July 1, 2024

A Message from the President

Dear Members, Supports, Friends, History Heroes and Archive Allies,

Welcome to the month of July! Maybe I should just stop my letter here and call it a day. You should be so lucky, but I can’t do that. There is just so much on my mind. And I don’t think I am the only one spending a lot more time than usual pondering “the way things are” in our community, our state, our nation and our world.



This one thought I keep having goes something like this – are we making the kind of history every day that we are going to be proud to have those in future generations remember us by? Do conversations, even between friends and family, seem to be more serious than usual? Mine are - which is not necessarily a wholly bad thing – although bickering “Real Housewives” or getting “Married at First Sight” would certainly be mindless diversions to be sure. 

FRESNO'S GLOBAL IMPACT TOUR

FRIDAY, JULY 26th - FULL DAY EXCURSION

Fresno is the Disneyland of agriculture. But just how have we earned the title of “the bread and fruit basket of the world?” Come see on Friday, July 26^th , for an all-day experience to tour the Oakland Port Authority in Jack London Square. 

Our expert tour guide for our Fresno Global Ag Impact Tour is Ron Brown who has been with the Port of Oakland for almost 20 years. He was there during the transition of all California ports transferring management from military to city management. Ron is the Commodities Representative and he knows of all the exporters that come through Oakland to transport their goods internationally…including Fresno’s booming Ag Exporters. To know Ron a little bit better, you can read his LinkedIn profile HERE.

Your Ag Tour reservation includes breakfast to go on the motorcoach, a seat on the spacious motorcoach, NEW Ag Trivia prizes, lunch at Mia’s in Jack London Square by the bay, and a curated and up-close port tour by Ron Brown at the Oakland Port of Authorities. RSVP at valleyhistory.org/ag-tour or CLICK HERE FOR RESERVATIONS.

Below is the final itinerary for the Fresno Global Ag Impact Tour Itinerary for Friday, July 26th:

6:45 AM - Arrive at Kearney Mansion for breakfast burritos to take with you on the bus and check in with our staff, after which you will immediately board. 

7:00 AM - Board our spacious motor coach and prepare for a fantastic outing

7:10 AM -  Bus Departure from Kearney Park and travel to Jack London Square. The trip includes Ag Trivia with prizes and historical presentations on the roots of Fresno's agricultural industry.

9:30 AM -   20-minute rest break at Casa de Fruta, with optional complimentary wine tasting.

9:50 AM -  Board bus for a 9:55 AM departure from Casa de Fruta.

12 Noon -    Disembark from bus in front of Oakland Port Authority.

12:10 PM -    Hosted 40-minute lunch at Mia, a contemporary taqueria specializing in authentic Mexican cuisine in Jack London Square, which is included with ticket.

2:45 PM - Port Authority tour with Ron Brown, Commodity Rep of the Oakland Port Authority. This is a ride and walking tour so please wear appropriate footwear.

2:45-2:55 PM -10-minute bathroom break at Oakland Port office.

3:00 PM - Depart Oakland Port and return to Fresno.

5:30-6 PM - 20-minute dinner-to-go break - grab and go dinner on your own in Los Banos: Chipotle, Deli Delicious, Espanas Southwest Bar & Grill, and Starbucks, where you can order your dinner or snack to-go and board the bus for the drive home. 

7:30 PM -  Arrive back at Kearney Mansion.

This extended Ag Tour Excursion is made possible by Kool Breeze Solar Hats.

ARCHIVAL SPOTLIGHT

By Cami Cipolla, Director of Educational Services

Hello Friends of the Archives!

With the launch of our Archives Ally Program last month, I have been delving into collections that require the most support in their digitization and preservation efforts. One such collection first caught my attention in 2018 while I was researching Valley history for an educational programming grant. The Poulson Collection, dating back to 1898, revolves around Elton and Cora Poulson. Elton, a Fresno farmer and WWI veteran of Danish descent, and his wife Cora, lovingly documented their son Richard’s life from birth through his military career until his heroic death during WWII. This collection primarily consists of Richard’s life, including images, letters home, and scrapbooks filled with memories that tell his story. The earliest image is of Elton and his brother Sophus in 1900, with a few other pictures of their Danish parents who immigrated to the Valley in the mid 1800s.

