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 66

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 66

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It snowed on New Year's day in 1910. It was the first time in twenty- eight years. The other fall was in January, 1882. Before that, it snowed at Millerton December 3. 1873. The 1910 and 1873 snow falls lay on the ground a very short time. That of 1882 stayed longer. There may have been other light snow falls but the oldest settler cannot recall them. The 1910 snow was preceded and followed by rain, in fact the rain was interrupted by a sudden cold wave turning it into snow.

In May, 1909, the Redemptorist Fathers launched an enterprise which in time will develop into a large modern college for Fresno on a par with Santa Clara and St. Mary's Colleges at Santa Clara and Oakland. Two blocks of land were bought west of town on Kearney Avenue, a grammar school was built as the first unit of the educational institutions and a chapel was erected which has been named St. Alphonsus' Church. Report had it that the enterprise involved about $250,000. Fresno was chosen as the site be- cause of complaint to the archbishop that youths from this portion of the state desiring to pursue their higher education in the Catholic schools are required to go to the bay or Los Angeles schools. The same argument as affecting the public schools resulted in the institution of the Fresno Normal state school in a Fresno suburb with school opening in the city high school in September. 1911. until gift of site and appropriation by the legislature provided for the erection of school buildings and for improvements. Charles L. McLane, former city superintendent of schools and later head of the high school, was chosen president of the Normal school board.

Who is the largest single taxpayer in Fresno County? The cattle raising and land owning Miller & Lux Inc. According to the 1917-18 tax roll its total was $51,643.94 on direct assessments on property owned in the county. Its ownership of the Kings and San Joaquin Irrigation & Water Company as a subsidiary concern enlarged that tax. Second largest corporate tax-

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payer was the Southern Pacific Land Company, a holding company. It paid $46,841.38. The Kern Land and Trading Company materially increased the railroad's county tax bill on account of Coalinga oil land holdings. The California Associated Raisin Company through its holding Associated Ware- house Company was listed high among larger taxpayers with $26,541.35.

The group of buildings for the Coalinga union high school district was erected under a contract of September 11, 1917, for $78,106 to be finished in 200 days after signing of contract.

The first bale of cotton of the 1918 season and grown in Fresno County was in the gin October 22, 1918, of the California Products Company. The grower was G. F. Bias of the old Malsbary place, near Conejo, and the species grown the Durango. Specimens of the cotton showed lint in the bowl of the plant over two inches long.

Fire believed to have resulted from the bursting of a feed pipe in distillery engine room caused August 29, 1917, a $50,000 loss at the St. George winery, three miles east of Fresno on Tulare Avenue. Forty thousand gal- lons of wine and several thousand gallons of other liquors were destroyed.

The closing week in November, 1908, witnessed the completion of the reenforced concrete dam in the Sierra mountains at the new lumber town of Hume. The construction of dam cost approximately $35,000. Dam created a lake of cighty-seven acres in area impounding the water flow of Ten-Mile Creek, draining an area twenty-five square miles. Lake has a depth of fifty feet at its greatest. The dam was the conception of Civil Engineer J. S. East- wood and it is the first of its kind. The new settlement of Hume is a model lumber town, the enterprise in a virgin lumber district of the Hume-Bennett Lumber Company which with later changes in share holdings became the Sanger Lumber Company of Michigan with flume terminus at Sanger.

