USA > California > Kings County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 19
USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 19
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of all kinds that a general unkempt appearance is presented. Orchard alternates with wood lot and salt grass pasture with corn field and dairy farm. Many tracts of fertile land remain undeveloped.
Yet this section contributes heavily in yearly revenue. Two creameries in Visalia handle about one-fourth of the cream output of the county; nearly all the prunes, having an annual value of about half a million dollars, are produced; there are canning peaches for two large factories, large quantities of fresh and dried fruits are shipped; the beet sugar factory is located here and exports of hay and live stock are constantly made.
Pursuing our way still further south we enter the territory tributary to Tulare without perceiving any change in general charae- teristics of seene, soil and productions. The oak groves, the alter- nate farm and orchard continue. A change, however, has taken place as we soon discover. We encounter fewer orchards, alfalfa fields adjoin, making vast meadows. We find that we are in the center of one of the great dairy sections. Fruit growing, frequently in colony traets, remains a feature, however, and vineyards of con- siderable acreage are noted. The dairy region here, besides taking in the territory contignons to Tulare, Tagus and Swall's, joins with the Dinnba country by a narrow strip, passing through Goshen and widening at Traver. This on the north. Southerly and westerly it merges also with the Woodville and Poplar sections.
These latter districts possess some of the richest alluvial soil as yet undeveloped in the county, but so far, dairying, general farming and grain raising have been the only industries. Fruit growing, with every facility of the most favored sections available, has not been engaged in because of the lack of railroad accommodations. The advent of the Big Four will doubtless change this.
From Tipton, on passing through Pixley and Earlimart to the county line, we find vast grain and hay fields, little alfalfa, few fruit trees, much land apparently fertile, unplowed. Also we find large tracts being subdivided, settlers in numbers building homes, water being pumped and alfalfa and orchards being planted. Only in recent years has it been discovered that very cheaply could the fertile lands in these vicinities be made to produce abundantly by pump irrigation. A very rapid increase in population seems assured.
Westward now, towards the lake in the neighborhood of Cor- coran, Angiola and Alpangh, entirely new characteristics confront us. We enter again a great alfalfa belt, not only supplying its dairies with feed, but furnishing enormous quantities of hay for shipment. Great grain fields there are, producing extraordinary yields. Some natural swampy meadow land lies here. In places, instead of irrigation, leveling and drainage are practiced. Artesian wells in many localities supply water for irrigation and for stock.
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But we must turn now and look at the country lying along the east side branch railroad. Surprises most extraordinary here await ns. So great a difference exists that we can scarcely believe that we are in the same county. Merged indeed the two separate regions are at Orosi, but as one proceeds southward through Exeter, or if he choose, first through Woodlake, Naranjo or Lemon Cove and then on and stops off at either Exeter, Lindsay, Strathmore or Porterville, a scene wholly strange greets the eye.
Orange groves and yet again orange groves, one practically continnous stretch. Not even a fence divides them. The chain of foothills is their background, but it is a rampart up which they climb and into whose recesses all along the way they cluster. No canals or ditches here, no alfalfa, no green mats of salt grass pasture, no oaks nor cottonwoods. Parched and dry, hard and barren looking is the soil in the places unset to orchards. And yet, within them everywhere triekling in little furrows between the rows run streamlets of water, . the moisture from them soaking and permeating the soil.
The system of irrigation here is almost wholly that of pumps operated by electric motors, and while this helt lacks the natural beanty of the wooded lowland, it is fast coming to be the most pleas- ing and attractive to the eye. Avenues lined with palm or other ornamental trees lead to country homes surrounded by handsome lawns and exquisite flower plots.
From Porterville the district extends south through Terra Bella, Ducor and Richgrove to the county line. This portion, however, is of newer development and the process of converting grain ranches into orange groves is but now beginning. Thousands of acres of young orchards are set and thousands more have been purchased for the purpose of planting to citrus fruits, but here and almost only here within the county remains enough land sown to grain to keep harvesters busy and till warehouses with wheat.
Eastward back of the orange helt extend thousands of acres of foothill grazing range, supporting vast herds. This region is wooded and springs furnishing stock water are numerous. Two gateways there are to the higher Sierras, viz: Three Rivers for the Kaweah watershed and Springville for the Tule river.
