PREFACE
Dear reader,
we, the publisher, have carefully reviewed and edited this book, whose original edition dates back to the year 1919. Well over a hundred hours of work have passed correcting it, but still it was not possible to eliminate all the mistakes that a 20th century scanner produced. The original scans we had at our disposal were of very poor quality. While it was possible to correct and eliminate special characters or false letters, there is unfortunately sometimes a dot where a comma should be, or a colon where a semicolon belongs, or the odd apostrophe, that a small dot in the scan generated in the text file. While we still corrected and eliminated ten thousands of errors, does not hinder the reading pleasure in any way and still makes this version of this rare book much more valuable than other versions on the market that have not been edited at all. We think it is fair to say that this is not 100% of a perfect book, but a 99% edition that has not been available since the original editions vanished from the shelves. We wish all readers a great time browsing through the history of Fresno County and the hundreds of biographies of the most important personalities.
CHAPTER I
California is a land of never ending wonders and surprises, a land that can only be described in superlatives.
Literally and figuratively, Fresno County is to the state an empire within an empire — imperium in imperio as the Latin phrase has it. This statement is not put forth as the declaration of a newly discovered fact, but to emphasize that an old one is incontrovertible as the result of a remarkable twin development of state and county.
California, thirty-first state of the union, is about 780 miles long, has a breadth varying from 148 to 235 miles, a sea-coast line 1,200 miles long through ten degrees of latitude, a total area of 158,297 square miles of which 2,645 comprise water surface, and an estimated 101,310,080 acres, in great part rough, mountainous country, or desert. The term desert is a relative one. The land now comprised within Fresno County's area was long considered desert, fit only for pasturage and worthless for agriculture. Much of it is yet regarded in that category, lacking the water to make it productive. Imperial Valley in the county of the same name, the southeasternmost in the state located between San Diego County and the Colorado river as the state boundary line is another notable desert wonder in the agricultural line. Other instances might be quoted to emphasize the declaration that California is a land of never ending wonders and surprises.
Approximately one-half of the land surface is under federal control, including the nineteen and one-half millions or more acres in the national forests. As to area, California is second among the states of the union. Texas alone exceeds it. It is larger than the nine combined states of New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Ohio. It is one of the richest among the states, with a startling record of material achievements and with potentialities so varied and great as to stagger the mind in the contemplation of them.
Fresno, forty-first of the counties in the order of creation, has a land area of 5,950 square miles, or 3,808.000 acres. When organized, it was much larger, but in March, 1893, a slice of 2,121 square miles was taken off from the northern part to form Madera County, and in 1909 were transferred to Kings County 120 square miles of the southeastern portion. Even with these 2,241 square miles lopped off from the original 8,214 before partition, Fresno ranks sixth of the fifty-eight counties in the state as to area. Only five exceed it, namely, Inyo, Kern, Riverside and Siskyou, San Bernardino leading. As to population, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alameda and Santa Clara lead it in the order named. The 1910 census returned a county population of 75,657, and for the county seat, 24,892. An estimate of 29,809 for the city was made in July, 1914, and one of 45,000 in June, 1914. The latter is according to the 1916 report of the state controller, but manifestly too liberal for various reasons. Estimates made on the figured basis of school attendance, directory publishers and chamber of commerce advertising literature all give greater returns but must be accepted with allowances. It is not to be denied that there have been large annual accessions in the rural and urban populations, but a census enumeration and not theoretical surmises will be required to give reliable figures.
The county is fourth, with Sacramento a very close fifth, for total value of assessed property. Fresno is one of the very few counties in the state that had no public indebtedness. An estimate of the value of the county's public property is the following:
Courthouse Grounds and Jail $1,207,000
Hospital, Almhouse and Grounds 318,000
Fair Grounds and Buildings 100,000
Orphanage 30,000
County Library Equipment 10,000
Total $1,665,000
The county had no outstanding bonds and no floating indebtedness. It has $150,000 invested in state highway bonds, $300,000 in Liberty war bonds, $19,490 in county school district bonds that buying speculators would not purchase because of the smallness of the issues, and in December, 1917, had $.590,200 of accumulated funds out on two per cent call loans, a sum that fluctuates from time to time. The statistical figures of the assessor give the county an acreage of 2.251,520.
ASSESSED PROPERTY VALUATIONS
Assessed value of property for 1916-17 in the state, county and city of Fresno is exhibited in the following tabulation:
State
Real Estate $1,851,485,421
Improvements 696,960,698
Personal Property 333,403,268
Money and Credits 35,005,709
Non Operative Roll 2,916,855,096
Operative Roll 504.284,748
Railroads 157,006,590
State Grand Total: $3,578,146,434
Fresno County
Real Estate $41,644,875
Improvements 11,421 ,988
Personal Property 9,892,398
Money etc. 110,547
Total $63,069,808
Fresno City
Real Estate $11,596,555
Improvements 7,764,385
Personal Property 3,039,137
Money, etc. 179,585
Total