Richard was born on November 24, 1921, in Fresno’s Oleander District. He grew up helping his father on the farm and his mother in the family garden. While attending Fresno State College, Richard enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at Fresno’s Hammer Field on July 18, 1942. He was selected for aviation cadet training and assigned to the Santa Ana Army Air Base near Costa Mesa, California, where he completed basic training and pre-flight ground school. His flight books and training records are part of the collection.

Richard's next phase was primary flight training at Thunderbird Field near Glendale, Arizona, followed by basic flight training at Minter Field near Shafter, California. During this period, Richard wrote letters home often, most of which are included in the collection. He graduated with Class 43-K for advanced multi-engine flight training at Marfa Army Airfield in Texas in December 1943 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the USAAF. Subsequently, he underwent four-engine transition training at Walker Field near Roswell, New Mexico, and B-29 aircraft operational combat crew training at Smoky Hill Army Airfield near Salina, Kansas.

During these years, Richard met Ann. Born in Roswell, NM, Florence Ann Ward married Richard in December 1943. In one of his letters home, Richard apologized to his parents for marrying Ann without informing them or introducing her first, but with deployment being imminent, he and Ann felt it was best to marry sooner rather than later. The couple returned to California, where Ann moved in with Elton and Cora while Richard was deployed.

In November 1944, Richard deployed from Mather Field, California, with refueling stops in Hawaii and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, to the Central Pacific theater of operations. He was assigned to the 20th Air Force, XXI Bomber Command, 73rd Bomb Wing, 499th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy), 877th Bomb Squadron stationed at Isley Field on Saipan in the Mariana Islands. Though his letters show anxious undertones, Richard wrote about daily life on base and sent gifts home from the islands for Ann and his parents.

On June 1, 1945, Richard flew as a pilot aboard a Boeing B-29 Super Fortress nicknamed the “Flying Fool.” It was one of 458 aircraft launched in a multi-wing formation to bombard the urban area of Osaka, Japan. After a flight of approximately six hours and some 1,200 nautical miles, his aircraft reached their checkpoint above Mount Fuji on the main island of Honshu and began their bomb-run southwest towards Osaka. While over their targeted area, at an altitude of 20,000 feet, the nose of the aircraft was hit with flak by anti-aircraft guns from a Japanese warship in Osaka Bay. The "Flying Fool" crashed, with no parachutes seen opening. Though Richard was initially listed as MIA, one year later he was reported Killed In Action. His remains were initially interred at a cemetery on Awaji Island, Japan, and in 1949, they were transferred to Washington Colony Cemetery at Easton, California.

This is merely a snapshot of Richard Poulson. The Poulson Collection holds his memories and his family's memories. Through his letters and scrapbooks, we can get to know the Poulsons and glimpse the impact of the war on the people he knew and loved in Fresno, and the soldiers he served with. We gain an inside view of the past through the eyes of those living in it.

With the support from our Archives Allies, this collection will be digitized, re-accessioned, and properly maintained and stored in the appropriate archival housing, available for access to the public of our community. 

As most of you know, we are transforming 8,000 square feet of subterranean space into a sophisticated, accessible Archives with proper temperature and safety controls—a place to safely house over 150 years of Fresno County history. Once the space is complete, we will be re-accessioning and re-homing the vast collections within the Archives to their new home. By becoming an Archives Ally, you can help fund our preservation efforts. Please reach out for more information on how you can help us make history.

Cheers, friends!

Tickets are going fast for this fun evening of crafting, bottomless mimosas, and scandalous gossip on Thursday, July 11th from 5:00-8:00 PM in the Parlor at Kearney Mansion.

