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 74
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The police of Fresno was first uniformed in October, 1888.
The question of closing the saloons was first before the city council in November, 1888, with a proposition to close doors at eleven at night. The compromise was on the hour of midnight from an all night institution. An attempt to repeal the midnight hour ordinance failed.
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February 4, 1889, marks the date of the division of the city into five wards with a councilman from each elected to sit in the board.
Much street improvement work was ushered in in February, 1889, com- mencing with H, I, J, K and L Streets and the cross streets of Mono, Inyo, Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Calaveras. In the laying out of the new streets, a mistake was made in grading down the natural contour of the land and establishing a grade to conform with which the city was left on a plain as flat as a pancake. So also in sewering the city, one of the lowest points at Mariposa and J Streets was chosen as a starting point, there being there a natural depression. All sewering of the city has had to conform with that level. This has involved the cost of thousands upon thousands upon property owners in grading to meet that level and making drainage a problem difficult enough with the flatness of the prairie townsite. A story was long current that the late Fulton G. Berry was the responsible one for this street grade and sewer level because of his Grand Central Hotel. the foundation of which had been laid in the corner depression, and the raising of the brick struc- ture being at the time impractical and cost prohibitive. The story was also that Berry had elected himself a councilman for this purpose and having gained his point his resignation followed soon after. At any rate the filling in of the street corner of the hotel left the basement below the street level.
The feeling hetween Republicans and the dominant Democrats was acute in early days. In point was the difference which was taken official cogni- zance of by the council in October, 1888, at the instigation of the Demo- crats for the removal of a festal Republican arch at Mariposa and J Streets under which the Democrats declined to march in a political procession scheduled for the twenty-fifth of the month. They demanded that the arch be demolished or the Republican mottoes covered from sight. The arch re- mained but the Republican offending legends were covered and there was peace.
W. H. Harris was appointed engineer of the Silsby fire engine July 9. 1889. He is still in the service as an engineer, the oldest in the department for age and for continuity of service also.
The first city defalcation came to light in July, 1889, in the office of the marshal, when J. H. Bartlett became insane. His cash of $785 was intact but he was owing the city $432. In July, 1890, report was made that his ac- counts showed $1,148 to be due, $785 was in bank to his credit, $309.15 was collected from his bondsmen, leaving fifty-four dollars and seventy-five cents still due the city. February, 1892, offer was made to compromise a claim for over $300 for half that sum.
The city assessment roll in August, 1889, showed a total property valu- ation of $6,858,188-city lots $4,613,051 and improvements thereon $1,416,625. September 8th the council considered acquiring a city water supply. There were pending thirty-eight resolutions of intention to do as many street work jobs and fifty-one on sewers.
It was in May, 1890, that the city council instructed that suit be brought to abate as a nuisance the mill ditch on Fresno Street. The matter procras- tinated with court injunctions and delayed hearings. February 29, 1892, the city board of health of which T. R. Meux was president and W. T. Maupin the secretary and health officer demanded that because of the danger- ous and threatening sanitary condition of the Mill Ditch it be abated, filled up or flushed. Citizens demanded that the two months' old judgment for the abatement of the nuisance be executed. It was March 21, 1892, with the popular filling of the ditch at a cost of $1,684.20 for filling in and ninety-two dollars for grading in April.
Postmaster N. W. Moodey complained in June, 1890, that the free postal delivery service in Fresno was inadequate to the necessities of the residence district and asked for the services of at least three more carriers.
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The first chemical fire engine was purchased by the city for $2,000 to be delivered January 10, 1891. At a meeting of the council that month the declaration was made that the erection of a city hall would "soon be a necessity."
The one time opposition to the methods of the Salvation Army is recalled by the ordinance of October, 1891, forbidding street parades with drums and music. It was passed. Later it was amended to forbid the performance or the making of any noise on musical instrument in public places or in the streets without permission.
It was at a meeting in October, 1891, that the council denounced as "barren and unsightly" the Tulare, Mariposa and H Street vicinity of the Southern Pacific reservation. In November one year later, lease was made of a block of the reservation afterward transformed into Commercial Park at the city's railroad entrance. In February. 1893, there was protest against the obstruction of the view westward along Mariposa Street by the inter- vening eating house location, suggesting its removal and it was done.
