Fresno-Tulare-Kern County CA Archives History - Books .....Facts Worth Knowing About California 1892
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 10, 2007, 3:00 am

Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of The Counties Of Fresno, Tulare, And Kern, California

  For convenience as a ready reference we give some important figures:

FACTS WORTH KNOWING ABOUT CALIFORNIA.

  California is the second largest State in the Union; area, 157,801 square miles.

  She is the leading State in the value of gold product. Total value of gold and
silver produced since 1848, $1,367,450,000.

  It is the most diversified agricultural State in the Union. Produces more wine
and honey than any other State, and is the only State producing raisins. It is
the only State in which the olive thrives, and is the home of the orange and the
fig. It is the leading producer of almonds, walnuts, etc., and justly claims the
finest climate as well as the largest trees in the world. She has the largest
per capita wealth of all States in the Union, and has the third commercial city,
San Francisco.

  Value of mineral products in 1890, $23,850,000.

  Population in 1880, 864,690; in 1890, 1,205,391.

  Ranked twenty-second in population in 1890. Ranked sixteenth in percentage of
growth from 1880 to 1890. Percentage of increase of population, 39.25;
percentage of increase of voters, 55.75.

  Assessed value of property in 1880, $666,183,320; in 1890, $1,060,390,296.
Deposits in savings banks, 1890, $98,442,000; increase over 1889, $11,430,000.
Deposits in commercial banks, 1890, $42,321,000; increase over 1889, $1,869,000.
Total deposits in all banks, 1890, $171,229,531. Value of manufactured products,
1880, $116,218,000; in 1890, $165,000,000.

  Miles of railroad in the State, 4,500; assessed valuation, $40,248,000.

  Area arable land, 38,000,000 acres; cultivated, 2,500,000 acres; forests,
20,000,000 acres. Area wine and raisin-grape vineyards, 225,000 acres. Capital
invested in vineyards, $80,000,000.

  Wine product for 1890, 18,200,000 gallons; dried wine grapes, 9,000,000
pounds. Raisin output for the year, 2,000,000 boxes, or 40,000,000 pounds. Prune
crop for the year, 15,000,000 pounds. Green fruits shipped East in 1880,
5,180,000 pounds; in 1890, 105,000,000 pounds. Dried fruits shipped East in
1880, 590,000 pounds; in 1890, 66,318,000 pounds. Value of cereal, hay and root
crops in 1890, $70,000,000. Oranges shipped East, 1889-'90, 3,187 car-loads;
crop, 1890-'91, 4,000 carloads.

  Number of farm animals in the State, 6,063,440; total value, $57,771,280. Bean
crop, 1890, 1,000000 centals. Honey product for 1890, 6,000,000 pounds. Average
annual wool product, 35,000,000 pounds. Average annual barley product,
16,000,000 bushels. Hops consumed and shipped, 40,000 bales. Wheat crop, 1890,
27,000,000 centals; exports, 13,266,409 centals, valued at $17,600,000. Flour
exported in 1890, 1,201,304 barrels, valued at $4,899,000.

  Public school expenditures in 1890, $5,119,096; increase over 1889,
$1,057,779. Number of children attending school in 1890, 198,960. Securities in
school fund, 1890, $3,268,350. Total value of school property, 1890,
$13,624,143; increase since 1888, $3,060,363.

"WONDERFUL."

  The reader who has not traveled over California, spent months in various
portions of the State, and noted the wonderful products, may question our term,
"wonderful," as applied to the golden member of the great American Union. We
will therefore itemize a few among the many just grounds we have for calling
California "wonderful."

  The width of the State on the north end is 216 miles; extreme extension from
west to east, 352 miles; average width about 235 miles; extension from north to
south, 655 miles. A direct line from the northwest corner of the State to Fort
Yuma, being the longest line in the State, is 830 miles; a direct line from San
Francisco to Los Angeles is 342 miles; from San Francisco to San Diego, 451
miles. San Diego lies 350 miles south and 285 miles east of San Francisco. Los
Angeles lies 258 miles south and 225 miles east of San Francisco. Cape
Mendocino, the most westerly point in the State, is ninety-six miles west and
185 miles north of San Francisco.

