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 53

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 53

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Judge Holmes, Cal. Davis and Walter Pickett lived far out on the site of the high school. The ditch on Fresno Street came into town from back of the Fresno flouring mills at Fresno and N with "bully swimming hole" be- yond there. Where the traction company barns were later located was considered far enough out in 1880 for McCollough and W. H. Mckenzie to locate an eighty acre cemetery. This was the third cemetery. On J and I to Merced were a few scattered houses and the boys matched horned toads on the hot sands to see them fight. Jack rabbits and ground squirrels occu- pied many a yard and many a jack rabbit was chased up Mariposa Street. As late as 1884 a rattle snake was killed in S. B. Bresee's cellar at M and Merced. Runaways became so frequent that the farmers used to say that the teams were untied for the fun of seeing John Stephens flash out from his corral on speedy horse and run down the runaway.

S. B. Bresee, T. J. Kirk, who was afterward county and also state super- intendent of schools, James Fanning and George Bernhard lived in a row of houses on L between Merced and Tuolumne, and across the way in a house

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there Frank Chance, the base ball player, whose nick name was "Husky," was raised. Away out on Stanislaus, Bernard Faymonville lived in the only brick dwelling in town, afterward the home of Mrs. C. B. Shaver. Next door was Mrs. Clifford and that ended L Street. On I or J near San Joaquin were several houses back of a row of tall poplars and one of these was occupied by Mrs. Sophie Lawrenson who was a horse trainer and equestrienne and the Mrs. Zapp of her day.

West of the town on the other side of the track was Chinatown consist- ing of two blocks facing the railroad on G Street. North of there were a few residences, George Snell and William Sallinger among them. Back of them there was nothing but space until you reached the Herminghaus, Jeff James and W. R. White ranches on the slough of the Kings and the San Joaquin. The diarist recalls that on a drive to Firebaugh in March 1881 the wild geese were so thick as to obstruct the right of way and in clearing it with a whip he killed two of the honkers. One was impressed with the distance to the country settlements. It was five miles to Nevada and Temperance colonies with only the Barton vineyard between. On Ventura Avenue after Eisen's, you passed only two houses to Centerville. Out southeast seven miles to the T. E. Hughes ranch and two others were passed in travel to Mendocino school district. South only half a dozen houses were passed to Central Col- ony and to Washington colony and still new and beyond there was only Jones' store at Wildflower and a few scattered places in evidence clear to Kingston on the Kings River.

Selma had three stores, saloon, harness shop and less than twenty houses in sight. Kingsburg had a saloon, two hotels and a blacksmith shop. Fowler "was only a chicken coop" owned by J. S. Gentry & Son. Kingston was a toll bridge, had a store and the big Sutherland Ranch with several others extending up and down the river. In fact nearly all the settlers in the county lined the streams or were located near them. Centerville was the largest town after Fresno, with two stores, two hotels, a livery stable, drug store, millinery, four or six saloons, two blacksmiths, a flour mill and a meeting house.

For years property in Fresno within five blocks from Mariposa and J went begging at $62.50 for inside and $125 for corner lots. They took a spurt during boom times in 1887, and in 1911 within a radius of five miles they ranged from $150 to $200 and as high as $300 for a pair.

CHAPTER LX

FRESNO'S MEMORABLE BOOM WAS NOT AN UNLOOKED FOR PERIOD BUT AN AWAITED ONE. 1887 WAS THE HECTIC YEAR OF GREAT- EST LAND SPECULATION WITH CONDITIONS SEETHING AND BOIL- ING. THE PERIOD ALSO MARKED THE TRANSITION FROM VIL- LAGE TO TOWN STAGE. RECORDING OF LAND TRANSFER INSTRU- MENTS PHENOMENAL. MANY OF THE LARGER BUILDINGS ERECTED AND OUTLYING TERRITORIAL ADDITIONS MADE TO THE TOWN. EVERY ONE IN THE BUSINESS OF SELLING LAND AND LOTS. SPECULATIVE FEVER GERM IN THE AIR. ABNORMAL CON- DITIONS OF THE DAY ANTICIPATED THE LATER RULING LAND VALUATIONS. EXCURSIONS RUN TO BRING MONEYED LAND BUYERS AS COLONISTS.