So many applications for franchises for public utilities had been filed with no materializing in anything real that in December, 1891, Councilman Alford fathered a resolution that was passed that whoever applied for a franchise whether for railroad, water, gas, electric light or power, or tele- phone, accompany the application with a $500 bond guarantee for the faithful performance and commencement of work, if request is granted.
The year 1892 recalls that in its glory was and on the crest of the wave rode The Triangle in absolute control and dictation of the city political administration. The triple entente and combination was of Councilmen Fahey, Cole and Alford. To their credit be it said however, there had never been a time of greater street and sewer improving, and that the town was beginning to make appreciable showing in cityfied ways. Fahey resigned in October, 1891, but it was only a bluff.
Be it remembered also among other things that the State Democrats "conventioned" in Fresno May 10-24, 1892, and the Prohibitionists for eight days also that month. The Veteran Volunteer Firemen of the state came September 8, 1899.
With the Prohibitionist meeting in Fresno in May, 1892, there was the offsetting report the month after that the Raisin City had seventy-one sa- loons-forty-six retailers, ten hotels and restaurants selling alcoholic bever- ages and fifteen wholesalers. Petition was filed with the council against the granting of more liquor licenses. In February, 1893, was started the move- ment of the Salvation Army for the installation of the drinking fountain at the entrance of the county courthouse park, the county contributing $500, the city $250 though it was asked for $500 also, and the army contributing the remainder on the installation cost of the cast-iron affair.
Would you believe it? The city council in February, 1893, declared Fresno's Chinatown a nuisance that should be abated. It never was abated, it goes without saying.
In November, 1893, the barbers obeying some trade closing regulation asked for a general closing of business from midnight on Saturday until the following Monday morning. This was too suggestive of enforcing a Sunday closing law and proposed ordinance was rejected.
In July, 1894, when an appropriation of $1,840 was asked for the free library, the city's answer was that there would be no tax levied for the pur- pose for that fiscal year because of a general business depression.
The San Joaquin Electric Company entered the local field in July, 1895, and in December the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railway Com- pany asked for a franchise through Fresno City via Q Street. The Santa Fe afterward swallowed up the Valley railroad.
Ye gods and little fishes! In August, 1897, the city marshal was ordered to close the keno games in the burg.
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It was at a council meeting in November 1897 that "Boss" Spinney made his grand stand play and resigned as a councilman to lessen the friction be- tween board and employes of the city. The resignation was tendered because he knew it would not be entertained and it was not.
The pioneer Fiske opera house on I Street near Mariposa was ordered in September, 1898, to be abated as a nuisance.
In response in February, 1899, for sites for a city hall in the district west of I, south of Merced, east of K and north of Kern, George A. Smith made offer of lots twenty-eight to thirty-two in block seventy at I and Merced for $5,100. The offer was accepted eventually. In January, 1900, offer of a three-floor city hall building was made for $45,000. January 3, 1905, the building committee recommended a $50,000 city hall. In May, competitive plans were asked for, not to exceed $75,000 in cost. Eugene R. Mathewson was the successful competitor, receiving the $100 prize. In March, 1906, C. J. Lindgren offered to construct for $70,000, or $60,436 exclusive of the base- ment detention jail. The alternative tender was accepted. The corner stone was laid during the Lyon mayoralty' regime.
February, 1899, ushered in a period of considerable street paving with bitumen rock as the material for the first time.
The newspapers were in bad odor with the administration in November, 1899, and for spite the latter conceived a business license of five dollars per quarter on the daily publication and one of two dollars and fifty cents on the weekly.
It was in the month of February that the Chamber of Commerce, the Merchants' Association and the 100,000 Club started agitation for a board of fifteen freeholders to frame a charter for the city. First meeting of free- holders was held July 8, 1901, and the submitted charter was adopted at an election October, 1899, 844 voting for and 107 against it. Eleven amendments were carried by 1,179 votes February 5, 1905.
The health officer and the board of health made a sanitary investigation of Chinatown in May, 1900, with no other result than an attempted clean up comparable in effort to the cleaning up of an Augean stable. Russian town was also to be sewered but has never been.
In June, 1900, the life of the juvenile was made miserable again with the ringing of the curfew at 8 P. M. nine times.
