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 72

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 72

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).

487

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Eng., was erecting a $22,000 two-story brick at F and Tulare. And the above list embraces only the notable and takes no heed of the residences that were making a town of the shack village. The business blocks were the creations of two or three architects; hence the sameness of the architectural designs.

Fresno has sixty-seven churches representing every shade of religion under the sun. . The pioneer nine were located in or close to what is now the business district. With a few exceptions in the growth of the town, they have moved to and erected larger houses of worship in the residence districts, all save the Adventists, having years ago outgrown their first places of congregation. The pioneer is the M. E. South (Fresno and L) organized in 1876 with Rev. A. Odum pastor in 1876-77. The original membership consisted of Judge Gillum Baley and family and Mrs. Phillips, seven in all. The judge was their leader and filled the offices of steward, class leader, trustee, Sabbath school superintendent, janitor and local preacher. The little wooden church at Fresno and L was the first in Fresno and long the only one. It was moved over into the quarter west of the railroad and there damaged one night in a Fourth of July fire beyond salvage. First services regularly held by a minister of the Episcopal Church were in 1879. A "mission" was organized in December by Rev. D. O. Kelley as St. James Protestant Episcopal Church and in 1881 brick church was erected at Fresno and N with parsonage on six lots. This building was enlarged and completed and consecrated in 1884. Still later it was further enlarged and is the pro-cathedral of the bishop. The 1884 consecrated church cost $4,000. At organization of mission in 1879 less than a dozen communicants were to be found and these women. In 1888 mission was organized on a more inde- pendent footing as St. James' parish with a vestry of seven men and the pastor. Rev. Kelley has been its longest serving rector. St. John's Catholic (Fresno and M) was founded June 26. 1880. by Rev. Father Valentine Agui- lera, who long continued the pastor of the parish. His congregation did not exceed eighty in number "nearly all as poor as the desert they lived in." The church that was erected "was far too large then and a titanic enter- prise for their number and means." The good father boarded here and there and lodged in a single room back of the church sacristy. A priest's home was in time erected and with the growth of the city a much larger church with residence for the clergy and parochial school was erected at Mariposa and R. The first Seventh Day Adventist to come to this county and settle near Kingston was Jackson Fergerson from Sonoma. His stay was brief for he moved to Nevada where he organized a church and for two years was a state legislator. The Adventists' Church in Fresno dates practically from the fall of 1873 when Moses J. Church identified himself with the faith and labored to spread it. Three years later ministerial aid was secured and a church was organized in Fairview school district as the first. The work spread in this and Tulare counties and in 1880 regular services were com- menced here on the seventh day, Saturday, congregating in private home, then in a Mariposa Street and later in a K Street hall, and finally in the temple at Mariposa and O. This was the gift and endowment of Church completed and dedicated in 1889. Church and the trustees under his deed of gift had differences; he sought to rescind his endowment; the effort was resisted ; they went to law over it but the trust was sustained. The building was and is a notable landmark and the congregation and adherents to the faith strong in number. G. R. G. Glenn, W. P. Haber, R. H. Bramlet and Dr. C. D. Latimer with Mesdames William Donahoo and E. P. Gilmour were the organizers of the Baptist Church, holding first meetings in 1881, formally organizing March 18, 1882, with the assistance of Rev. H. S. Ab- bott. Church organized with seven members, Messrs. Haber and Bramlet still continuing as such. The first pastor was Rev. T. T. Potter who con- tinued until April 1, 1884, and soon after passed to his reward. The