A chapter in the history of Fresno affecting the city as intimately as the county while giving both wide publicity covers the year 1887-memo- rable one of the boom. As with every boom ever launched followed a col-

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lapse, and a flattening out with dull and panicky times until the reactionary effect with renewed growth and expansion that was suspended for a time. 1887 was the hectic year of wildest speculation-after that the panic and years before the return to normal and healthy growth and with it in due sequence the realization of the Fresno of today.

The growth of new western towns is comparable to that of the infant child. The latter must undergo the ordeal of the mumps, chicken pox, whoop- ing cough and all the other infantile ills. The town must have the experi- ences of boom, its panic period with reactionary return to normal state, if it has primarily the natural resources, favorable locations and supporting con- ditions to maintain itself. Fresno had these experiences and out of them came forth the Raisin Center, and Imperial Fresno to outdistance its rivals and be firmly established as the city of the great San Joaquin Valley, veritable giant among the younger communities of California, admittedly the most prosperous interior town in the state with no limit in the horizon of possi- bilities.

The boom did not burst forth in all fullness in the one year of 1887 as the mushroom in the rain sodden soil after a warming sunshine. It was not that conditions of the year 1887 were more especially favorable to the nurture of and development of a full-fledged boom. Rather be it said that the years before led up to this looked-for land boom and it having blossomed it attained its zenith and was full blown that year. Other cities had or were having their booms. San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, Stockton and Bakersfield might be mentioned, even San Francisco and the sister trinity of cities in Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley across the bay. The infantile Board of Trade of Fresno "resoluted" solemnly but amusingly that the boom was not a spec- ulative gamble butt an evidence of a demand resulting from a well founded and recognized even though supernormal growth. But it was a boom, the resolutions to the contrary notwithstanding. Many of the dreams that were dreamed during the illusionary period of Spanish air castle building were realized but it was in the after years after the boom had been dissipated, and when people were back on earth again, dealing with realities and poten- tialities rather than with the things imaginary, intangible and speculative.

There was never a time after the introduction of irrigation when the pioneers of agriculture did not have an abiding faith in the future based on the wealth of agriculture and farm colonizations. There was absolute consciousness of its future with the manifest possibilities of the soil after the first demonstrations of its productiveness. The gambling spirit and the ele- ment of chance were of course features of that boom. But there was basis for the inflated land values during the hectic days of the boom. With the return of normal conditions after the fuller development of irrigation and agricultural expansion, orchard, vineyard and alfalfa land values went back to the values that they commanded in the days of boom gambling, illusions and dreams. That boom was not unlooked for. It burst forth as to time per- haps as unexpectedly as it passed away. As a fever seizes one and is cast off by the system, so it was with the boom. The year 1893 was the most acute of the after the boom stringency. It is recalled as the first year of Cleveland's second administration. Some people drew their own conclusions from this circumstance independent of any boom consideration.

Fresno was the creature of a railroad in 1872. Six years later the Church water ditch had been extended to lands surrounding the new county seat. In 1884 it was claimed that it had a population of about 4,000. Town incor- poration was agitated. It was not realized at the time. There was still a leaven that was wedded to the old ways of doing things. Farm colonization enterprises organized and developed by outside capital marked the early years of the 80's. Fresno was advertised as no other locality had been and people had their eyes opened to this interior "cow county" wonder. The years rolled on until 1887, when the boom was at its highest pressure. It

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was hailed as a matter of fact. The only wonder was that it had not come before. Fresno awoke at a time when the state was also wide awake with its own boom that subsided between 1890 and 1893. Fresno's swaddling clothes in original mile and a quarter square townsite were ready to burst at the seams and the buttons to fly off in 1887. It had outgrown them. It was ready for the knee breeches.

In that year the business center was still confined to Mariposa Street and one or two cross streets and blocks contiguous to the railroad depot. The business houses were yet small, frame, one and two-story structures, though a show of permanency in some brick buildings was in evidence. The courthouse was the largest building in the county. Original structure was damaged in part by a spectacular fire, later rebuilt and enlarged with the wings and the larger dome in the present building, the central portion the original building. Largest other brick building was the three-story Masonic Temple at I and Tulare Streets, erected by J. G. James but lost in the sus- pension of the Fresno Savings and Loan Bank of which he was the president. The Hughes Hotel named for Thomas E. Hughes, one of the first to discern the future of Fresno and pioneer to accelerate the coming of the boom and nurture it, was not completed until the year after. Work on its foundations was commenced in April, 1887.

