Sunday night after I arrived, I went out with W. W. Phillips in his buggy (one of the few then in the county) to Centerville; on my way to see my brother the next morning, I secured a seat in the wagon with Mrs. Gilbert with whom I rode several miles, when she pointed out a cabin away off in the distance which looked like a mere small brown spot on the desert as the residence of my cousin, Gen. T. H. Bell. I started for it loaded with a heavy valise and on my way crossed the C and K canal which had been made the year before and then had water in it. I finally arrived at the gen- eral's, a small shanty without shade tree or other ornament, where I was cordially received by his wife, Cousin Mary, the general being away from home. That afternoon I went to my brother's a half of a mile further. He lived in a small cabin on a place which a man named Stumpf afterward bought from Solomon Gates. All this country was unimproved, much of it was virgin soil, and I saw several large stacks of wild alfilaria hay near some of the residences.'

"Selma had not then been laid out and I remember going from General Bell's across the country that winter to a dance at a schoolhouse at or near where Selma now stands. The only canals in the county then, I think, were the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company's system, including the Gould ditch, and the Centerville and Kingsburg canal, also the Emigrant ditch. Land everywhere was very cheap and there was still some government land that had not been entered as late as 1880. I entered a quarter section in the Bethel neighborhood of good land which I afterward abandoned and which my brother entered under the homestead act. In those days antelope were quite plentiful on the plains and I remember seeing herds of them several times within seven or eight miles of Fresno City. The coyotes were numerous and troublesome close to town. I have heard them barking at night while I was in bed in Fresno so close did they come around.

"J. B. Campbell was judge of this district at this time and he went out of office a year later when the new constitution was adopted in 1879. Judge Gillum Baley was county judge and he also went out of office the next year. E. Hall was the sheriff and A. M. Clark the county clerk and recorder. The attorneys here were then H. S. Dixon, W. D. and H. C. Tupper, C. G. Sayle ; the latter three forming a partnership with offices in the Kutner-Goldstein building ; E. C. Winchell, W. D. Grady, E. D. Edwards and W. H. Creed. Creed was district attorney and Edwards his deputy and partner, S. H. Hill was the justice of the peace and held his office and court in the front part of a saloon on H Street.

"After I had been here awhile, I sent for G. H. Vaughn, who was in San Francisco and he, Grady and I formed a partnership under the firm name of Vaughn, Grady & Harris. We had our law office up over some saloon on H Street and did a pretty fair practice in a small way. The first lawsuit I ever helped in was the case of one Curry against Thom et al. at Borden. It was Grady's case and he took me along to help him. His opponent was a lawyer named Gardner from Merced. After many speeches and much wran- 21

352

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

gling between Grady and Gardner, we secured a verdict in our favor for the plaintiff. For my trouble and valuable time, Grady gave me a five-dollar gold note and paid my expenses, which I am free to state was much more than I had earned.

"This partnership continued until January I, 1879, when we dissolved by mutual consent, Vaughn and I forming a partnership and having our office upstairs in the Donahoo block, near I Street, which had been built since my arrival. We remained there one year, when we moved into an office upstairs in a brick building where Donahoo, Emmons & Company's store is at present (east side of I near Mariposa).

"During the year 1879, S. A. Holmes was elected superior court judge defeating H. S. Dixon who ran against him as an independent. For the Demo- cratic nomination, his opponents were Judge Gillum Baley and W. D. Tup- per whom he defeated. W. D. Grady was elected district attorney. On the 6th of September, 1880, my partner Vaughn got into a difficulty with John Donahoo (candidate for sheriff) and shot and killed him. At the time the shot was fired, Donahoo had Vaughn down and was beating him. Donahoo had made previous threats to do Vaughn harm. Great indignation among Republicans was excited against Vaughn and a mob was even formed to lynch him, but this was quickly put down and after a fair trial the following January before a jury above the average in intelligence and in which Vaughn was defended by Judge (D. S.) Terry and myself he was acquitted. This affair dissolved our partnership as Mr. Vaughn practiced here no longer, and, in February, 1881, Judge C. G. Sayle and I went into partnership.