Join us for the debut of Stitch & Sip, an event celebrating handicrafts (with expert guidance) and a chance to make new friends while supporting the Fresno City & County Historical Society.

Bring yourself, a friend, and a pair of size 6, 7 or 8 knitting needles along with a thirst for knowledge, gossip, and mimosas to Stitch & Sip! Space is limited. Get tickets while they last!

ROOTS OF THE VALLEY: Roeding Park

Views of Roeding Park in fall of 1938 - photos courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation

In 1903, Frederick C. Roeding donated 72-acres to the City of Fresno for a municipal park. He hired well-known California landscape architect Johannes Reimers to create the park’s design. George C. Roeding, Frederick’s son, provided most of the plantings from his Fancher Creek Nursery. The park is known today for its many varieties and species of trees and shrubs.  By 1929, additional donations and purchases of Roeding land brought the total acreage to one hundred and fifty-nine.  

Through the 1920s and ‘30s, the park drew record crowds for a wide variety of events. The Doll Buggy Parade and Easter Egg Hunt became annual favorites with children throughout the County. In 1923, Lisenby Bandstand was donated by Mr. And Mrs. A.V. Lisenby in memory of their son. It quickly became a focus of weekly concerts and events. Dug by hand with lines of men and wheelbarrows, Lake Washington was a W.P.A. project during the Depression years.  

During Fresno County’s Centennial Anniversary in 1956, a 76-ton steam locomotive built in 1918 was donated by Southern Pacific Company and placed near Playland where it still impresses visitors today. For over 100 years, Roeding Park has played a significant role in the County’s recreational life. 

Mayor L.O. Stephens planting the 1st tree at Roeding Park - photo courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation.

Early planting at Roeding Park - photo courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation.

Birthday party held in Roeding Park in November 1915 - photo courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation.

Pond at Roeding Park in 1917 - photo courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation.

Family camping in Roeding Park in the summer of 1918 - photo courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation.

Roeding Park in 1926 - photo courtesy of Pop Laval Foundation.

“ORDER COMING OUT OF CHAOS IN WORK AT ROEDING PARK”

“A Transformation Has Taken Place in That Future Beauty Has Been Done – Shade and Picturesqueness Are the Central Ideas of the Seventy-Acre Tract With Miles of Flower-Bordered Drives and Paths.”

“The day will come in about three years more and continue thereafter as long as time, when people will luxuriate in picnic parties in the grateful forest shades of Roeding park, when it will be as great a show place to the visitor as Kearney boulevard and park, when it will be as popular as a drive to feast the eye on the grassy lawns and the picturesque arboreal and floral wreath of the city’s biggest public park. The day will also come when a street railway will run by the park, and when the day of these realizations will have come, the people will arise and call blessed the name of F. Roeding, who made a deed of gift to the city of the seventy acre triangular tract of land on the only condition that the city convert it into a park for the pleasure of the people and expend annually $3,500 for ten years to bring about such conversion.

“The improvement of Roeding park has been progressing for four years, but one has to visit the place and go over it to appreciate the immense amount of the improvement and embellishing work that has been and is being done on this body of land which is destined to be such a picturesque beauty spot of Fresno city for the enjoyment of future generations. In Roeding park, the city is verily building for the future, and although located today one quarter of a mile from the city limits, it is only a question of a few years with the present steady increase of population and spreading of the residence district in that section that the city will have extended in that direction and the park will be at the very edge of the town. Today, city lots are being sold in that quarter of a mile stretch on Belmont avenue for $100 a lot with city water privileges. Time will dispose of the argument advanced by some against the location of the park on the ground of accessibility, for the very force of circumstances will necessitate the building of a street car line to the cemeteries along the avenue and beyond the park tract.