In both of these communities apples of fine quality are grown and orange groves reach to their gates. Beyond and between them the grazing belt extends for many miles, and still beyond, throughout the range of mountains are found extensive meadows and other feeding grounds which furnish pasture for many cattle during the summer months.
At an elevation of about 5000 feet one enters a belt of pine timber. This, mixed with the Sequoia gigantea, and, as one reaches the higher altitudes, with fir and tamarack, extends throughout the
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county almost unbrokenly. Several sawmills are in operation with an annual ent of abont three million feet, but on account of the lack of roads. most of this timber is inaccessible and will probably remain so for many years.
On the way to the higher mountain regions one passes on both the rivers extensive works of electrical power companies. Dams, reservoirs, long high-perched flumes, lines of steel pipe down the mountain side. and the whir of immense dynamos are evidences of the enterprises by which the mountain torrent is harnessed and the river converted into a laborer of the field.
For these utilitarian purposes of producing milling timber and electric energy, for furnishing feed for droves of cattle and for storing the snowfall of winter and returning it to the valley in time for need, the Sierra Nevada mountains are an incalculably valuable asset of Tulare county.
The mountains also constitute a cool summer retreat and are frequented by throngs of health and pleasure seekers each year. Trout fishing in the mountain streams generally is excellent. the Kern lakes and the upper Kern rivers and their tributaries being especially famous in this respect. Hunting for deer and bear is good and the sport has many devotees.
The mountain scenery is of so marvelous a character as to give it a wide-spreading and rapidly increasing fame. For beauty and grandeur the canyon or gorge of the Kern river is comparable only to the Yosemite or to Kings river canyon. Throughont the higher Sierras the effects of voleanie and glacial action, of erosion, disin- tegration and other forces have caused formations strangely beautiful, impressively awesome, wierdly fantastic. Combining to charm and please are ferns and flowers, silent forests, lawn-like meadows, placid lakes. Streams drop in roaring cascades or fall in sheets of misty vapor. They tinkle, or murmur. or rhythmically roar. Snowy peaks of jagged outline mark the skyline.
Many groves of the giant sequoia are found throughout the range at an elevation of between 5500 and 7500 feet. the largest being known as the Giant Forest. About 5000 of the trees are here located. among them being what so far as known is the largest tree in the world. Hot springs, caves, mineral springs, are other features of attraction. Wholly within the county lies the Sequoia National Park, containing seven townships. The Tule river Indian reservation is located in the southerly mountain section. There are many peaks of thirteen thousand feet and over, several exceeding fourteen thon- sand feet, and crowning all, Mt. Whitney, 14,502 feet above sea level.
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CHAPTER XX THIE ORGANIZATION OF KINGS COUNTY By F. A. Dodge
The creation and organization of Kings county as a political division of the state was the accomplishment of the spirit of develop- ment and progress which has ever conquered the wilderness and caused the deserts to vanish.
Until the spring of 1893 the territory which we are to consider was a part of Tulare county, and therefore the early history of settlement and development is a part of the history of that county and the reader will find in this volume an interesting and instructive accounting of those early days when men and women of small means but determined will, laid the foundation of what today is one of the most prosperous and enlightened agricultural divisions of beloved California.