"In 1882, E. D. Edwards and I were candidates for the Democratic nomination for district attorney and I was defeated after a close contest. I should have been nominated (I don't mean that I was more deserving than Edwards) and would have been but I had an idea that all a man had to do under such circumstances was to announce himself, show himself to the people and stop. I had no system to my canvass, no workers and nothing that is necessary in such cases, because I knew nothing about politics my- self. On the other hand, my opponent had experience in such matters, was a shrewd manipulator and consequently beat me in some precincts where he had but little strength while I had a good deal. But I had and have no complaints to make over the result, and stumped the county for the ticket after it was nominated. In 1880, two years previously, I also stumped the county for the Democratic ticket.

"After my defeat in 1882, the Democratic convention in my absence and without my knowledge instructed the delegates to the district senatorial convention to vote for me. Though this was contrary to my ideas and feel- ings, after earnest solicitations by many friends, I finally consented to allow my name to be put in nomination. In Tulare County at the Democratic con- vention, the delegates to the senatorial convention were instructed to vote for a citizen of that county and for me for second choice. Pat Reddy was the candidate from Mono County and was my choice for the place, not ex- cepting myself. The convention met at Bakersfield and for about eighty ballots, Mono, Inyo and Kern voted for Reddy, Tulare for its man and Fresno for me.

"Finally seeing no disposition in the delegates from Tulare to carry out the instructions of their county by voting for me, as second choice, I notified them that I would withdraw after one more ballot. They evidently thought I was not in earnest and that it was a mere ruse to obtain their votes. But I did withdraw and on the next ballot all the counties went for Reddy except Tulare. This action was a mere matter of choice between the men as Reddy was incomparably the superior. I was well satisfied with the result- in fact I held on as long as I did in deference to the wishes of my county.

353

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

"In 1886 I ran against Reel B. Terry for district attorney and attribute my defeat in this race to the fact that at this time the Chinese question was violently agitated. Terry took a pronounced part in the agitation which secured for him the support of a large element. I was not what was called anti-Chinese, as I thought it would seem too much like acting the demagogue to join the crusade against the heathen, even going so far as to boycott persons employing them at that time. This year I was elected chairman of the Democratic County Committee, of which I had been a member since 1882. I believe I have been elected a delegate to every Democratic state con- vention that has been held since but only attended one, the memorable one at Stockton in 1884.

"In May, 1883, learning that my father whom I had not seen since I left Tennessee in 1878, was in a low state of health, I made a visit back to Gallatin, where I remained until about the middle of August. I found my father very feeble and declining and a few months after my return to Cali- fornia he died.

"In December, 1882, I received a letter from W. S. Moore, who had been publishing a paper at Franklin. Ky., for a year or two, stating that he would make a change soon and inquiring about Fresno as a field for a newspaper. Knowing that he was not very strong physically, greatly desiring to have him near me and believing there was room for a bright Democratic weekly, I conceived the idea of publishing such a paper and placing Moore in charge of the business. A little inquiry satisfied me that the plan was feasible and I telegraphed Moore to come. He arrived in Fresno early in January, 1883. In a short time I had a company incorporated for the purpose of publishing a newspaper and doing a general printing business.

"The outfit was purchased and we named the paper the Fresno Democrat. The first number was dated, I think, March 12, 1883. The first office was under the Ogle House on Front Street, then it was moved into the second story above Furnish's butcher shop on Mariposa Street, then into one of the stores on the west side of J, just a door or two above Mariposa, and there it remained until we sold out. From the beginning, the Democrat was opposed, assailed and the motives of its projectors impugned by both the Republican and the Expositor, especially the latter.

"A serious but rather ludicrous effort was indulged in by the proprietors of both of these papers, to use a slang phrase, to 'sit down on' the Democrat and its editor, through the columns of their papers, but it was a good deal like a shirt-tailed boy sitting down on a redhot stove. They got up very quickly with disastrous results and with a strong disinclination to repeat the experiment, for Moore was full of fight, a brilliant, witty and powerful writer and utterly fearless in the expressions of his convictions. The Demo- crat under him soon took high rank among the country papers. I am glad to be able to state that its course was never once influenced by sordid or improper motives, as I think it shows for itself. In December, 1883, Mr. Moore returned to Kentucky, married, returned at once and took up resi- dence again in Fresno.