“When the present park commission came into official existence under the charter and assumed control of affairs two years ago last May, it found twenty acres planted to a forest of eucalyptus trees and the triangular tract at the junction of Railroad and Belmont avenues substantially fenced in as the result of two years of work of the former city administration. The city was also in possession of a park plan and system designed by Johannes Reimers, landscape expert of the Santa Fe, for which $300 had been paid. Save in the laying out of the main drives and in the setting out of the twenty-acre eucalyptus grove, no attempt further had been made to execute the plan.

“The immense amount of work in improvement and beautifying the grounds has been done since under the direction of the commission, composed of G.C. Freman, Charles A. Chambers and Shadrack George, at a cost of about $10,000, including an unexpected legacy of $1,200 from the former administrator…

“A visit to the park is a revelation as regard to the amounts of permanency of the work undertaken by the commission so soon to bear fruit.

“There are three main drive entrances to the park, two on Belmont avenue, which is the road to the cemetery, and one on Railroad avenue, following the line of the Southern Pacific company. The main entrance for pedestrians is at the citywards junction of the three avenues and at the apex of the triangle which the tract forms…

“It has been only since the last four months that the order was issued that the park shall be open to the public at all times, and even now, although the roads and drives are hardly fit for traffic because of the candy or dusty character of the roads, many are the daily visitors in vehicles…

“It has been the boast of Landscapist Reimers that with two exceptions there is not a straight line projected in the landscape of Roeding park. One of these exceptions came as the result of the work, before any plan for the park had been evolved, of Former Street Superintendent Smith, who planted the eucalyptus grove in rows od trees as he would a vineyard or orchard. The other was premeditated by Mr. Reimers when he laid out the amphitheatre for the bandstand. This studied elimination of the straight lines in the landscape of the park is for the purpose of giving the effect of amplitude. The eucalyptus grove is on the upper and highest ground in the park and nearest to the ditch, forming a backing for the landscape and acting also as a windbreak. The plan is of course to thin out this grove and here is a suggestion of an income from the sale of firewood…

“…Care has also been exercised in the choice of trees and plants, in that none have been selected that will not grow and thrive in this climate. Trees and plants have been set out in clusters according to species in apparent irregularity to give a forest effect. Landscapist Reimers has made cast iron rules against all pruning, so that the effect of tangles may be produced, Shade and shaded nooks are the objects sought to be gained…

“…Some of these clustered plantings will be picturesque features in the landscape, as for instance the Arizona garden, planted to cacti, yucca palms, dracaenas, century plants and palms; the acacia clusters of which class of trees there are over twenty varieties, and the bamboo clump, which is a contribution of the federal government. Roeding park has been made practically an experimental station for the propagation of trees and plants from foreign lands. The commission has thus come through the government into the possession of valuable and rare trees and plants from China, Algiers and the Mediterranean countries, among which may be named the wood oil tree from China, trees from Japan, the pistachio nut tree from Persia and many seed plants…

“Among the picturesque features will be the entrance at the apex. This will be in a Japanese style of structure continuing in a colonnade 100 feet long forming a wisteria covered and grown archway. This entrance and colonnade leading to the main avenue for pedestrians will be planked by plants and trees indigenous to Japan.

“At the bandstand the 100 feet driveway is broadened almost double. The bandstand will face the park entrance. The audience will be seated in a square shaded by umbrella trees planted in regular order, the band reservation flanked by a covered walk of tree roses, on the outside by a row of sterculia trees and by grass lawns beyond these a picturesque little lake has been laid out. With two more to be added, the cluster to be connected by a waterfall, or more properly speaking, a rapids effect of rushing and foamy water. The park grounds surrounding the lakes will be set out in grass. Each lake will be dotted with a vine covered island connected with the shore with rustic and arched bridges…

“Water there is in plenty for the park. The gift was accompanied by a free water right from the canal back of the park, the city paying its pro rata of the cost of maintaining the ditch. This water has been liberally made use in starting and encouraging the growth of the thousands and thousands of trees and plants. There is a time, however, when there is now water in the irrigation ditches and to provide against this season, the commission has located on the highest land of the sandy ridge of the park a pumping plant at an expense of $1500. With a guaranteed development of 1000 gallons per minute, yet capable of furnishing 1300...”