The thanks of the community were transmitted in the summer of 1900 to Andrew Carnegie for his gift of a $30,000 library building and the city appropriated $3,000 annually for the equipment and maintenance of the in- stitution.
S. N. Griffith, H. A. Voorman, W. H. Mckenzie, H. C. Tilden and Claus Kroeger were given fifty-year franchise May 16, 1901, for an electric street railway, to pay the city three per cent. on gross proceeds after five years. The corporation obtained control of the horse car lines and electrified them. Sale was later made to the Fresno Traction Company, the present owner.
Police and firemen received increase in pay July 15, 1901. The paid fire department was called into existence November, 1901, and call men were added to the force. James A. Ward was the chief that introduced many changes in the fire service.
In July, 1901, offer of sale was made on an estimate asked for acquiring by purchase the city water works, electric power and electric light service by taking over the existing corporate public utility. Special election was held in December on the propositions with following results: Power, 280 for, 285 against ; water 538 for, 557 against ; light 195 for, 406 against.
The state encampment of the Odd Fellows was held in Fresno in Octo- ber, 1901, with the Patriarchs Militant tented in the courthouse park.
Councilman Horace Hawes (now dead) achieved undying fame with introduction September 16, 1901, of his ordinance 394 against the trespass of domestic fowl on the premises of a neighbor. It was passed by a vote
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of four to four and a veto overruled in October. The ordinance was amended in November to include pigeons as offending trespassers. In October the agitation against the slot machine was conceived and resulted by a vote of five to three in the passage of an ordinance. Pool rooms also came under the ban. It was at this period that experiments were begun in the use of crude oil for laying down the dust on unpaved streets, giving the appearance of bitumen surfaced streets after having been worked solid by traffic. In June, 1902, with further experimenting oil was used in the grading of streets and slot machine licenses were revoked.
It was May 3, 1903, that F. and Marianne Roeding deeded lots in Roed- ing's Villa Colony for Roeding City Park and an unanimous vote of thanks was passed to the donors by the council, after a previous administration's turning down of the gift because it would demand a bond issue to improve the land.
A forty-two-year franchise was granted the Santa Fe July 6, 1903, through Fresno City. In December the Fresno Traction Company loomed up on the horizon.
In June, 1904, ordinance was passed requiring the use of gloves in boxing matches.
The Mountain View Cemetery Improvement Association was organized in March, 1905, for the systematic and permanent improvement of the city's home of the dead which had been so neglected as to be an eye-sore. The effect of its work is apparent. The Arbor Club first gave attention to this subject in the planting of trees on Belmont Avenue, the principal thorough- fare to the cemetery.
The liquor question has been a vexatious one for city administrations. In November, 1903, there was demand for the closing of saloons between the hours of 1 and 5 A. M. The nightly curfew at 8 o'clock had been discontinued for the juvenile population. Three years later in March there was an inhibi- tion against the service of liquor in restaurants after 1 A. M. and none to be served at banquets save by special dispensation. In April there was the move- ment to limit the number of saloons to forty and increase the license to $1,000 beginning one year later. In April one year later the move was to increase the license from $500 to $600 in July. In February, 1908, a proposition to re- duce the number of saloons to thirty was tabled; likewise the proposition to close at midnight. In July the Saturday midnight closing was tabled, the vote being four to four and the mayor voting for tabling. In September a referendum on the saloon was asked of the trustees at the next general elec- tion by Rev. Irving B. Bristol of the Anti-Saloon League which had inter- jected the liquor question in the political affairs of the city and forced it on as a public issue. In January, 1909, test case was submitted in court whether the saloon referendum is mandatory, also advancing constitutional and other objectionable features to the movement. That month the proposition was advanced to rescind the liquor licenses granted to Chinese and Japanese aliens. In February Ordinance 599 was submitted to be voted on April 12 that no liquor be dispensed save on a medical certificate, or with a twenty cent meal or generally in quantity less than a quart to be drunk on the premises. The measure was drastic in many features and in October the wine grape growers and wine and brandy makers petitioned the trustees not to pass the saloon closing ordinance. An ordinance doing away with the so- called open saloon met with the usual board vote result-four to four. At the November meeting Mayor Rowell vetoed Ordinance 599, which was the result of the referendum vote by a small majority, and the motion to over- ride the veto was lost-five voting aye, and one noe, one member not voting and one absent. There were at this time forty-nine liquor retailers, eight wholesalers, four Class B restaurants, twenty Class A and two club licenses.