There were not lacking dwellings sandwiched in between the early bus- iness structures. The most pretentious out of the commercial district clustered on K Street between Tulare and Inyo, or in vicinity, scattered here and there and far and wide apart. O Street as a residential street was considered then as "out in the country." The J. W. Ferguson residence in the hollow at Tulare and J was surrounded by an orange orchard. There was also an orange and fruit tree orchard at Fresno and J to tempt the small boy in fruit time. The W. H. Mckenzie home at K and Calaveras was looked upon as a man- sion of the day ; that of William Helm at Fresno and R, later remodeled and now the home of Dr. J. L. Maupin was regarded as a suburban home. At Tulare and J, on the sand hill there was perched the Silverman cottage home ; on Nob Hill were centered the residences then and later of Louis Einstein, Dr. Chester Rowell, the Gundelfingers, Dr. Lewis Leach, City Clerk W. B. Dennett, H. C. and W. D. Tupper, George E. Church, W. D. Grady, A. J. Thorn and others.

With the money made in land speculations William Faymonville built a fine home at K and Stanislaus which became the residence of C. S. Pierce, the lumberman ; that of J. C. Herrington, the saddler and city councilman, was at J and Stanislaus ; that of County Clerk A. M. Clark at L and Cal- averas; that of W. H. Chance at N and Tulare; that of S. N. Griffith, real estate dealer and general promoter, at Voorman and San Pablo; that of William Harvey at S and Kern ; that of H. P. Hedges on Fresno beyond Q; that of J. C. Hoxie at 2035 Stanislaus ; that of M. R. Madary of Madary and Gurnee, planing mill men, at 503 J: that of M. W. Muller at K and Stan- islaus; that of F. K. Prescott at Tulare and T; that of C. G. Sayle at 1358 J: that of Frank Short at I and San Joaquin, to mention only a few of the notables, and last but not least the two-story with mansard roof mansion with the transplanted orange orchard of J. G. Ferguson of the Expositor at J and San Benito, the largest residence structure in the southern section of town and long its landmark. This section was also an early day favored residential quarter of New Englanders among whom may be mentioned the Chaddock, Colson, Buker, Shaver, Snow and other families.

The boom era and the years that preceded it immediately marked Fresno's transition from the village to the town stage. The census of 1890 credited county with a population of 31,158 and the city of 10,890. Fresno was already recognized as the center of the raisin industry of America. Assessed value of property was $35,525,021. City shipments by rail were nearly 400,000,000 pounds. The number of farms in county in 1890 was

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2,352. The boom marked the period of the construction of many of the first notable larger buildings, altered or enlarged later as more modernized struc- tures that came in with development of the wonderful oil field of Coalinga. The city's banking institutions date practically from boom times. The clear- ing house reported a business of $4,800,029 for the first year of operations for a town of reputed inflated 12,000 population.

The Fresno National was organized in May 1888; the First National became a national depository in March, 1885, originally incorporated October 1881 as the Fresno County Bank, O. J. Woodward becoming the president in 1888; the Fresno Loan and Savings Bank incorporated in 1884 erected the Mariposa and J Street building at a cost of $65,000: the Farmers' National Bank of California, whose interests are controlled by the firm of Kutner, Goldstein & Co. at Mariposa and I, organized in March 1882; the Bank of Central California originally a private bank was organized in 1887, and the People's Savings Bank is and was a state corporation. It and the Fresno National have been merged into the Bank of Italy.

The Fresno Board of Trade was an organization of 1885, active and energetic but during the real estate excitement was neglected by its members most prominent in the large transactions of the day. It would have disbanded with the tendered resignations of its officials in 1887 but that the Real Estate Exchange came to its rescue and there was a reorganization, followed by another in October 1900. The board merged ultimately with the newer Chamber of Commerce and the latter had after the boom a rival in the 100,000 Club with an ambition to realize a population of 100,000. That am- bition has with the years been half realized. A fiasco connected with the early history of the Chamber was the enterprise of Dr. Leach in the erection of the corner building at J and Kern for a home. Here was held the first exhibition of Belgian hares when that fad had the populace by the throat and when from $200 to $300 was paid for a pedigreed jack rabbit for propagation purposes. The 100.000 Club had a natural death.