"The legislature of 1886-87 created a new department of the Superior court for Fresno County, the business of the court having grown too large to be transacted by one judge. W. D. Tupper, E. D. Edwards, S. S. Wright, S. A. Holmes and I were applicants before Governor Bartlett for the posi- tion and I received the appointment on the 12th of March, 1887, and at once entered upon the discharge of my duties. The next year 1888 was the general election and I was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Superior court judge with my old antagonist, Judge Holmes, as my opponent. I de- feated him by a large majority. Shortly after the primaries, I went to San Francisco for a week's rest and while there I received the gratifying intelli- gence that the Republicans had endorsed me and placed me on their ticket.

354

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

At the election I received within seventy-five votes of the combined number received by the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees in the county."

The diarist recites that he graduated from the law school of Vander- bilt University at Nashville, Tenn., in August, 1874, and left his Gallatin home for Fresno, "which place he had selected for his future home think- ing that a new country offered a wider scope and a more promising field for a professional young man than an old one." A brother, C. C. Harris, had located in Fresno eighteen months before and on the journey the diarist was accompanied by George H. Vaughn, whom he had known since they were boys but with whom he had had little association, the latter living at Nashville. There are interesting references to this journey in a day when travel was not the luxurious experience that it is today. To the diarist who had hardly been outside of Kentucky and Tennessee all his life, the nearly 3,000 miles long journey to California was a revelation. "It first gave me," says he, "something like a just idea of the extent, of the wealth, of the future of this country of ours."

At Omaha, then a town of not much importance, cars were changed and the travelers were given seats in what was known as the emigrant car. The accommodations were by no means good. Seats were not upholstered, no place to wash, two persons to a seat and no porter. Car was attached to the end of a long freight train which moved exceedingly slow, but the trav- elers were a good natured lot, all became acquainted and passed the time pleasantly. Each seat of persons furnished its own bedding, all had baskets of lunch "of sufficient dimensions to last to the journey's end." Fare from St. Louis to California was fifty-five dollars each.

The morning after, the travel was "over an unbroken and a seemingly boundless prairie covered by a thick carpet of verdure, variegated with bright sunflowers. Nowhere did it seem that the soil had ever been broken; indeed it had the appearance of having just come from its Maker's hands." Scarcely any farmhouses were seen anywhere in the state of Nebraska and no buildings anywhere except a few small ones clustered around the railroad stations and the latter at long intervals. "We saw," reads the diary, "large bands of sheep and cattle feeding on the rich herbage and not infrequently bands of antelope could be plainly seen in the distance. The entire country had that air of western frontier life that has such a charm for the young."

Approaching the summit of the Rocky Mountains, reached late one evening at Sherman, the air was crisp and bracing though it was in August. Some of the travelers frequently rode for hours on top of the caboose and every moment over the wild, diversified country was full of interest. "In Nevada," says the diary recorder, "I saw my first Indian at a little alkali station in the person of a stalwart brave, a captain somebody wearing a silk hat but not much else, chasing a gaunt old sow that carried a small bundle of meat and bread in her mouth after having purloined it from Mr. Indian. This specimen of the red man of the forest was not in keeping with what James Fenimore Cooper had told about them in his interesting but romantic novels."

Utah, the country of the Mormons, seemed better cultivated than any seen on the journey. Crossing the Sierra Nevadas was seen Donner Lake, memorable scene of the ill-fated California pioneer party of travelers. The Tennesseean arrived at Sacramento on the morning of August 15, there Vaughn and the new acquaintances of the rail parted to proceed to San Francisco by river steamer, while the diarist came on to Fresno, which has been his home since with one other journey back home to marry the sweet- heart of his youth.

355

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

CHAPTER LIX

EVERY CHANGE OF THE LANDSCAPE WAS ONE OF NOTE IN THE DAYS OF BEGINNINGS. IN 1881 FRESNO WAS YET A HANDFUL OF HOUSES IN A DESERT OF SAND. LOCATORS DID NOT LOCATE AS THE TOWN PROJECTORS HAD PLANNED. METROPOLITAN HALL THE GRAVEYARD OF SO MANY TRAVELLING SHOWS. O STREET WAS OUT OF TOWN. NOB HILL THE RESIDENTIAL QUARTER. RABBITS AND SQUIRRELS IN THE BACKYARDS. BEYOND CHINA- TOWN IT WAS SPACE AS FAR AS THE SLOUGH. UNOCCUPIED STRETCHES OF LAND TO THE NEAREST COUNTRY SETTLEMENTS.