488

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Chinese Mission House was a gift from the hand and purse of Mrs. Potter to the Home Mission Society and the cause to which dedicated. The second pastor was Rev. J. C. Jordan called from Nebraska. A $6,000 house of wor- ship was built during his pastorate at Merced and N, subsequently improved by gifts from Dr. Eshleman, wife and daughter. Mr. Jordan resigned April 1, 1889, and Rev. H. G. De Witt, D. D., of Rochester, N. Y., was the third pastor. Organization of the Congregationalists was had in the public school house in May, 1882, with eight members under Rev. Blakeley, a state mis- sionary. Services were suspended with his failing health and in January, 1883, with Rev. George E. Freeman and as the result of a first service held in the old Odd Fellows' hall at Mariposa and I, then being used as a private school, reorganization was had and the membership increased from eleven to fifty. The preacher secured a hall on Mariposa Street over an un- dertaker's, fitted it up largely by his own hands and at own expense and paid the twenty dollars rent, also largely out of his pocket. Here the congre- gation remained nearly a year until the church at Inyo and K was built at a cost of $5,000 after much difficulties and discouragements. It was first occupied in June, 1884, and dedicated in September with all expenses pro- vided for. Mr. Freeman after three years was succeeded by Rev. Mr. Mes- serve and he by Rev. Mr. Voorhees until the autumn of 1887 when he re- signed and Rev. E. L. Chaddock was called and remained longest in the local ministry. In 1889 a fine parsonage was erected and in the end after various vicissitudes and changes in pastorates new life was injected into the congre- gation, another site was chosen and a church erected at M and Divisadero while the abandoned one was sold to the Armenian Congregationalists. A local preacher named F. M. Pickles organized about April, 1883, the Metho- dist Episcopal Church (M and Tuolumne). J. R. Gregory served until Sep- tember, 1883, when Rev. S. J. Kohler was assigned as regular pastor, fol- lowed by Rev. G. W. Goodell until 1887 and by Rev. M. Judy for two years when the conference appointed Rev. A. B. Morrison, the term of service of M. E. ministers being then five years with appointments made for one year at a time, subject to renewal, for five. The original church property was at L and Merced. The Christian Church (Campbellites) was organized June 16, 1884, with thirty members and has become the largest church organiza- tion, save perhaps the Roman Catholic. Among its pastors may be named Revs. James Logan, W. T. Shelton, J. B. Johnson, Carroll Ghent, J. W. Webb, W. H. Martin and H. O. Breeden. Its house of worship at Mariposa and N, one block in rear of the courthouse, was erected at a cost of $3,300 in 1886, but a larger and more commodious one was a few years ago erected at Tuolumne and N. The Presbyterian is the youngest of the pioneer churches organized in 1885, supplied by Rev. Mr. Budge with Mr. Hurd as the first installed pastor. Place of worship was for a time in Nichols' hall until the erection of the church at K and Merced in the summer of 1888 and first occupied in September. Its $2,000 organ was the gift of J. H. Hamilton. The church is located now at M and Merced Streets. The history of the churches of Fresno is an inspiration ; their upbuilding the work of the good men and women in a town once regarded as a western Sodom and Gomorrah.

The city free market of Fresno was opened Saturday, September 22, 1912.

The street car system in the branch to Roeding City Park was opened September 9, 1912-California Admission Day anniversary.

William H. Bryan addressed a great assembly for thirty minutes in Fresno on Tuesday, September 24, 1912. Roosevelt was to have spoken about the same time while on his Yosemite Valley tour but could not make the connections. Bryan spoke at the courthouse park when he first ran for President. It was commented upon at the time as a coincidence auguring no good that on this occasion a runaway collided with the Democratic flag pole at the entrance of the park and snapped pole off short at the ground.

489

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

This was the end of the Republican and Democratic town flag poles, first erected during the Hayes-Tilden campaign on Mariposa Street below I and afterwards replanted at the courthouse park entrance. Both succumbed to the rotting of time, with the Bourbon liberty pole as the survivor.

An amusing controversy arose between rival insurance company agents October 21. 1889, with regard to their respective newspaper representations as to business methods and each deposited $1,000 in escrow awaiting deter- mination by a committee of citizens as to the truth or falsity of the repre- sentations, the money in bank escrow to be forfeited to the city by the loser on the committee report. The committee reported that both forfeit to the city. That committee was W. W. Phillips, G. A. Nourse. E. J. Griffith, H. D. Colson, John Reichman, Louis Einstein and Dr. C. Rowell, who was alone to hold that the representations were not false. The warring agents the brothers, R. H. and W. G. Baker and A. D. Thomas and R. B. Schwartzkopf litigated their idle wager and while the matter was in the courts the city in behalf of the newly created free library also went into court to seek the recovery of the forfeited $2,000 in behalf of the institution. It failed in the suit. The agents had in November. 1889, sued the respective banks for injunctions and the return of the money and judgment was rendered in June and August, 1893. and thus the whole matter went up in smoke after much publicity fire to contribute to the sporting gaiety of the com- munity.

The petition for the incorporation of the city of Fresno was filed with the county supervisors July 22. 1885. It was based on a representation that the city had a population of "about 3,000." At the September 5 meeting of the Supervisors an election on incorporation for September 25 was ordered, with the polling place at the courthouse, E. K. King as inspector and C. W. Remsberg and K. G. Luke as judges. The vote was for incorporation 277; against 185; total vote cast 465.