The parental school, which afterward became a county institution, was established and equipped by the city school board in July, 1905.
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There being no proper safeguards for pedestrians or traffic on the streets crossing the railroad reservation, several fatal accidents having occurred to agitate the popular mind and the railroad taking no heed of the warnings to provide guards, the trustees recommended in September, 1905, that Mari- posa Street be opened to traffic across the reservation, that gates and watch- men be placed at the five crossings serving the city from the business dis- trict in travel to and from the west. The railroad took notice. Counter prop- ositions resulted. One to open Mariposa with a subway and closing Fresno and Tulare at the surface. Yet another was to open Fresno and place safety gates with guards at all crossings, and to open Mariposa. The result was the acceptance of the compromise of a subway at Fresno instead of a viaduct at Tulare where gates were placed for a time and thus the traffic congestion was in a measure solved after official jockeying.
Sensational incident of the Lyon regime was the one in September, 1905, when the Japanese prostitution houses were closed, twenty-eight arrests were made and the enclosing board fence that concealed the restricted district was torn down by the police. This incident was followed by another staged by a fool chief of police named DeVoe in apprehending the white demi monde, making a daylight parade of the dishevelled and scantily appareled women through principal streets of the city to the county jail. The exhibition was as disgusting as it was typical of the character of the fellow that con- ceived the spectacle.
The Santa Fe offered Hobart Park in January, 1906, to the city as a "breathing spot" and it was accepted at a nominal rental.
There was in March, 1906, one of the perennial periods of excitement in the city over a threatened inundation by reason of the excessive rains and the flooding by the waters of Dry, Dog. Red Banks and Fancher Creeks. The flood was prevented. Followed the perennial long discussion but no permanent remedial measures were undertaken. There had been floods in times gone by when the railroad reservation and other low ground of the city was under water and the flood water was embanked until lakes were formed and boating was the popular diversion until the rains ceased and the soil took up the water.
In April, 1906, $1,000 was made as a first donation for the relief of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire. Train was sent with clothing and bed coverings and food and the refugees passing through Fresno from the disaster were publicly fed at the depots. The town's military companies were dispatched to the city to guard property and police the terror stricken city.
F. S. Granger came in September, 1908, with application for a franchise for. an interurban railway. The granted franchise of December 7 was forfeited in June, 1909, and application was made for a twenty-five-year franchise for the Fresno, Hanford and Summit Lake Interurban Railway with Granger as vice president, general manager and promoter. The scheme ended in a colossal failure. Right of way was graded in part for an interurban to Sanger but the scheme came to naught as the project could never be financed.
The city playgrounds commission decided in December. 1909, on six avail- able and purchasable sites and in February advocated that $50,000 be raised by bond issue for the purchase of them. The bond election for $60,000 was held March 19, 1910, and was carried-847 to 299.
On the same day that the playgrounds election was held in 1910, Engle- wood Addition, Bloomington Park Tract and Buena Vista Addition voted to annex to the city-ninety-one to sixty-two-and the city voted them in 443 to twenty-eight.
The rock pile was revived in the courthouse park in March, 1911, for the special benefit of the I. W. W.'s, whose presence had then begun to be felt in the city. When these Bolshevikis had filled the jail and hung up the business of the police court with demands for jury trials for disturbances of the peace with addresses from soapbox rostrums, they mutinied. They were
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brought to terms with half drowning in cells with fire hose under steam fire- engine pressure. They barricaded themselves behind mattresses in their cells until they cried out "Kamerad" in surrender. The strange thing in connec- tion with this memorable water bombardment was that neither Mayor Rowell, nor Sheriff Chittenden, nor Fire Chief Ward knew who had given the orders for the employment of the fire engine and hose and engine crews for the flooding of the jail.
In May, 1911, there was a scare over the rabies. An ordinance to muzzle dogs was laid on the table by the trustees. In July it was adopted on the recommendation of the board of health.