Located as was Fresno on a barren plain with nothing to obstruct the visual horizon nearer than the Coast Range on the west and the Sierras foothills on the east side, little wonder that any change in the landscape was one of note. The beginning of Fresno was literally one from nothing. Even after the location of the town, its growth was slow. The first begin- nings with the coming of the railroad have been traced. Judge M. K. Harris' mental picture of the town in 1879 is incomplete in many details. His diary was a composition of later years. Not so startling were the changes between 1878-79 and 1881 as in turn recorded in a diary of R. W. Riggs, whose arrival dates from February 1 of the latter year but whose recollections cover other details that had escaped the memory of the earlier diarist. Riggs' impres- sion of Fresno was that it was "not much of a town, a handful of houses in a desert of sand." Riggs has been a frequent newspaper contributor of historical sketches.

It is not to be gathered from the two diaries in the location of the busi- ness places in those days that the described blocks were of solidly built up blocks. Far from it. The unoccupied space was far greater than the occu- pied. The only solidly built up block in those years was the one on H, or Front Street, facing the railroad station block afterward turned into a park under a ninety-nine year lease to the city and on which the Chamber of Commerce building was erected facing the town. That railroad block was long an eye sore-a muddy water hole in winter, a bed of dust, sand and refuse heaps at other times and anything but an inviting front entrance into the city from the railroad.

Fresno Street, eighty feet wide, was to have been the main artery through the city, running east and west, and beyond the town limits. So planned the projectors. The locators squatted on H, and then turned into Mariposa Street, which became the center of the retail trade and continued such for many years. The railroad barred Mariposa westward at the reser- vation ; the county blocked it eastward with the erection of the courthouse, facing the railroad. Courthouse grounds of four blocks were granted with the idea of having the courthouse face on Fresno looking northward; it was located in the center of the grounds facing the railroad station and westward. With the growth of the town and the traffic, there were no safe or convenient crossings of the railroad tracks and the subway on Fresno Street was the result under the administration of Mayor W. Parker Lyon. The railroad was forced into the building of this costly subway for conces- sions in closed certain other track crossing streets. The future will demand other subways or viaducts to accommodate the traffic.

The Santa Fe as the successor to the rights of the San Joaquin Valley Railroad runs through the eastern part of town, on Q Street and out of the city through Belmont Addition. It was so crowded for switching space and

356

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

conveniences that it removed its yards to Calwa and there started a new rail- road town a few miles from the city. The Southern Pacific plans to locate switching and freight depot on reservation in the northern end of town follow- ing the example of the Santa Fe but war conditions delayed the project. There has been agitation to move both railroads out of the populated and busy portions of town and erect a union passenger depot but these periodical agitations have not materialized.

In 1917 there was agitation for the industrial zoning of the city through the efforts of the City Planning Commission and a beautiful scheme was laid out with a Civic Center planned around the courthouse. The plan aroused much opposition. The war suspended active operations and the plan has been shelved for the time being. One result of the agitation and the zoning move- ment has been however to designate a territory in the southern end of town, and including Woodward's Addition, as an industrial zone, and here are being located the large plants of the California Associated Raisin Company, of the California Products Company, of the Rosenberg Bros. packing house, the Hollenbeck-Bush planing mills and other enterprises. A like industrial zone has been established at the southern end of town on the line of the Santa Fe.

But to return to the Riggs' diary, commenting on the rapid travel in the days of 1881 he states that he left the city of San Francisco at 6:30 on the evening of one day and arrived at Fresno at three on the following morning and stepping off the car dropped into a foot of storm water at the depot. He expressed astonishment as he had expected to come to a dry country. It was the first rain that had fallen in fifteen months and the diarist comments that it was also the only one in the next ten months. He was driven to the Morrow House, W. J. Dickey was the night clerk and gave him a hospitable California welcome and the stranger from the east was introduced to the Mexican tamale. It was "not much of a town," says the diarist, "a handful of houses in a desert of sand." The census of 1880 credited the town with a population of 800 people. There were only two negroes, one the porter at Einstein's and the other "Gabe" Moore of Centerville and a historical character of the county. But many of the race came afterward.