If according to the saying that "justice delayed is justice denied" the late George Pettit had a well grounded grievance. He was the man who while enriching others with his invention of the raisin seeding machine suf- fered "the oppressor's wrong" and all."the law's delay" in being denied his share of the profits of that invention which revolutionized the raisin indus- try. It was in August, 1900, that he brought suit against the late William Forsyth, who first commercialized the invention, seeking to recover his share in the commercialization of the invention. Years passed with the case slumbering because Pettit was too poor even to prosecute the case. After many years it came to trial before a jury and Pettit won the case. During the month of July, 1914, the supreme court granted on appeal a rehearing on the decision of the appellate court of the month before sustaining the Pettit judgment for $7,581.76. The jury had given him judgment for $16,000 but Judge H. Z. Attstin reduced the award to the smaller sum with interest from October 25, 1907, date of judgment, on the theory that the stock in- volved was not of par value when Pettit lost it. His contention was that he was made to lose his stock in the Forsyth Seeded Raisin Company with loss of employment and sale of his guaranteed shares to meet assessments in the process of "freezing him out." The reduced judgment was in the end paid with interest. Pettit invested the major portion of the money in a home and freakishly constructed dwelling which after his death was occupied by the Salem Rescue Home. But after having borne "the whips and scorns of time" and in his declining days reduced to day labor, it was not to be won- dered at that Pettit embraced Socialism as a panacea against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." In the Chaddock & Company raisin seeder machine patent infringement case heard and argued before United States Judge Olin Wellborn, was read an affidavit of 200 pages of typewritten matter by George S. Pettit Jr., as he once called himself, giving a history by the man whom the courts have declared was the original inventor, with his associates, of the raisin seeder as a physical creation, theoretically, mechan- ically and commercially.

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It was on Monday, March 23, 1908, that the postoffice opened for busi- ness in the federal building at the corner of Tulare and K Streets, one block east from the old location on the ground floor quarters in the Edgerly build- ing at Tulare and J Streets, whither it had been removed under the second administration of N. W. Moodey as postmaster in 1890. Fresno's first post- office in 1872 was a cracker-box or something very little better in the Ein- stein general merchandise store at Mariposa and H in the days before the railroad. Fresno was hardly more than a cluster of shacks and as described "a typical cow town without the cows." The real growth of the office was under De Long, still in the Einstein store but in an alcove with half a dozen post boxes and a drawer or two for stamps and cash and a stamp or two. De Long moved the postoffice during his term to the Donahoo building at Mariposa and I. Moodey moved the office to the building erected by the late E. C. Winchell at the corner of Fresno and J at a cost of $22.000. It was at this time that the force was increased from one clerk and two carriers to five and ten. Upon Moodey's second term succeeding Hughes and wife, the office was moved to the Savings Bank on Tulare Street and then to the Edgerly corner, also on that street. The office force was then increased to ten clerks and twelve carriers. In all the years of the Fresno postoffice, there has been only one case of fraud or theft in the postoffice proper. It was the case of a young man who had opened a few registered letters and purloined the contents. There being extenuating circumstances connected with the case, he suffered only a fine. Save in additions in rear, the federal building has no room for the growth of the postoffice business.

The year 1909 is recalled as one not so much for startling or picturesque incidents but rather as one for "clearing up old scores," dealing with and removing the effects of the depression of 1907 and clearing the way for a year of progress such as would have been impossible a year or two before. Especially noticeable had been the growth of such towns in the county as Selma, Fowler, Sanger, Clovis. Most surprising was the expansion of Coal- inga. It had doubled its permanent population in a little over one year. It became a city of 5,000 people with business houses approaching the standard for one of the greatest oil fields in the world. The most important financial problem of the year 1910 was the success or failure of the agitated "million dollar" raisin growers' cooperative company headed by Wylie M. Giffen. The vear 1909 was a most successful one from the promotion standpoint. President William Taft was entertained for a day on his visit to Fresno that year.

The "Fairweather Raisin Pool" collapsed January 12, 1909. The packers would have nothing to do with it. The Consolidated Seeded Raisin Company in San Francisco declared that such a pool arrangement would be a violation of the Cartwright law and they could not touch it. R. K. Madsen of Parlier then attempted to secure a power of attorney contract from enough growers to handle the raisin market. After a fortnight of publicity effort the project was abandoned. February was at hand with an unsold holdover crop of 1907 and 1908 in the hands of growers of about 30,000 tons, a dead market and no one wanting raisins at any price. While the campaigns were on came a Mississippian with a commission to organize California into the Farmers' Educational and Cooperative Union of America, establishing head- quarters at Kingsburg. Locals were formed and out of them was evolved the commercial branch known as the Farmers' Union Inc. It was too late in the season for profitable operations as the eastern raisin market had subsided. California Raisin Day-April 30, 1909-was "invented" and people talked raisins from Maine to Texas and from Florida Keys to Puget Sound. There was never another such an experience on record. In a few weeks the raisin hold over was taken up and disposed of and new life and hope warmed up the raisin grower. The "eastern trade" played Fresno County producers of other fruits the same trick as it did the raisin men of the valley. But there