The first meeting of the first elected city trustees was held on the eve- ning of October 27, 1885, at the Mariposa Street real estate office of T. E. Hughes. Half a dozen meetings were held in nightly succession until the city government organization was completed. John Hurley and Martin Mc- Nally were appointed the first city policemen at sixty dollars a month and the salary of the town marshal was fixed at eighty dollars.

Fresno's incorporation petition was presented before the supervisors by the late J. F. Wharton. It was determined that the territory to be incor- porated had a population of 3,459.

The city incorporation petition of 1885 had 102 signatures. The living signatories in October, 1918, are the following named: I. Teilman, N. W. Moodey, Dr. J. C. Cooper, T. E. Hughes, J. E. Hughes, W. W. Phillips, M. W. Muller, L. Gundelfinger, F. H. Short, M. K. Harris. W. T. Mattingly, Alex Goldstein, Dr. W. T. Burks, Geo. E. Church, S. N. Griffith, W. P. Haber, Lucien Shaw, S. C. St. John, R. G. Harrell, W. D. Grady, J. D. Mor- gan, S. S. Wright. E. F. Lacour, J. W. Gearhart-twenty-four.

William H. Bryan's first visit as a presidential candidate was on Satur- day evening, July 3, 1897, and he was received with a salvo of 100 guns.

The big fire in the Grady Theater building at the time occupied by the Redlick Brothers' general merchandise store was on February 27, 1900.

L. O. Stephens as Fresno's first mayor under a charter retired April, 1905. It was declared that under his administration Fresno had prospered and experienced the cleanest and most business like administration in its history for which the citizens and taxpayers were to be congratulated.

It was at a meeting in March, 1904, that a resolution was passed for- bidding the smoking of tobacco at the sessions of the city trustees. Another departure from wild and woolly western methods.

The first city general election under a charter was held June 4, 1901. L. O. Stephens was elected mayor. The vote was 2,196.

490

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

Fresno's so-called "new charter" was ratified at the election October 19, 1899. Vote: 844 for and 107 against.

The first district street paving in the city was in 1889 as follows: I from Kern to Fresno. J from Tulare to Fresno, and Mariposa from the court house to the railroad depot. The material was bituminous rock, steamed and crushed and underlaid by cemented rock or gravel. The contract was thirty- three and one-third cents per square foot with bared stone work extending four feet from the sidewalk curb. Fresno was the third city in the state thus paved. The cost was levied against the property.

March 19, 1910, a special election was held to vote $60,000 bonds for city playgrounds. The bonds carried by a vote of 847 to 299. The school children carried the day. It was their campaign with parades and personal solicitations for days before.

The free market proved such a success that the trustees were soon urged to look for a larger and permanent site, occupying for the market bv sufferance part of the courthouse park frontage on Fresno Street. January 19, 1913, offer of a site was made of one-half of city block 115 in rear of the courthouse for $112.500. The site problem is still in the air.

The city playgrounds commission was created July, 1913. It maintained for a time a little model playground in the courthouse park. It made its official start in November, 1913, with an appropriation of $4,500.

The municipal convention hall, the construction starting of which was with bond money voted for the playgrounds of which it was originally in- tended to be a part, was dedicated with ball and concert on the night of Thursday, March 12, 1914.

The month of April, 1914, was made memorable by the city board of health's fly-swatting campaign.

It was on July 12, 1886, that the city trustees rented three corner rooms in the Masonic Temple at Tulare and I at thirty dollars a month for council chamber and offices.

The dedication of the new Masonic Temple at Merced and K Streets was a noteworthy occurrence on the evening of June 3, 1911, the founda- tion stone of the building having been laid the fall before by Grand Master Dana R. Wells of Los Angeles. The temple was erected in the name of the two Fresno lodges, Nos. 247 and 366, ownership vested in the seven Masonic organizations.

The forty-six-acre additional gift to enlarge Roeding Park was sketched out for improvement in May, 1908, the addition being on three sides of the park site and making one large 118-acre tract conforming to the original site offered to the city by F. Roeding and wife but for some unaccountable rea- son declined by the city trustees under the Jo Spinney regime. Roeding Park is considered one of the finest in the state and exceeded in area by only one, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The park is a reclamation of a sandy grain field.