The business of the town was centered about the railroad depot and on Front Street between Mariposa and Tulare. "It was a solid block of build- ings." At Mariposa and H, he first notes the Einstein two-story brick, next the two-story Magnolia hall managed by the "only Jo P. Carroll," famous in his day from Stockton to Bakersfield as "a square sport." Next was the French Hotel, another two-story of fifty feet frontage, two or three saloons and small places and then the Ogle House and on to the corner opposite on Tulare the Star Hotel "and so ended Front Street southward." On the north side of Mariposa was Kutner, Goldstein & Co., back of them Russ Fleming had his stables and beyond the Pine Ridge (Behring) mill had a yard in charge of Walter Foster. Away out on the corner of Amador lived the widow of "Doc" Glass who completed the Tollhouse grade and in his day was one of the big men. From her house to the San Joaquin River, "it was sand and sand and more sand."

Back to Mariposa and there was S. Goldstein's stove and tin shop with a splendid stock in trade for a small town. Between him and Kutner, Gold- stein & Co. was the Reese cigar and fruit stand, and across the alley on the same side William Faymonville had abstract and land office and Harry Dixon his law office, next door Sayle's drug store in charge of W. T. Burks and assisting him W. R. Williams afterward state treasurer. Alongside was the post office (?) with Otto Froelich as postmaster (?). In rear of this office Sayle, Harris and J. B. Campbell were lawyers. Upstairs the Weekly Re- view was published on a Washington hand press with S. A. Miller manager, W. T. Shanklin editor and A. G. Greeley as "devil." Under this building. notes the diarist, was one of the three cellars in the town ; the others were "The Cave" and at Einstein's. "The Cave" was next door to the Ogle, twenty

FRESNO IN 1876-FROM FRONT OF COURT HOUSE

FRESNO IN 1886 -- BACK OF COURT HOUSE

357

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

feet below the surface, fifty feet long, ten or twelve feet wide and eight high. There was said to be another cellar below this one. After the big fire in 1882, the cellar was filled with ashes and never cleaned out.

At Mariposa and I was C. W. De Long's store and across the way on the south side Sol Wolner's I X L store; between him and Einstein's Edouard Faure had a barber shop and there he continued until his death. Gus Young and Chris Arkel made shoes in this locality and John Johnsen in the same line of business was on Mariposa near J about where he was in 1911. On I Street, A. Vellguth had a barber shop and his wife kept a notion store, and next door was the Metropolitan Hall, "the graveyard of over half the shows that struck town," Stockton, Merced, Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield being the show towns between San Francisco and Los Angeles. John Hicks had a tin shop near the hall and across the street was Statham's stable and Tupper & Tupper had a law office. Back of there on the alley Simpson Bros. had the largest blacksmith shop in the valley.

At Mariposa and I was Masonic hall (it was the I. O. O. F. Building) and "beneath it good old Judge Baley had a grocery and crockery store." Across on the north corner was the Donahoo hardware store and Fanning's. Eastward, Charles Burks had stationery store with H. C. Warner as a jeweler in the other half. Next door was M. A. Blade's saloon and on the corner Bernhard and J. W. Coffman, butcher and grocer. George Studer's tailor shop was next across the alley and W. E. Gilmour merchant was next. On Mariposa and J stood McCollough's "first famous Fresno residence." The Bradley block at Mariposa and J was covered by the Wimmer and Fleming stables running nearly to the alley, where in small brick building Creed & Edwards had law and Bernard Faymonville real estate offices, and ending the occupancy on the north side to K Street. Around the corner toward Fresno, Frank McDonald had small furniture store. On the south side of Mariposa, Greening & Reid, Chaucer & Brown, M. R. Madary, Riggs & Son and Jones photographer were located. On J toward Tulare on east side was Jones' flour mill, and beyond and running to the corner Henry's stable and stock corral. Opposite the street at the corner where the Fresno National Bank was were the residence of J. W. Ferguson and the Expositor office and back to Mariposa Mrs. Jones' hotel and the Williams' blacksmith shop on the Grand Central Hotel lots. The Morrow House stood on the post office site and north of it Greening's hotel. Most of the dwellings were on Nob Hill taking in the territory bounded by Tulare and Kern, I and N, also back of the courthouse and the block north on M. O Street was considered "out of town" as late as 1883. Zach Hall, W. W. Phillips and William Sutherland built on N between Mariposa and Tulare in 1882 and Charles W. Wainwright who in 1891 was deputy school superintendent was out on O Street and always apologized when ordering a bill of groceries to be sent out so far through Riggs & Son.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches 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, Volume I, Part 52

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362