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was no "Dried Fruit Day" to save the day and situation. And so the way was paved for the Million Dollar plan for uniting the raisin men under a contract for a period of five years. And that successful plan has been fol- lowed by the peach, the apricot, the fig and the alfalfa men.

One result of the failure of the "Fairweather raisin pool scheme" of December, 1908, and January, 1909, was an agitation for the repeal of the anti-trust law of George W. Cartwright, state senator from Fresno. Although this law had never been invoked in the county and for that matter to no appreciable extent in the state, the repeal movement met with little popular support and subsided soon.

Sylviculture had its awakening in Fresno and adjoining counties in 1909. Holdings from twenty acres to quarter sections were planted to euca- lypti notably about Wheatville and west of Fresno bordering on the White's- bridge road. The plantings were mostly of the blue and the red gum. The growth of these plantings of 1907 and 1908 were satisfactory but that is all that can be said of the fad, except that there was never a cent of return on promotion stock subscriptions in the incorporated ventures that zealous agents boomed.

The county fair of October, 1909, was a financial success for the first time in the history of the Fresno County Agricultural Society.

Fresno County was given shabby treatment at the hands of the legisla- ture during the first three months in 1909. The strong plea for a normal school at Fresno, heartily supported by all the counties of the valley, was disregarded in the two houses. That of Kings County to the south for the annexation of a slice of the larger county was approved and 150 square miles were severed. There was decided difference of opinion north and south of the Kings River as to this severance, but the matter was not sub- mitted to a referendum. Assessed valuation of the territory for the year before was a little over $2,000,000. It included a considerable portion of the Laguna de Tache grant with the town of Hardwick.

Notable event of the legislative session of 1909 was the introduction of the "alien land bill" of Assemblyman A. M. Drew of Fresno, who by reason of his opposition to the increase of the Japanese population on the Pacific Coast gained a nation wide name. The measure was aimed at preventing the further acquisition of land in California by Japanese. The measure was killed or at least emasculated by administrative pressure wielded from Washington by President Roosevelt and supported by Governor Gillett. The representa- tion was made that the bill's passage would embarrass the national govern- ment in the effort to solve the immigration problem by agreement with the Mikado's government. An attempt in San Francisco to exclude Japanese from the white schools, it will be remembered, was also defeated through the same means and agencies.

The top record figure paid by the Danish Creamery Association for butter fat on the October output was seventy-one cents, four more than paid for September, 1918, and nineteen more than for the September, 1917, output. The latter was then the highest ever paid in the San Joaquin Valley and checks aggregating $79,496.37 were given the association creamery men.

The proposition to bond the county for $100,000 for a hall of records was defeated at the election November 3, 1908, lacking a two-thirds majority on the vote cast. Total vote was 5,669; for 3,555; against 2,114; failure to pass was by 223 votes.

The various bans placed on the population, including the wearing of gauze masks to cover the mouth and the nostrils, during the six weeks con- tinuance of the "Spanish influenza" epidemic were lifted Sunday, November 23, 1918. In Fresno County, the report was of about 3,000 known and re- ported cases and of 128 deaths, eighty per cent. of the cases classified as of a mild type. Two weeks before, the deaths in the United States in forty-six large cities having a population of 23,000,000 totalled 78,000, these cities

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representing less than one quarter of the population of the country and the epidemic far from running its course. It was thought a low estimate to double the figures and make the death toll over 150,000. On the other hand, the figures then given out of the killed and deaths from wounds in the American army in the war was 36,154, less than the deaths from influenza alone in the army in the camps in America. The influenza had killed of the popula- tion certainly at least five times as many Americans than had the Huns. It was actually safer to be in the battle line in Europe than in the comfortable, sanitary and dangerless army cantonments in America under the best care. The New York Scientific American observed : "It is certainly a disconcerting fact that at the very time when the country had organized itself through the Red Cross and other famous organizations to fight disease and prevent suf- fering, we should be smitten with a visitation which caused more casualties and deaths in the home land than occurred among our troops in the great world war."