Following sale of the property, Monday, August 27, 1917, witnessed the abandoning by the fire apparatus of pioneer Engine House No. 1 on J Street, for so many years also the city hall. The bell that had sounded so many alarms of fire and which for years also tolled the warning hour of curfew was sold by the city trustees to the town of Kingsburg. Long after the sale, discovery was made that it belonged not to the city for sale but to the members of the volunteer fire department who had contributed their half dollars and dollars to melt into the bell metal. Suggestion having been made that the old bell be brought to Fresno as a float for one of the Raisin Day celebrations, Kingsburg discerned in the move a cunning plot to recover possession of the bell and solemn protest was made. The bell was in fact not "floated" in the Fresno celebration.

Commencing with September 14, 1917, the tooting of whistle to give announcement of the location of a fire ceased in Fresno. Thereafter general

491

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

notice of a fire "somewhere" was given by three sharp blasts from the flour mills, three times repeated. The tooting of whistle was a twelve-year-old practice, before which the box alarm was given by sounding of bell taps. The last change was only another step in the "cityfication" of the Raisin Center.

The work of excavating for the concrete foundation for the Bank of Italy's eight-story "sky scraper" at Tulare and J Streets commenced with the last week in August, 1917. It was one of the most difficult tasks in the construction line ever undertaken in Fresno involving the underpinning of the four-story department store building of Radin & Kamp on the west line. The concrete foundation was laid nineteen feet below the street sur- face in three feet of subterranean water accumulation. The erection of the steel frame work was planned for September 15 and it was at the close of October, 1918, that tenants of the office floors began to move in. The bank building with fixtures cost a quarter of a million dollars.

On Monday, August 27, 1917, was published the first number of the Fresno Evening Herald from its newspaper building at the corner of L and Inyo Streets. Owing to an accident to the machine, the edition was printed on the press of the Republican.

One of the large 1909 fire losses in Fresno was the destruction of the California Fruit Canner's Association's plant May 25. Total loss was half a million, with insurance of $200,000 and the season's run prevented.

The year 1910 opened with promise of being a banner year in building in Fresno city. A building boom was due, it was launched and continued until the conservation measures of the war called a halt to new construction work during the second half of 1918. The Fresno-Hanford Interurban road promoted by F. S. Granger was being agitated and had first place among the big things in prospect, involving as it did a million-dollar project. It was never financed and as with several other interurban dreams is a recol- lection of the past. Building operations had been quiet for a year and a half before the close of 1909. Considerable remodelling of old buildings had been done, fronts of business houses modernized and the general appearance of the city greatly improved in that period. The business district expanded to take in the lower and southern portion of I Street and Tulare with the side streets, and there was also a steady expansion north of Fresno. With the passing of the years all available space on the railroad reservations was taken up for industrial enterprises and it was necessary to set aside in the southern part of the city a district for the exclusive location of these indus- tries. The Southern Pacific started preliminary work for buildings to cost $200,000. These were a 300x60 foot freight receiving shed between Merced and Tuolumne, and a 300x60 forwarding shed between Fresno and Merced, both on concrete bases, and a remodelling and modernizing of the main passenger depot. The Santa Fe completed during the latter part of 1909 its enlargement of passenger station. Significant among the building move- ments on foot was that of the fraternal orders. It was on a parity with the church building boom as an evidence of public improvement and as a dis- tinctive feature of the construction impulse of the times. The Masons bought on the southwest corner of Merced and K and later erected a temple for the order. The Eagles bought the church property at M and Fresno and a building association was formed. The Knights of Pythias secured site oppo- site the Masons and eventually will build. The Woodmen of the World bought corner lots at Tuolumne and Van Ness and erected the finest lodge building of the order in the Pacific Jurisdiction. The Elks had the upper story of the building at Tulare and L specially constructed for their accom- modation ; likewise the University Club the front of the White Theater building. Enlargements and improvements of the Fresno Traction Company · called for an outlay of $200,000 in the erection of car barns near the Pollasky railroad depot, double tracking of the city system with addition to the roll- ing stock. The water company expended $25,000 for new mains in the city

492

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

and extension of service to outlying districts. During the following years the city authorized extensive street paving and sewering work chargeable against the property benefitted. Boulevarding of some principal streets across town was resolved upon and electrolier districts followed in the business section and along Van Ness, J and I, and out on Fresno and a half mile be- yond on Kearney Boulevard as the result of the building boom that was ushered in with the year 1910. Private enterprises that had inception then were the quarter of a million Hotel Fresno at I and Merced, really the first "sky-scraper" in Fresno, followed by the Rowell-Chandler building at Tu- lare and Van Ness, the Griffith-Mckenzie monolyth at Mariposa and J, the Holland on Fresno east of Van Ness, the White Theater on I near Mer- ced, and apartment, business houses and residences too numerous to men- tion. As the business section expanded and modernized, so the residence district spread and annexation of considerable territory to the city followed. The year 1910 was one of awakening and for the eight years following more substantial progress and improvement came about than for any like term in the history of the city. A great agricultural experimental farm was be- queathed to the state with the distribution to the University of California of the Kearney estate, and a belated state recognition of Fresno was in the location of the Normal school here.