In July, 1911, endorsement was given the project for the opening to steamboat traffic and navigation of the San Joaquin to Herndon. A steamboat came up as far as the drawbridge at Firebaugh to demonstrate the naviga- bility of the stream. There was popular agitation and the government was petitioned to make survey of the river in anticipation of dredging the river. After the survey the engineers reported against the project on the ground that the commerce in sight from the country watered by the river would not warrant the expenditure of the cost to make the stream a navigable water- way at all times of the year. And the San Joaquin still rolls on to the ocean and Fresno swallowed the deep disappointment of not having been made an inland port.
Freeholders were again selected January 16, 1912, and the amendments to the charter submitted to a vote July 26, were rejected-660 to 1.064. June 27, $45,000 was voted for the completion of the convention hall of the play- grounds, officially named Rowell Auditorium but popularly called and known as the Auditorium.
After an agitation in protest permission was granted in April, 1912, to the Fresno Traction Company to continue its tracks on a branch through Roeding Park to the cemetery beyond on the west and across Belmont Avenue.
Four years after the first plantings in Roeding Park, it was published to the world that "the landscape effects are an example of what can be accom- plished within a short time when public moneys are expended by men whose hearts are in their work and who are not bound in any way by political affil- iations."
The first platted maps of Fresno were recorded December 12, 1873, and June 8, 1876, of 150 and 149 blocks respectively. Came then Hughes and White's supplemental of June 22, 1882, covering the territory south between K and V and between Monterey and Mono Streets four blocks south of Mari- posa. Then February 15, 1884, S. N. Griffith's ten-acre addition two blocks north of Voorman and his Villa Addition of four blocks March 22, 1884. Thomas E. Hughes recorded a second supplemental map of June 9, 1884, covering the plains between San Diego and Mono, A and G. Followed an- other, a northern supplemental of June 19, 1884, between Calaveras and Sutter and A to G. Griffith's second addition of November 5, 1884, was of three blocks and his Villa addition of twenty-six lots on Glenn Avenue of November 7, 1884. Then came the Villa Homestead of one block of February 17, 1885, at Diana and Effie. No. 11 was Park Addition of thirty-one acres August 5, 1885. Up to November 25, 1887, a record had been made of forty- two additions and territorial enlargements. Woodward's addition of fifteen blocks was platted March, 1887. It was the first addition to be annexed to the city and the one to have been also the most neglected in all that time in improvements.
The three annexation elections that brought into the city the largest slices of territory were these: Belmont Addition, March 26, 1910, outside territory 182 to 124, inside 443 to twenty-eight; Arlington Heights, July 3, 1914, 170 to 157, and North Fresno, March 18, 1918, 527 to 152.
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The city free library became a part of the county library system with the consent of the city government June 4, 1917.
Lieut. W. H. Stevens arrived at March Field, Riverside, Cal., December 27, 1918, from Fresno on the last leg of a flight from Mather Field, near Sacramento, completed in six hours, five minutes actual flying time. This was stated to be the record between the fields. The Fresno-Riverside leg was covered in three hours and five minutes. On the twenty-seventh two parties of aviators were guests of Fresno, one from the north, the other from the south. The northern party was of three military aviators who had started from San Francisco to San Diego on the return journey of a mapping trip for a proposed aerial mail service ; the other was making for Sacramento on a similar duty. The San Francisco-Fresno flight was made without stop and was accomplished in two hours and twenty-eight minutes. The other party of three in one machine flying to the state capital made the flight from Los Angeles in two hours and fifty-five minutes. On Christmas Day a flight of three army airplanes from San Diego to San Francisco was completed in ten hours and fifteen minutes actual flying time. The flight which had commenced on Friday the 20th was made in the following laps : San Diego to Los Angeles 2:05; Los Angeles to Mojave 2:20; Mojave to Bakersfield 1:20; Bakersfield to Fresno 1:30; Fresno to Stockton 1:50; Stock- ton to San Francisco 1:10. The Los Angeles-Fresno flight was made in two hours fifty-five minutes. From San Francisco to Los Angeles is practically half the extreme length of the longest straight line that can be drawn in California. The flying time for these machines, by no means the fastest possible, would for the extreme range be eleven hours. The round trip flight of the three military planes between San Diego and San Francisco was com- pleted December 29 at the first named city. The actual flying time for the 600 miles of the return was seven hours and twenty-eight minutes. The time between points going south: San Francisco to Fresno, 2:38; Fresno to Bakersfield, 1:40; Bakersfield to Venice, 1:45, and Venice to San Diego, 2:05.
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