November 26, 1918, Fresno County saw the first two bales ginned from home grown cotton of the short staple variety, the California Products Company having ginned the first cotton crop in the valley. It was a signifi- cant exhibit in view of the hope of the valley becoming a cotton producing area. The company hoped to deal with the total product of the valley coun- ties and had confidence enough in the future to erect a quarter million dollar plant. Ginning plant has a capacity for sixty bales of short staple cotton and twelve of Egyptian staple, and is large enough to double the capacity in production. Fresno will be the center for the cotton and the by-products, with cotton gin and receiving house located at Bakersfield and another plant at Corcoran. When the business is under way, a cotton spinning mill may be erected. The first cotton to be brought in for ginning was grown by A. J. Malsbary and G. F. Bias on a thirty-acre field, fifteen miles south of Fresno and yielding over a bale to the acre.

The federal postoffice and courthouse building at the corner of K and Tulare Streets was practically completed early in January, 1908, for occu- pancy on the first of the following month. It is a structure of steel, stone and brick after the conventional governmental style of such structures. The cost of construction was $122,000 out of an appropriation of $150,000. Work on building was begun in July, 1907, though contract was let to W. H. Maxwell in April to be completed in December. The building stands on part of a corner lot and measures 90x100, is two stories high and has a basement. The postoffice occupies the entire ground floor with a work room 60x80. It compares favorably with those of the other cities of the state, larger than the one at Stockton and a little smaller than the one in Oakland. The federal courtroom upstairs is 40x60. The building is none too large for the steady growth of the postoffice business.

The Fresno Chamber of Commerce had in December, 1918, begun on after-the-war activities. The question of good roads is one of these, empha- sized by the geographical position of the county and the city in relation to the scenic beauties, national parks and undeveloped resources to be found within a radius of 100 miles from the county seat. In a conference with the grand jury on the subject, it was pointed out that the people of the county had subscribed $13,000,000 in war work and the sentiment was general to favor spending some money at home in a bond issue heavy enough to give the county roads the equal of any in other sections of the state. A map illustrating the geographic relationship of Fresno demonstrated that with accessible roads all national parks have their place within the 100-mile en- circling radius. The highest Sierra Nevada peaks are within the range including Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the United States; the largest and oldest group of sequoias in the world is in reach of the city; within the radius is also one national monument, the Devil's Post Pile; that these sights are not more frequently visited is because of the inadequacy of the

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road system; the lack shuts out the Kern and Kings River Canyons admit- tedly the grandest scenic wonders in the land. Commercialized these natural wonders should be exploited as a part of the resources of the valley. An air plane mail service is another activity. Another project involves an indus- trial survey of the city to make it a manufacturing center and to ascertain what industries to locate and just where. Until the irrigation question is settled, it is impossible to do more than speak of the land already accessible for irrigation. For the placing of returning soldiers on the land, the pro- posed irrigation plan involving such enterprises as the Pine Flat irrigation district holds out prospect of opening thousands of acres of valuable land for cultivation.

The final payment of the California Associated Raisin Company on the 1917 crop was made December 5, 1918, amounting to $1.250,000 at the fol- lowing rates: Muscats $7.04 per ton, Thompson's $17.70, Sultanas $10.88, Malagas $13.80 and Feherzagos $11.50. The "C" grade of raisins turned ont better than the three and one-fourth price formerly named. The rains of the season cut the crops twenty per cent. is the estimate. The rainy days were considered the "most disastrous spell of weather ever experienced in the raisin business." The 1918 crop was estimated at about 160,000 tons, the largest in history excepting in 1917. As ten per cent. of the crop had been sold when the rains came, it was impossible to raise the price. Two years before the price was raised one cent per pound, with only twenty per cent. of the crop sold at the time. Moreover in 1918 the government denied the request of the association to raise the price on unsold Thompson's.