The year 1909 was one also of notable commercial advancement for the raisin center of the United States measured by the development and improve- ments in the transportation service. Great projects were launched and costly betterments were made in road equipment for the accommodation and safety of the traveling public. Most noteworthy undertaking of the vear was per- haps the investment of approximately two millions by the San Joaquin Power and Light Company in beginning construction of the new power plant in Crane Valley in Madera County. Work was commenced in May. 1908, to be in operation in August, 1910, to supply the valley with power and electricity. The reservoir capacity of Bass Lake was stated to be 50,000-acre feet against 4.300 of the old mountain plant, with enlarged conduits carrying off 150 feet of water per second as against twenty before, besides construction of two new pipe lines allowing a flow of seventy-five feet per second, and installa- tion of machinery for generating 16,000 kilowatts of electric fluid. The com- pany was serving twenty-four towns in the valley and eight of these-Sanger, Orosi, Sultana, Clovis, Lemoore, Malaga, Coalinga and Friant-were first served in 1909. The Fresno Traction Company as a sub-company added to its equipment in June, double tracked on Tulare out to Recreation Park and on J and Fresno Streets. It built an extension traversing the quarter west of the railroad known as the Russian quarter along F Street via the subway on Fresno Street under the railroad reservation. The large car barns were also erected near the end of Tulare Street. The Fresno Water Company as an- other sub-company installed five new city water mains and a company was incorporated for two millions to supply Coalinga, water to be pumped at Lemoore, piped to Coalinga and the oil field. The 1909 business of the Southern Pacific was so heavy that two additional Fresno-San Francisco trains were placed on the run as locals and the chair car on the Owl was taken off and it was made a vestibule train making only three stops between termini. It was at the beginning of 1908 that the company introduced the motor car service in the valley on all local runs, the longest between Fresno and Stockton. The motors were in addition to the regular steam trains to nearby towns. The motors were unable to accommodate the travel and for other reasons also they were taken off and additional steam car trains were the result. There was a lurking suspicion that these much landed motors did not come up to expectations. The Fresno-Coalinga service was im- proved and it was strongly demanded that the journey to and back might be . made in a day. The track was also ballasted. Freight business increased so that the side tracks in local yard had to be lengthened to accommodate long

493

HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

trains averaging forty to fifty cars, an increase from thirty to thirty-five. On the Santa Fe roadbed and bridges in the valley were reconstructed, heavier rails laid, new steel bridges substituted across the Merced at cost of $193,365 and across the San Joaquin for $147,356, with duplicates across St. John's, the Kings and the Kern south of Fresno. The ballasting of the roadbed in the valley kept nine work trains busy during the summer. Pas- senger and freight traffic demanded additional trains. Up to 1908 the Santa Fe had no local freight service from Fresno. In 1909 four local freights were established to Corcoran Junction, two via Visalia and two via Han- ford. The "Maverick" was a San Francisco freight train carrying stock and fruit. A new passenger train to San Francisco was put on in August, 1908, leaving here at eight A. M. The local freight yards were extended be- cause of lack of space for side tracks and, to make room, the Hammond fig- packing plant, the Einstein, Wormser and other warehouses moved. The platform for interchange freight was lengthened 300 feet and two new "team" tracks for unloading were built on each side. Change was made from the telegraph system of dispatching trains to the telephone. The passenger depot at Tulare and Q, the largest on the division between Richmond, Cal., and Albuquerque, N. M., was enlarged at a cost of $25,000 and made two stories high in the expectation that the enlarged floor space would meet the demand for ten years to come. Three weeks after completion, the baggage room that was enlarged was taxed to the maximum. The depot is of the Mission style after the model of all on the Santa Fe line. Passenger directors were another innovation. Due to the increasing business of the Santa Fe and its cramped quarters within the city limits projected for the local San Joaquin Valley Railroad and not for a transcontinental road, the Santa Fe has had to locate switching yards and fruit car icing depot at large outlay beyond the city limits. There a new railroad town has sprung up known as Calwa. Fresno has become one of the railroad centers of California. Leland Stanford's prophecy of forty years ago has come truc.

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 72

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