  California has an area of 157,801 square miles, or 100,992,640 acres, of which
80,000,000 acres are suited to some kind of profitable husbandry. It is three
and one-half times as large as the State of New York, which according to the
census of 1890 has a population of 5,981,934. California will make five States
the size of Kentucky, which has a population of 1,855,436. It will make
twenty-four States the size of Massachusetts, which has a population of
2,233,407. It has an area 144 times as great as Rhode Island. It is four-fifths
the size of Austria, and nearly as large as France, each having a population of
more than 36,000,000. It is nearly, double the size of Italy, which has a
population of more than 27,000,000; and it is one and one-half times greater
than Great Britain and Ireland, having a population of more than 32,000,000.
California's areas of climate, salubriousness and degrees of temperature, as
well as the general proportions thereof, are in striking contrast to the area
and fertility of her soil.

  She has the largest valley in the world; and when we make this assertion we
mean to define a valley by boundaries of hills or mountains, and not as
extensive plains bordering on immense streams, such as the vast expanse of level
land along the Mississippi river, or the great body of low lands along the
Amazon river in South America. The valley wonder of California we will reserve
for special treatise further on in this work.

  California has the highest elevation of land in the United States, the
grandest mountain scenery in America, and not surpassed, if equaled, by any in
the world. She has a longer range of mountain heights, extending up into the
regions of perpetual snow, than has any country of like area in the United
States. She has some of the most beautiful, grand and picturesque valleys on
earth. She has the wonder of the world in timber growth, the mighty Sequoia or
redwood trees, some of which are thirty-six feet in diameter and tower
heavenward all of 400 feet. California has more of the valuable metals than any
other like area of earth now known to man.

  California has a greater variety of and a better climate than all other
countries combined. The statement as to climate is difficult to define or
explain. The writer desires to- be understood as desiring to convey the idea of
the wonderful variety of climate, difference of temperature, etc., to be found
within a radius of a few miles from a given point, and the peculiar sensation
produced by the approaching shades of evening following the warm, sunny day. And
here it is in place to state that California has more bright, delightful days
than any other State in the Union.

  She can also boast of a greater share of sea-coast line than can any other
State. She produces nearly all kinds of fruits and vegetables that other States
produce, and a great many which others cannot. She can point with pride to the
best wheat produced in the world. She also possesses the two largest
observatories in the world. There is but one California in all the world, and
the world is beginning to recognize that fact.

  The above statements were made by the late Governor Waterman, a few years
since, and thousands can testify that he was right. There is but one California
in the whole world, and so far as the western hemisphere is concerned there is
no other State or country at all like it or comparable with it. That we may not
be accused of speaking in an unduly boastful manner of California, at the outset
we will concede that other States and other countries in the western world may
possess certain points of superiority over California, vet the fact remains the
same,-that California is at least unlike any other country under the sun.

  In point of geographical extent California is a great State. The area and
proportions as to other States and countries having been stated. we will further
say that California is a "hill country," so that not all of her vast area can be
classed as arable until such time as her population shall press upon her
productive powers for their sustenance much harder than they are likely to for
some generations to come; but in time there is little doubt that even her steep
mountain sides will be called upon to contribute their share to the sustenance
of the State's great family, and will respond more generously than people now
deem possible. Were one to ascend Mount Hamilton, and set the great Lick
telescope to a terrestrial rather than to a celestial gaze, and with it survey
the State from Shasta to San Diego, he would perceive that of a truth California
is a hilly country. The State is deeply cleft longitudinally by its great
interior valley, the valley of the Sacramento sweeping grandly northward to
Shasta's feet, and that of the San Joaquin southward to Tehachapi. All else seen
by the observer would be mountains, though many broad and fertile valleys lie
hidden between them-mountains arranged in mighty chains, in scattered groups,
detached spurs, and lone sentinels; mountains piled peak upon peak, until their
snowy summits pierce heaven's dome; and mountains decapitated and leveled off
into arable plateaus; rock-ribbed mountains ragged and desolate as icebergs, and
mountains whose outlines are curved as gracefully as the rainbows and. whose
sides are clad in a vesture reflecting all the rainbow's colors.

  In beauty and grandeur of natural scenery California is not excelled by any
country in the world. Her waterfalls are highest; her mountain valleys are cut
deepest; her lakes, though small, are gems of purest ray placed in most gorgeous
settings; her precipices are most abrupt and present largest surfaces to the view.

  Nor are her climatic conditions less varied than her scenery. She has within
her borders all the climates of the five zones, and often within plain view of
each other. Her thermal belts are frostless, her valleys temperate, her deserts
torrid and her mountain summits are wrapped in perpetual snow. She has large
areas as rainless as Egypt, and other sections where the rain is measured by the
foot rather than by the inch. In portions of the State snow is never seen nearer
than the distant mountain-tops, while in other parts only the tops of the trees
are visible above the downy covering.