The trial before the federal court at Sacramento of the forty-six defend- ants in December, 1918, for plotting violent opposition to the United States war program was of particular interest to Fresno, especially in reference to "the cat" which is alleged to be the I. W. W. symbol for sabotage. The pris- oners were accused of unlawfully circulating pamphlets, newspapers and song books included among the treasonable documents. In the progress of the trials the following were matters of investigation :

History and structure of the I. W. W.

Strikes and sabotage as methods and tactics.

Attitude toward war, registration and the draft.

General strikes to release men from jail and for other unlawful purposes. Testimony was given with regard to a series of costly fires in this county during the summer of 1918 and the destruction in this city of the Fresno Planing Mill, the Hollenbeck-Bush Planing Mill, the Madary Planing Mill, the plant of the California By-Products Company, the Fresno Hay Market and the large merchandise store of the Kutner-Goldstein Company, and in the country of hay stacks and barns. The city fires were all from the exterior of the structures. The modus operandi was to employ a handful of matches and in the center of the bunch insert a Turkish tobacco cigarette that burned until entirely consumed. The match bundle was placed in com- bustible matter raked up against the doomed building. The cigarette was lit by the incendiary and its combustion until it reached the heads of the matches, when a flare-up resulted, was so slow that the fellow had ample time to make tracks from the vicinity and present himself at some place in time to furnish the basis for an alibi. The secret service had spies in the ranks of the I. W. W.'s who kept it informed of the Hun plots and boasted deeds of sabotage.

The three months' notes given by the California Peach Growers' Asso- ciation as part payment for crops were to fall due in February, 1919. They aggregated about one million, bore seven per cent. interest but were not renewed at the end of three months. During the first year of operations the association gave renewable notes and it was glad to have the growers leave the money in the hands of the treasurer to finance the association. It is now on its feet and does not need the additional funds. This is a marked departure

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from the way the peach business went begging a few years ago. The pay- ment was in part of the eight cents on peaches sold in the fall of 1918, growers netting about eleven cents.

It was twenty years ago on December 18, 1898, that the late Judge Car- roll Cook of San Francisco sentenced Myron Azhderian and Mrs. Elsie Wil- liams to imprisonment at San Quentin for five years for conspiracy in extort- ing $2,000 from the late Capt. William A. Nevills, then a wealthy Fresno vineyardist and mine owner of Jamestown. The sentence was the maximum under the law despite the recommendation of the woman by the jury to the mercy of the court. The trial of the case was a sensational and salacious one. Azhderian was a vineyard foreman of Nevills: she a kept housekeeper and an attractive woman. Azhderian died of consumption contracted during the long jail confinement awaiting the end of the protracted prosecution.

The county seal of Fresno is a nondescript affair. The design is a circle within a circle and in the space between the inscription: "Board of Super- visors. Fresno County, California." In the center of the smaller ring is an escutcheon with a four footed animal courant that may be taken for a horse, mule or bull; above the escutcheon is an uplifted arm holding evenly bal- anced scales and below a swallow tailed ribbon encircling the escutcheon with the quadruped and flaunting the hog Latin sentiment, "Rem Publicam Defendimus." When that seal was palmed off on the board anything in the line of hog Latin could have passed muster on the supervisors with no one the wiser.

As a 1918 Christmas present stockholders of the California Raisin Asso- ciation received an eight per cent. dividend aggregating $80,000 on the orig- inal million of stock and distributed among some 3,000 stockholders. This dividend is an annual feature, most of the money going to growers and all else to business men who subscribed at organization of the association.

Two dates of historical interest worth remembering are that the over- land telegraph from west of the Missouri to San Francisco opened for opera- tion October 22, 1861, and the Central Pacific Railroad in California began operating trains in May, 1869.

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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 66

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