There is so much more to this story, it will be continued in a future issue of The Grapevine.



The Fresno Morning Republican – August 19, 1907

WE HAVE TWO NEW FACES!

SAY HELLO TO LILIANA AND DEBBIE THE NEXT TIME YOU COME FOR A VISIT!

As some of you may already know, we said a big robust farewell to Humberto Guzman as he has gone off an adventure to Vancouver after his graduation from Fresno State and he will be missed! Every loss provides a new opportunity - and in that, we have had the good fortune to welcome Debbie Unger and Liliana Arteaga into the FCCHS family! We are so excited to have them both come aboard for a non-stop adventure in all of our tours, events and activities! So next time you have a moment, pop by and say hello and make them both feel welcome!

Just a reminder, our tours are offered Friday through Sunday, at 12:00PM, 1:30PM and 3:00PM.

You can even get your tickets online HERE!

MAKING HISTORY EVERY DAY: Fresno History, Community Shine Bright for Juneteenth Celebration

“We’re the keepers of Fresno’s cultural heritage, and sharing that heritage is paramount for us.”

Reprinted from fresnoland.org, June 20, 2024, by Diego Vargas

A Juneteenth celebration hosted by The Alley and Fresno City and County Historical Society put a spotlight on local history and vendors in Fresno.

Held Wednesday at The Archive on Kern, the celebration was an opportunity for Fresnans to learn about the history of the Black community in Fresno, as well as an outlet for the historical society to show community members the work they have done to preserve local history and artifacts.

“We’re the keepers of Fresno’s cultural heritage, and sharing that heritage is paramount for us,” said Cami Cipolla, director of educational programs and services for the Fresno City and County Historical Society.

On top of presenting a talk with local artist Kámbrya Bailey and a panel discussion with community leaders and advocates, the celebration was filmed to become a part of the historical society’s oral history collection.

The historical society’s archive holds almost 300 oral history recordings, audio recordings of residents from as far back as WWII recounting their personal stories and experiences in Fresno County.

“You can sit and listen to the stories of some of these residents going through a period of history that isn’t always talked about from their perspective,” Cipolla said.

Of note is the Ethnic Oral History Project, a collection of recorded oral histories from Hispanic and Black community members in 1977 and 1978 recounting their own life stories, covering topics ranging from agriculture, civil rights and personal anecdotes.

“It’s really critical that youth of today and later are able to hear people that sound like them, that had the same journey that they did,” said Elizabeth Laval, president of the Fresno City and County Historical Society.

“We want that to be there for the future; we don’t only chronicle what happened in the past; we’re making history every day,” she added, referring to the oral history recordings they conducted during the Juneteenth celebration.

Present during the celebration was K’La Gonzalez, a 25-year-old local artist originally from San Jose.

“I love the fact that there’s so much history and they have black owned businesses, families [and] communities coming together,” said Gonzalez. “For Juneteenth, that’s a huge step forward.”

Gonzalez also said that events such as the Juneteenth celebration and Art Hop were instrumental in finding her place in the community within Fresno.

Although the celebration and Juneteenth are only for a day, Laval said that the historical society has more on the horizon to celebrate and preserve.

Having acquired the building in 2023, one of the reasons the Archive on Kern was chosen as the home for the historical society was its basement space, which the society plans on turning into a safe environment for historical artifacts.

Moreover, after applying and qualifying for Measure P funds, the society plans to create a studio within the Archive on Kern to allow residents to come and record their own oral histories. However, delays in the Measure P funds have put a stop to the historical society’s plans indefinitely.

“We are stuck until they free the funds,” Laval said.

Regardless, Laval explained that the historical society will continue its work in documenting and preserving the history of local residents in Fresno.

“We’ve been capturing the stories and treasures from everyone for so long,” Laval said, “and we were looking forward to sharing it with everyone.”