  But it is not in her great geographical extent, nor yet in her varied and most
picturesque scenery, that California takes most pride. She is proudest of her
great diversity of climatic conditions and the corresponding diversity of
production which her climate permits. What Italy and Switzerland are to Europe,
and more, California will be to the Western world. Her mission is that of a
ministering angel to all her sister States; she will heal their sick, supply
their tables with all the choicest delicacies of all climes and seasons; she
will become the pleasure grounds of the nation and the sanitarium of the world.
Busy men, their tasks completed, will fly to California to spend in stormless
peace their declining years. Students will seek her salubrious climate to study,
artists to gather inspirations, and poets to sing' their sweetest, songs.

  The world demands of each community that of those commodities which are most
needful, each shall produce what it can produce best, and commerce is legitimate
only when it effects an interchange of such commodities as may be produced with
advantage for such as may not. Other States can produce pork, beef, mutton,
wool, as well, perhaps, as California; but where within the Union, if not from
California, are her sister States to get their supplies of peaches, prunes,
pears, grapes, raisins, almonds, oranges, lemons, limes, figs, pomegranates and
olives? North America furnishes no rival to California in the production of all
these delicacies. She has an easy, natural, legitimate monopoly of them all.
Thus it is that the world shall demand these things of her, and her supply will
be ever equal to the demand. She  must first have her large grant ranches
divided and subdivided into small tracts, owned by enterprising, industrious
workers, who will drive out from their midst the drones who toil not but consume
the substance of the industrious. She must have her many valleys, hillsides and
mesas settled upon, planted and cultivated; and when all this is done and well
done, California will have become the Empire State of the nation. This state of
affairs will not be long in  coming, for "there is but one California in all the
world, and the world is  beginning to recognize that fact."

  What is the secret of the undeniable, almost indescribable, fascination which
is exercised by California upon every one who comes within the reach of her
influence? The permanent resident and the transient visitor alike are subject to
that mysterious enchantment. Why is it that scarcely an individual who remains
here for twelve months can be persuaded to shake off the glamour which
insensibly steals over him, and return to his old home? Why is it that, no
matter how strong may be the affection once felt for the home of childhood, all
that sentiment intensified tenfold is transferred to this far Western land, and
that the feeling of loyalty to their adopted home outweighs all national or
sectional feeling in the hearts of the people of this State and makes them above
all else Californians?

  Here is gathered a more cosmopolitan population than can be found in any other
part of the world. Every State in the Union is here represented. Every province
in British America; every one of the Central and South American countries; every
country in Europe and Asia, Africa, Australia and the uttermost isles of the
sea, is represented,-American and Englishman, German and Frenchman, Greek and
Russian, Spaniard and Portuguese, Italian and Austrian, Hungarian and Pole, Dane
and Swede, Armenian and Slavonian, Alaskan and Mexican, Canadian and Brazilian,
Chilean and Sonoranian, Hawaiian and Samoan, Chinese and Japanese, Malay and
Indian, Persian and Arabian,-white, black, red and yellow, and all the
intermingling shades,-all live here side by side, and all are imbued with the
same common sentiment which makes them Californians, no matter from what source
they have originally sprung. That such a conglomerate mass from all nations of
the earth should live contentedly here in the closest juxtaposition speaks
marvelously well, both for the laws and institutions of the country as well as
for the attractions of this particular portion of the universe. With the single
exception of the Chinese, few of these people, after having passed a year here,
can be persuaded to return to their old homes. They may have come in the first
place with the intention of remaining but a short time, but as the years roll
round the sentiment of affection grows stronger and stronger, until finally
nothing but the scythe of the Reaper proves sufficient to sever the ties that
have become so powerful. Occasionally, it is true, the memories of old home
become so strong that one returns thither, filled with the determination to
remain, but a short stay is usually sufficient, and almost before his absence
has been noted he is back again. "California is good enough for me," is the
universal conclusion of every one who has lived here for any length of time, and
who by any means is persuaded to pay a visit to his previous home, no matter in
what part of the world it may be.