Woodward's Addition at the southern extremity of town and first terri- tory to be annexed to it was a creation of the boom year. The growth trend was manifestly to the north, the east and the south. Farm and suburban land was cut up and parcelled out into town lots and tacked onto the city haphazard. making awkward junctions and intersections with the original site that paralleled the railroad track, which did not run due north and south. S. N. Griffith had laid out several additions and others there were by the score encircling the town. Town lots represented a greater cash value than when in vineyard or orchard land. The land speculation fever germ was in the air. Many the willing, nay the anxious ones, to be inoculated. Wood- ward's Addition for example had little to offer the buyer save platted and tree-lined streets. It was placed on the market March 7, 1887 by O. J. Wood- ward, Braly & Harvey; 396 lots were offered for sale and in sixty-one days 327 had been disposed of. By June 7th the fifteen blocks of twenty-eight lots each had changed ownership.

With the boom on once. the business was so great that in April 1887 to keep with the rush in the recording of instruments, County Recorder Charles L. Wainwright was allowed two additional deputies by the supervisors. Possibly having no relation to the boom yet looking to the future, the boring of wells was in progress in April 1887 for the enlarged city water works at Fresno and O, the original water system being taxed to its capacity. The principal hotels for transients were the Morrow and (William) Fahey's (later the Ogle), the Grand Central and others of lesser note. The Grand Central was favored by commercial men and theatrical parties. The tale is told that Am. S. Hays, now a bank cashier, and Jean F. Lacour divided honor and responsibilities as clerks and became prematurely bald with the daily problem of accommodating 250 guests to eighty beds. According to John A. Slater's first directory of Fresno published for 1890, S. Reinhart was

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proprietor of the Grand ; W. M. Ward, manager ; Hays, clerk ; and Lacour, pro- prietor of the Grand Central Laundry, while Fulton G. Berry was rated as a capitalist with residence at the hotel.

The Morrow, then known as the Southern Pacific, later as the Cowan and lastly as the Mariposa after removal from the postoffice site, was con- ducted by Frank A. Rowell & McClure; the Russ on I near Fresno by John I. Albin. That spring C. J. Craycroft, later a city councilman under the Spinney political regime and a brickmaker, built his Fresno House at M and Tulare. The building contract for the Hughes for $87,335 was awarded April 30, 1887, with $15,000 added for the brick foundations. It was not completed until the following year. There was at one time such a dearth of accommodations for transient speculators that in December of the boom year the Board of Trade printed lists of available rooms in private houses that the stranger need not walk the streets at night, or sleep on billiard tables, or rest in lobby chairs.

The boom resulted in the erection of hotels and in 1890 are noted as legacies the Tombs at Merced and J (S. B. Tombs and J. H. Tynan), the Pleasant View House at Fresno and J (George Pickford), the Kohler at I and Inyo (George M. Kohler), the Hughes Block at I and Tulare (I. N. Patterson), the Pleasanton Hotel at I and Merced (John I. Albin), the Russ having been destroyed by fire. There was a score of other less pretentious lodging and boarding houses. Not forgotten should be the unique and histor- ical "Home Sweet Home" on J between Stanislaus and Tuolumne conducted on a co-operative expense-sharing plan with a salaried chef whose wife was the housekeeper mothering a lot of homeless, young bachelor bloods. The Home maintained its distinctive popularity for years, waged an incessant warfare against Cupid but matrimony in the end closed it out. There were at the time forty marriageable young clerks in the town to enjoy all the comforts of this monastic home.

The city was incorporated October 27, 1885. The Expositor newspaper was a veritable gold mine during the boom times. It not infrequently pub- lished eight pages daily but the news was scant. It was the day of hand composition and the time of the printers was monopolized in the more profit- able setting up of double column, display type advertisements of real estate brokers, insurance agents and land tract sales, with which the paper was top heavy. The Republican was in existence as a morning publication but having a comparatively hard row to hoe in competition with the older estab- lished Democratic journal with a cinch on the county and city patronage in a Democratic stronghold politically. The year of 1887 was one of dy- namics; the town one great real estate brokerage community ; every one almost a land seller.

