Aug. 11, 2024
Hanford Insider: Celebrating Hanford's 133rd Birthday, Community Updates
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Celebrate Hanford's rich history with us as we sit down with local historian Michael Semas for an engaging chat in honor of the town's 133rd anniversary of incorporation. Discover how Hanford evolved from a pass-through area for the Tachi Yokut tribe to a bustling town shaped by the Southern Pacific Rail Line. Michael shares riveting stories about the town's wild early days, the significant role of the railroad, and the Mussel Slough Tragedy, shedding light on the resilience and determination of Hanford's early settlers.
Our exploration doesn't stop there. We'll take you through the storied history of Hanford High School, from its humble beginnings in 1895 to the iconic Neighbor Bowl constructed by the Works Project Administration. Learn about the community's dedication to preserving its architectural heritage, including treasured landmarks downtown. Join us for a fascinating journey through Hanford's past and present, celebrating the town's enduring spirit and commitment to its historic roots.
You can find the Hanford Insider at www.hanfordinsider.com and on social media at @hanfordinsider
Thank you for supporting the show!
Chapters
00:36 - Community Update
02:09 - Community Calendar
03:08 - Hanford High School and Historic Restoration
38:02 - Call To Action
Transcript
WEBVTT
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On this week's show.
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Rob gives a quick community news update and then we talk a little Hanford history with Michael Simas, as we celebrate the 133rd anniversary of the incorporation of the City of Hanford.
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This is the Hanford Insider.
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I'm your host, rob Bentley, in community news.
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The Hanford City Council met last Tuesday evening.
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During the study session they received a report from the Department of Parks and Community Services with five concept designs to choose from for the expansion of Hidden Valley Park.
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There's much more work to be done and it will be a very expensive project, but it's good to have those plans in place in case a significant grant is received.
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They also approved a zoning change to allow for a 64-unit apartment complex to be built at Centennial and Grangeville next to the Berkshire Crossings Apartments, with plans in the future for a gas station and drive-thru that would front Grangeville Boulevard.
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The next City Council meeting is August 20th.
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This Tuesday, august 13th, the East Lacey Boulevard Improvement Project funding announcement and kickoff event will be held on East Lacey Boulevard across from the old Spartan Final Building at noon.
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A major infrastructure project planned for years will finally come to fruition following Representative David Valadao's successful efforts to secure federal funding in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations package that was signed into law earlier this year.
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The East Lacey Boulevard improvement project will involve the widening and reconstruction of East Lacey Boulevard from 10th Avenue all the way to the improvements that have already been made near Costco, providing numerous safety benefits for drivers and pedestrians, as well as a much-needed facelift for a well-traveled corridor that is also home to many of Hanford's businesses.
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Here's some things coming up on our community calendar.
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At this week's Thursday Night Marketplace it's Art in the Park Night the band Motel Drive will be performing.
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It looks like it's going to be perfect weather for the return of the marketplace after having to cancel for so many weeks.
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It's going to be perfect weather for the return of the marketplace after having to cancel for so many weeks.
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The Remington is hosting a luau on Friday, august 16th at 3 pm.
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There will be hula dancing and a performance by Kealoha.
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Also on Friday night, the King Speedway welcomes the Peter Murphy Classic featuring Kubota High Limit Racing.
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Visit racekingsSpeedwaycom for more information.
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On Saturday, august 17th at 9 am, centennial Park will host the Walk with a Dog.
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If you have an event coming up and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together.
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Send your information to HanfordInsider at gmailcom.
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Be sure to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get a complete calendar of events.
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August 12th marks the 133rd anniversary of the incorporation of our city in 1891, and I'm sitting down now with local historian Michael Simas.
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Most of you know him from his historical Facebook pages great pictures and great history and I've enjoyed my friendship with Michael for a number of years.
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Now we're both on the board at the Carnegie Museum of Kings County and we have a great opportunity to share history with you today.
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Welcome to the show, michael.
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Thank you very much.
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Share history with you today.
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Welcome to the show, michael.
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Thank you very much.
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So, michael, you know the history of Hanford.
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A lot of people have maybe ever heard James Madison Hanford's name and they kind of know about the railroad that Hanford was founded on the railroad.
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But before that time Hanford had some interesting developments before they actually became the city of Hanford.
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Can you tell us maybe a little bit about what Hanford looked like and who lived here before it was Hanford?
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Well, the original people that lived here probably didn't even live here, they just passed on through, which were the Tachiyokuts tribes that lived in the area.
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There is evidence of people moving in here as early as 1875, 1876.
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The family that I'm aware of that moved in at that time was the Coe family, spelled C-O-E, and their descendants still live here today in Hanford.
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Look at, I've walked around downtown Hanford and I've walked around outside of downtown Hanford along the Southern Pacific Rail Line and it seems to me that the reason why Hanford was put where it's at is that it appears to be the highest spot in this area for a railroad and Hanford's never really had any issues with flooding in a large scale and it has a lot to do with the fact that it was located where it's at.
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There were sheep herders that lived here, there were Chinese railroad workers that lived here when the railroad was put in and you look at the early growth, the maps that were published by Sanborn Fire Map the first and earliest map that I've seen is an 1885 map of Hanford and about all of the major businesses that appeared in.
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That were grain warehouses and bars, and I could tell that town was quite wild at the time, A picture that I have in my collection.
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It's scanned from the original.