  While in other portions of the United States there is a constant change in
progress, a continual going and coming, a departure of discouraged people for
other localities, and an arrival of those who hope to be satisfied, nothing of
the sort is seen here, so far at least as regards the departure of the old
settlers. Since the subsidence of the gold-mining excitement, in the days when
men came to the State simply to "make their pile" and get home as quickly as
possible, there has been practically no emigration of people who have once
settled here. Let the reader, if he be an old Californian, cast about in his
circle of acquaintances and note how few if any have ever gone back East and
remained there. It is no doubt true that such instances do occasionally occur,
but in the majority of cases a single winter's experience has been sufficient to
drive them back again to the Pacific coast. As a rule, people who remain in
California for a year remain for a lifetime. They are never so well satisfied
anywhere else. Having once fallen under the influence of the climate, the
scenery, the manners and customs of California, they feel lost anywhere else,
and are unable to accommodate themselves to other circumstances.

  For the person who has never had the good fortune to visit the Pacific coast,
California has, too, a charm of a forceful though perhaps indefinable character.
Such was the case with the writer previous to coming to California. From the
time the first Americans crossed the plains or sailed around the Horn and
returned with their marvelous tales of the sunny land, there has been a glamour
cast over the very name of California which has caused hundreds of thousands to
look this way with longing eyes and to regard a trip hither as the consummation
of one of their warmest desires. The stories of the early explorers, the
journals of Fremont and his contemporaries, the experience of the gold hunters,
told in book, magazine and newspaper, in prose and poetry; the quaint records of
the missions; the marvelous discoveries of scenery, the grandest the world
knows; the genial climate, without a parallel elsewhere; the wonderful
development of resources, shown in the fact that California is rapidly becoming
the orchard and the vineyard of the world,-all these and numerous other reasons
have given to the State an attractiveness that is felt the world over, and is
well nigh irresistible to any one who has been so fortunate as to have been
placed within its influence.

  While acknowledging the strength of the fascination which California exerts
upon all within her reach, few seem to consider of what that influence is
composed. Each individual has his own idea on the subject, and the feature that
appeals most strongly to the individual imagination becomes in his opinion the
principal claim to distinction. Each writer follows his own particular bent, and
too frequently in so doing is led away by enthusiasm and by those features which
appeal most strongly to him, and so does not do justice to other particulars
which to the impartial judge are fully as deserving of notice. Another
difficulty is that a great portion of the information furnished for Eastern and
foreign readers is the work of visitors who pass at the most but a few months in
the State, hastily skim over the surface, visiting a few of the principal cities
and towns on the main line of railroad, and then set down their necessarily
superficial observations as indisputable facts. If there is any part of the
world more than another which needs persistent study and investigation in order
to acquire perfect knowledge concerning all its salient features, that part is
certainly California. It is a region of contradictions. Two perfectly impartial
travelers may traverse the State and faithfully report their experience and
impressions, yet one would never for a moment suspect that they were both
writing of the same country, so entirely different in every detail would be
their statements. Thus, one might write of California as a region of snow and
ice. He might with perfect truth tell of railroads inclosed for miles with
massive structures which resemble tunnels dug through the snow. He might with
equal propriety and truthfulness tell of two-story buildings so completely
hidden by snow that their very existence would not be apparent to the stranger.
He could tell of snow slides which have wiped towns out of existence, and by the
side of which the avalanche of the Alps sinks into insignificance. He could with
truth complain of railroad travel suspended for weeks despite all the efforts of
thousands of men, aided by the best and most powerful steam machinery known to
modern ingenuity, lie could, in fact, draw such a picture of Arctic California
as would make even an Esquiman shudder. On the other hand, another traveler,
writing upon the self-same day, could with equal truth tell of a journey in
which the utmost discomfort was suffered from heat and thirst. He could tell of
traveling vast stretches where the quivering heat actually sears the eyeballs,
where the water supply becomes lower and lower, until exhausted; where one would
give his right arm for but a single draught of the precious fluid, and where,
failing it, more than one poor wretch has either lain down to die has had the
nerve to place the muzzle of a pistol to his tortured brain and pull the trigger
that released him from the burning torture. And still another traveler might on
the same day, write truthfully and give the reader a pen-picture of the most
sublime region and clime ever invaded by man.

He could tell of hill and plain carpeted with the most lovely flowers that the
eye ever rested upon; billows of gold and blue, pink and white, stretching in
every direction. Also of orange groves, their dark green foliage intermingled
with the golden fruit-golden in a double sense; the atmosphere heavy with the
odor of blossoms, the drone of bees humming in his ears. He might, indeed, with
truth claim to have found Tennysons's "Land of the Afternoon" realized in every
detail.