People who build an imperishable state have always com- menced at the foundation, and all enduring foundations ever yet constructed have been begun by a community bound together by that greatest common tie-Necessity. Those who today behold with admiring eye the broad vineyards, prolific orchards and expanding meadows of this central valley of California should have preserved in some historical form the story of the past that they and their children may appreciate the hardy, brave and self-sacrificing ones who grappled with the problems which confronted them in an isolated desert at a time when even Tulare county was no longer a child among the counties of the state; and along with that history it is right and proper that mention of those people, with some of their personal history, should be written, and this volume is intended to accomplish that end. In the department devoted to Tulare county the author has dealt with what now is the county of Kings up to the date of its organization and what is to be chronicled here will there- fore relate to events of comparatively recent occurrence, for this county is among the youngest in the state. The efforts of its people, however, to secure their independence date back into the year 1886. At that time the center of population of the western portion of Tulare county was the country in the immediate vicinity of the then small towns of Hanford, Lemoore and Grangeville. This community had been made possible through the application of water to the soil for purposes of irrigation. Long before the stirring times of the Mussel Slough tragedy recounted at length in this work, the life-giving waters of Kings river had been taken out upon the dry plain, and the earliest demonstration of irrigation as practiced in
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central California was made in the vicinity of Grangeville. From that time development was as rapid as was possible, considering the lack of finances possessed by those who had located on the barren soil. The story of hardship, deprivation and suffering experienced by the early settlers, their struggle with land barons who sought to monopolize the great plains for cattle ranges during the short season when wild feed was abundant; the fight with the railroad corporation. and finally the struggle for and the triumphant victory realized for independent county government are all worthy of record: but the progress of the people during the past nineteen years is to form the basis of this contribution.
ORGANIZING FOR A COUNTY
Successful agriculture, wherever irrigation had been practiced in the "Mussel Slongh" country, was proclaimed by the early irriga- tionists to their friends beyond the Sierras. The letters written "back home" to be read and reread around the old firesides brought from the states of the Mississippi valley and from the Atlantic states many settlers. Californians by adoption who had settled in Yolo, Sacramento, San Joaquin and other connties to the north also were attracted hither by the stories told of the prolific soil and the opportunities offered in the rich country south of Kings river. Grain farming was soon made companion to alfalfa, and stockraising was undertaken in a more domestic manner than that which prevailed when the herdsman held sway and laid claim to all the plains his vaqueros could survey. Then the planting of the grape and the decidnous fruits followed, each step demonstrating the adaptability of the soil and climate to diversified husbandry. All of this resulted in the western portion of Tulare county acquiring a more rapid settlement than those other districts where irrigation had not been introduced. This condition was the inspiration to the movement to organize a new county government, and in the fall of 1886, Dr. A. B. Buitler, who was at that time a practicing physician located at the town of Grangeville, and a very popular gentleman, as well as one of the leading physicians of the district, was put forth as a candidate for member of the assembly from the district comprising Tulare county. Butler was a Republican, and the county was a Democratie stronghold. But Dr. Butler was also an astute politician and that portion of the county in which he lived was the Republican stronghold of the county. That his successful election to the Assembly of California at Sacramento meant the beginning of a plan to form a new county either did not appear on the surface. or if it did it was viewed with complacency by those who considered such a possibility unworthy of the least attention. Butler was elected. and there began the story of how Kings county came to be on the map of California.
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During the session of the California legislature in February, 1887, Assemblyman Butler introduced a bill to ent off a portion of western Tulare county and add to it a portion of Fresno county south of the fourth standard parallel line. The movement immediately met with opposition and a strong lobby was set to work by Visalia and Tulare interests, and the county division measure failed. It was, however, the beginning of a long campaign, and the editorial prophecy made by the Hanford Sentinel of February 17, 1887, that "The seed of county division has been planted which will in the course of events sprout a new county," came trne.
In the legislative campaign of 1888, W. S. Cunningham, a well- known citizen of Lemoore, and a Democrat, was elected assemblyman. On the strength of a desire for a new county the candidate received much hearty support from Republicans during his campaign. Mr. Cunningham introduced a county division bill at the twenty-ninth session, but, it too, met with strong opposition from the mother county, and failed. The next legislative campaign saw the question of creating a new county thrust to the fore. Population had greatly increased, and the demand for facilities for the transaction of public business nearer the center of that population had received new impetus, and a Hanford citizen was agreed upon for assemblyman. Frank A. Blakeley, a Republican, and a man well known and popular, was the chosen candidate. He won the election, and immediately preparation was begun for the final fight. A strong committee composed of business men of all political faiths was formed in Hanford, and included citizens from Lemoore and Grangeville, and farmers. A bill was drafted by Dixon L. Phillips, an attorney of Hanford, and a committee headed by such men as George X. Wendling, E. E. Bush, Richard Mills, Justin Jacobs, Frank L. Dodge, R. W. Musgrave and others established the committee headquarters in Sacramento, and assisted Assemblyman Blakeley in his fight.