Recalled will be that, in January, Timothy Paige and T. C. White set out a section of land to raisin grapes and it was stated to have been the largest raisin vineyard in the world in one body. February 26 the numbering of houses in Fresno was begun and a system was employed of beginning nowhere on the outskirts with number one so that in the center of town the number- ing was up in the 1,000 or 2,000. July 21 the famous Barton vineyard of 640 acres with 200,000 gallons of wines and 320 acres additional, buildings, im- provements and splendid residence was sold to an English syndicate for a million dollars, the seller taking one-quarter of the selling price in stock and to be retained as managing director of the magnificent property that he had builded. September 4 contract was let for the county jail; on the 17th ground was broken for the first street car line-the one out to Arlington Heights. October 20 arrived a carload of immigrants from DeWitt, Ill., as located colonists and settlers. This was only one of many such parties to settle on tracts previously chosen by advance agents. November 16 the first train load of Fresno grown and cured raisins was shipped to market in New York. December 6 the real estate exchange was organized, and on the 28th went

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to the wall George W. Meade & Co., the Fresno Raisin and Fruit Packing Company, pioneer raisin and dried fruit house. It made assignment as the result of overloaded boom speculations in land; liabilities $175,000; assets $350,000. The firm resumed fruit operations during the following season.

Things verily seethed and boiled during the boom. Everyone was in- oculated with the speculative fever. The buyers were eastern immigrants and also Californians from San Francisco and other cities, many from the metropolis being victims of the reckless Comstock mining share speculations that enriched the new western crop of Bonanza Kings. Every other man was a real estate broker or insurance agent. Brokers and agents became bankers, directors or shareholders. Every one that could dabbled in land on commission and there was a wilderness of curbstone brokers. Their hats were their offices, the coat pocket their desk, and options their stock in trade. Even the colonists turned to and made an honest dollar selling land to former townspeople or neighbors and helped swell the incoming throng of new settlers and non-resident raisin vineyard buyers.

Money was "turned hand over fist." The same piece of property was not infrequently turned over several times in a day but always at an advance. Brokers bought options from each other and then disposed to a ready buyer at an advance and yet made commission profits. It was speculation running riot. The tales told of the spurts of property valuations were scandalous. As scandalous were population claims for the city, which in a few months went to 6,000, 8,000 and 10,000, figures that no one could verify but which did not deter setting 100,000 as a goal to be ultimately attained so wildly optimistic were some. Figures of real estate transactions have their present day interest to emphasize the magnitude of boom day dealings.

On April 4, 1887, Braly & Harvey had sold twenty-six unimproved tracts in the new Washington Irrigated Colony to locate a band of Texan immi- grants. April 5 it was reported that on the day before thirty-five deeds were recorded representing transactions aggregating $96,607.50, the sales with deeds naming nominal consideration exceeding $100,000, "the biggest day yet" with the boast "that the boom hasn't exactly flattened out yet." This was in the summer season, the heated period in the valley when business is at ebb and commercial activities, realty transfers, construction work and every pursuit are at the minimum. The figures quoted are the more interest- ing in proof of the abnormal conditions in time anticipated land values and the riotous speculative spirit of the times.

For the first three days of the week of April 7 real estate worth $141,778 changed ownership. "How's that for high?" was the delirious boast. The Expositor featured these real estate records frequently. The following day the records totalled $77,540 or $219,318 for four days of the week. "And thus the boom is flattening out," was the boastful jest. April 9 report was of ninety deeds for the week and valuation stated to have been $231,339. Saturday April 16 report was of eighty deeds for the week with expressed consideration of $90,416.90, and thirteen nominal consideration deeds with absolutely known consideration exceeding $100,000, making a total for the week of over $200,- 000. April 22 there were sixty deeds with expressed consideration of $170,421 and in fact of over $195,000. For the April 29 week 200 deeds represented $147,707.50 in property valuation changes and the recorder reported for the month 375 deeds with stated consideration of $789,089 and actual trans- actions totalling over a million. May 7 week ninety-one deeds or $124,276.40 and nineteen others with probable valuations of $100,000 additional. May 16 week seventy-five deeds represented $95,918 and twenty-two others $200,000 additional. May 23 were forty-three deeds with $52,905 and as much more represented by deeds naming nominal considerations. In June month 302 deeds were recorded and fifty-two June 25 representing $141,235 with four- teen nominals swelling the total to estimated $200,000.

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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 53

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