  Contradictory as all this may sound, nevertheless it might all be written with
equal truth at one and the same time. Indeed, these seeming impossibilities and
contradictions might be carried much further, until the reader were entangled in
a mass of apparent paradoxes absolutely appalling. It is from this fact of so
many having written about California from a single standpoint, and because there
is such a vast amount of new information afloat upon the subject, that we
propose to consider the various attractions of the State and to treat each as
fairly, dispassionately and fully as the space in this volume will permit. This
brief description is not from the hands of a casual traveler, with an
acquaintance of a few months at the most, but rather from one who has for many
years studied every feature of this wonderful State; and who is thoroughly
familiar with it from the Mexican to the Oregon line, and from the ocean sands
to the eastern slope of the Sierra; who has no feeling of prejudice for one
section more than another, but whose love for California as a whole is as warm
as such a sentiment can possibly be. Whether the task shall have been faithfully
performed, the reader must judge. One thing may be accepted as certain, namely,
that no statements are made, no matter how startling or apparently
contradictory, that are not susceptible of the most ample demonstration. Many
things will possibly appear to the uninitiated like reversals of what are
supposed to be the immutable laws of nature. Yet the accuracy of these
statements will be conceded by all the old Californians and those acquainted
with the facts. The sole purpose here is to give the truth, and nothing but the
truth, devoid of exaggeration in every detail. No friend of California need fear
the facts or desire to suppress any of them. California is so far superior to
any other part of the world that the worst of her drawbacks become almost
advantages, and indeed in many instances they are truthfully so, as we will
endeavor to show.

  The attractions of California are of a varied character. Whether one touches
the history, the climate, the scenery, or the development by artificial means,
he finds so much to admire and wonder at that it requires a long period of
investigation and familiarity before an adequate conception can be formed of
their real immensity. The historical features of the State have been so fully
dealt with by many able writers that little is left to be said. Yet we will draw
from the many, at the same time realizing that there are certain phases of this
feature of attractions that are of the highest interest, because too frequently
neglected. What may be called the prehistoric history of this State affords rare
opportunities for study,-opportunities that are all too much neglected, and are
indeed rapidly passing away. The rock inscriptions of the coast, the Sierra and
the desert should be transcribed, and so far as possible translated. That they
were made with a definite purpose and have a distinctive meaning, no one who has
seen them can doubt. George W. Stewart, a promising young writer, editor of the
Delta, at Visalia, Tulare County, is deeply interested in preserving the above
historic matter, and is now engaged in gathering such inscriptions as his time
will permit. The cliff dwellings and mounds of the desert and of the grand canon
of the Colorado are certainly worthy of investigation, while in the folk-lore
and traditions of the remnants of the Indian tribes which once densely populated
the coast there is a mine for investigation of unsurpassed interest of which, if
much longer delayed, all traces will be obliterated, for soon the last of the
aborigines will have passed away. The origin of those tribes themselves opens
another broad field. Types can be selected from the Indian tribes and from the
Chinese residents of this coast which, placed side by side, are so similar in
every respect as to be startling. Notably is this so with the Indians of
Southern California. Individuals can be found in those tribes, who, except for
peculiarities of dress and mode of wearing their hair, resemble in every feature
the Chinese, while on the other hand Chinese are frequently seen who compare in
every detail of feature with the Indians. Yet with all this racial resemblance,
no more cordial and reciprocal hatred can be conceived than that which exists
between the two peoples.

  But it is not the purpose of this work to go into the historical attractions
of California, numerous and interesting though they be. The climate, scenery and
notable physical characteristics of the State, are all we can take under
consideration here, and only the most salient features thereof attempted. Many
of the leading features are widely known, and, therefore, we will give more
detail to some not so well understood. The unbeaten paths will be necessarily
followed to some extent, and an effort made to show that there are many
attractive features which are as yet unknown, or familiar to but few at most.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Memorial and Biographical History
OF THE COUNTIES OF
Fresno, Tulare, and Kern, California

Illustrated
Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the
Earliest Period of its Occupancy to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of
its Prospective Future: with Profuse Illustrations of its Beautiful Scenery,
Full-page Portraits of Some of its most Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of
Many of its Pioneers, and also of Prominent Citizens of to-day.

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants." -Macaulay.

CHICAGO:
The Lewis Publishing Company.
Undated, but OCLC lists a publication date of 1892

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