In the early struggles the name proposed for the new county was Lorrain, but that name was abandoned and Kings was adopted in its stead, as being more significant. The name Kings was well received and the county was thus christened after Kings river, the principal source of the irrigation for the district, which stream was discovered in 1805 by an exploring expedition and named Rio de Los Santos Reyes (The River of the Holy Kings).
The Kings county division fight was regarded as the great struggle of the session of 1892-93. William HI. Alford, a brilliant vonug attorney from Tulare county, and a Democrat, was assembly- man from the eastern part of Tulare county, while Stockton Berry, an influential landowner, was senator from the district, and both stood solidly opposed to division. At this session Fresno county had a similar contest on, and the effort to create the county of Madera
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from Fresno was made sinmultaneously, and succeeded. Riverside county was another of the new county movements at this identical session. Of course, the leaders who were interested in all of these fights sought to combine their forces, and succeeded in doing so. The contest was long-drawn, and much bitterness was engendered, but all the wounds have been long since healed with the salve of time and the admitted wisdom of permitting communities possessing suf- ficient wealth and population to enjoy those measures of home . rule which by right belongs to them.
The Blakeley bill, after a turbulent, and at times almost hopeless history, finally passed both houses. The vote in the assembly was forty-five ayes to twenty-seven noes, and in the senate it received twenty-four aves to fifteen noes. The senate's action was taken on March 11, 1893.
As originally created the county had an area of 1257 square miles and when organized in 1893 had an estimated population of 7325. The assessable acreage at that time was 427,281 acres. Ten years after organization the county had a bonded debt of only $32,000, and ten years later, or now, it has no bonded debt. The United States census of 1900 gave the population as 9871, and the thir- teenth census, 1910, gave it 16,230, and an assessed valuation of $14,283,622. By the addition of a strip of territory from Fresno county through the operation of the Webber bill passed by the legislature in 1908-9, the county today has a total area of 1375 square miles or 118 square miles more than it originally possessed.
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CHAPTER XXI LUCERNE VALLEY
In the year 1886 Frank L. Dodge, a newspaper man from Iowa, arrived with his family in Hanford, ostensibly on a visit to brothers and sisters who had located near that town in the pioneer days. Mr. Dodge became enamoured of the country and there being at that time no newspaper published in Hanford, with his oldest brother, the late David Dodge, he founded the Hanford Weekly Sentinel. Like many other people from the East he had a distaste for the term "slough" as applied to a country, the name suggesting mire and miasma to one unacquainted with the term as applied to Mussel Slough which, it is known, is the name given to the natural channels which in early days were open and in flood times were flowing streams. Mr. Dodge sought for a more attractive name for this district and in his paper of April 21, 1887, gave Mussel Slough a new christening and called it Lucerne Valley, a name which stuck to it until the formation of Kings county. We quote from the article naming the district the following: "Nestled among the heights of the storied Alps, fanned by the breezes of Switzerland, is a favored spot, the name of which adorns the page of story and gladdens the minstrel's song. 'The Sweet Vale of Lucerne' is a canton containing 474 square miles, a beautiful country noted for its great production of fruit, stock, grain, and lucerne, or alfalfa clover. It has the River Reuss, the placid Lucerne Lake and the never-fading Alps for prominent geographical features. In 1870, 'The Sweet Vale of Lucerne,' Switzerland, contained 132,338 people.
"This beautiful country of ours about Hanford with its Kings river, its Sierra Nevada and Coast Range mountains, and its glit- tering Tulare Lake, with its superior fruits, stock, grain, alfalfa and climatic advantages is eminently worthy to be a namesake of that old, rich and venerable Lucerne of Europe. This has about the same area and the elements of greater possibilities. Had this, our district, the population of the Lucerne of Europe the spindles of manufacture and the wheels of commerce would thrill the land with active life; the thorough cultivation which would be put upon the land would make it a lovely garden of vegetable luxury; homes would bloom amid floral howers and fruited branches.
"The Lucerne of California has all the possibilities that fancy may picture for an earthly dwelling place. Let our people awaken and hasten on the march of improvements-work to reach that grand development which should enrich, endear and exalt a country
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which kind Nature has so richly endowed with the elements of greatness."
The suggestion made by the editor fell on fruitful soil and took root and grew into a sentiment which finally changed the name of the judicial township from Mnssel Slongh to Lneerne; and under a euphoneons and attractive name the glories of this produc- tive western country were heralded abroad, doing a share of the good work of development.
CHAPTER XXII EARLY COUNTY POLITICS
As a political organization Kings county dates from May 23, 1893. The bill creating the county was signed by Governor H. Il. Markham March 23, 1893, and the governor appointed a commis- sion for the purpose of carrying out the act. This commission was composed of the following named citizens of the new county : Samnel E. Biddle, E. E. Bush, William J. Newport, William Ogden and John H. Malone. Both Mr. Biddle and Mr. Newport had been members of the board of supervisors of Tulare county.
This commission appeared before Dixon L. Phillips, a notary public, on April 3, 1893, and were sworn into office. They imme- diately organized by electing S. E. Biddle chairman and by select- ing George X. Wendling secretary, then adjourned till the following day, Tuesday, April 4, when the commission met and accepted an offer from the Farmers and Merchants Bank for an office room free of rental in which to hold the meetings of the board. On April 5 another meeting was held and the county was formed into five supervisoral districts, as follows: District No. 1, embracing the southwestern portion of the county with three voting precincts, viz: West End, Kings River and Lemoore; District No. 2, embracing the southern portion of the county with three voting precinets, viz. : Paddock, Lakeside and Dallas; District No. 3, embracing the north- eastern and eastern portion of the county. with three precincts. viz: Lucerne, Excelsior and Cross Creek; District No. 4, embracing the northern and northwestern portion of the county with three precinets, viz: Armona, Grangeville and Lucerne; and Distriet No. 5, embracing the city of Hanford.
THE FIRST ELECTION CALLED
On the 18th day of April the county commission issued the first call for an election. This call embraced, besides the election of a
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full set of county officers, the vote upon the question of ratifying the act of the legislature in creating the county, said measure re- quiring that the vote necessary to ratification must be two-thirds of the electors of the county voting in the affirmative. The call fixed the date of the election on May 23, 1893.
PARTIES GOT INTO ACTION
As there had been unity of action between the members of all political parties within the boundaries of the new proposed county in the effort to secure the county there was much harmonious spirit prevailing among the parties when it came to placing tickets before the people. The one great effort to be made was to secure the county and toward that end the politicians worked in harmony yet with much zeal for their respective candidates.
The first political conventions were held in Hanford on Wednes- day, April 19, 1893, the Republicans holding their gathering at Pythian Hall, a framed structure on East Fifth street, which was subsequently burned and never rebuilt, and the Democrats convened in Baker's Hall, at that time the most popular lodge and society hall in the county, but long since abandoned for public meetings. The People's Party also held a convention and placed in nomination a few candidates. So enthusiastic were all parties in their desire to ratify the legislative aet and secure the county, that committees were appointed by each convention for the purpose of conferring and securing the nomination of candidates that would lend the most strength to the cause of county formation. The results of the convention day were that the following nominations were made to be placed on the Australian form of ballot: For Superior Judge -- Justin Jacobs, Republican; Dixon L. Phillips, Democrat. For Dis- triet Attorney-C'osmer B. Clark, People's Party; C. W. Talbot, Republican. For County Clerk-Francis Cunningham, Democrat ; Fred R. M.Fee, Republican. For Sheriff-W. V. Buckner, Repub- lican; R. E. MeKenna, Democrat. For Tax Collector-Jesse Brown, Democrat ; Frank J. Peacock, Republican. For Treasurer-Stiles MeLaughlin, Republican; W. H. Slavin, Democrat. For Recorder- Lonis Decker. Republican. For Anditor-C. C. Farnsworth, Demo- erat. For Assessor-John Rourke, Democrat; John Worswick, Re- publican. For Superintendent of Schools-A. P. Keran, Republican : (. 1. McCourt, Democrat. For Surveyor-E. P. Irwin, Republican ; Joseph Williams, Democrat. For Coroner-B. R. Clow, Democrat ; Charles W. Sullivan, Republican.
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