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Probably the earliest known picture I've seen of Hanford was 1879.
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And it shows a group of less than savory characters standing out in front of a bar which was situated on the northeast corner of Dowdy and 6th Street.
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It was a you could tell it was quite the wild establishment, so I would say that at this time it was a cast of characters that are lost to history.
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So let's talk about the railroad and its impact on the growth of Hanford.
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We know that at that time, sixth Street was actually the main drag in Hanford and that's where, like you said, all the establishments were the businesses.
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Tell us a little bit about Front Street, which we now call 6th Street.
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Surprisingly, many of the early buildings that existed on Front Street, 6th Street, still survive today.
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The wooden ones were long gone today.
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The wooden ones were long gone.
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Hanford had several devastating fires that preceded its foundation as a city.
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I'm thinking that in my mind there's a couple two-story buildings that are on the north side of 6th Street, east of Dowdy.
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Those were well-made buildings for the time.
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East of Dowdy, those were well-made buildings for the time.
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Head down on the west side of Dowdy, those buildings were also built in the late 1880s and they are still standing.
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Outside of that there wasn't much.
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I would think there were people that the map that we have only shows that type of activity going on in the city at that time.
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Let's move on to the railroad.
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Obviously, the railroad.
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In our earlier discussions we were talking about the different rail lines that were in the valley.
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Now we know, of course, the main line that runs through town that everybody complains about 50 trains a day.
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And then we have the line that goes through, you know, Kalinga to Goshen, which, eventually, in an earlier interview I was talking with the high-speed rail authority and they were talking about the reestablishment of the cross valley corridor for passenger travel.
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So that's pretty interesting.
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That's in the future.
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Yeah, probably way in the future.
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Yeah, my grandchildren might see it the future?
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Probably way in the future.
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Yeah, my grandchildren might see it.
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But let's talk about James Madison Hanford and his impact on the railroad and kind of how we got our city name.
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James Madison, hanford was the paymaster for Southern Pacific Railroad and it was his responsibility to make sure that all the employees of the railroad were timely compensated.
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He had worked for the railroad system for over 40 years and at his retirement the railroad offered him the opportunity to name a site with his name and this was the spot that was put with his name on it.
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I don't know if he ever visited here Um, I could have, but uh, uh, there's nothing really in documentation talks about that, the railroad.
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I did some research.
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I go to newspaperscom and I went and I found the earliest known advertisement for the city of Hanford and that was in January of 1870, or, I'm sorry, december of 1876, when there was a article that talked about come to the new town side of Hanford where you can buy lots and the patent perfect, and you'll be able to establish your business or your home in the new city of Hanford.
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And there was a train, a special train, that went from Goshen to Hanford to do that.
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And then a few months later there was also another one that was advertised for the city of Lemoore, and same format of the article or the ad, but it was just the different name of the city of Lemoore and uh, same art, same format of the uh of the article or the ad, but it was just the different name of the city and I have those saved somewhere.
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It'd be great to make a poster out of that at some point.
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So you mentioned the railroad going West through Lemoore, but Grangeville was actually supposed to be the big, big town.
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What happened?
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How come?
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How come Hanford got all the, all the attention?
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Yeah?
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Well, to put it mildly, the citizens of Grangeville did not make good with this Southern Pacific Railroad.
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There was a dispute in terms of who were the rightful owners of lands around the Grangeville area Was it the railroad or was it the people that moved onto the property and developed them into the profitable enterprises that they were, and that dispute boiled for several years until the point where the railroad decided that they were going to evict everybody off the property, and it did not go well.
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There was a gun battle, and it did not go well.
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There was a gun battle it's called the Muscle Slew Tragedy, in which two people from the railroad and eight people from the settlers of the area here were killed in the gun battle.
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There's a lot of speculation that went on there.
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I have newspaper articles from the time that talk about what happened at that moment and unfortunately, the marshal, whose last name was Poole he had before the battle started, he got kicked by a horse and he fell and had dirt in his eyes so he could not see what was happening in terms of who shot first and who shot where.
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He could not see what was happening in terms of who shot first and who shot where by the time he was able to regain his composure, the incident was over, so it was quite sad at that point.
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That is definitely a sad story.
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I know many Kings County residents have visited the monument there on 14th Avenue and they've heard about it and they know that the slough kind of runs through town in various spots.
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Let's see Muscle Slough.
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It appears in the subdivision that used to be Solar Estates or is Solar Estates.
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I've seen it over by Hidden Valley Park on 11th Avenue.
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It goes underneath 11th Avenue over by the YMCA.
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Where are some other spots that you can kind of still see remnants of Muscle Slough?
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In my opinion, the name Muscle Slough was more of a generalized term for any of the sloughs that went south from the Kings River.
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I'm sure there I mean, there is a Muscle Slough there on the maps, but I suspect that the name Muscle Slough was more monikered towards the general areas to where the event happened.
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I don't think there was a slough there at that time.
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Totally makes sense.
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Yeah, totally makes sense.
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So the downtown Hanford has been the scene of fires for years, over 100 years, obviously.
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Several in my lifetime, yeah, exactly.
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We can think of several recent ones over just even the last 5, 10 years.
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But what was it about the fire safety in Hanford that kind of prompted the people in the city to say, hey, we've got to do something, we've got to protect ourselves?
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How did that all come about?
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When, Hanford was first established, it was built with wooden buildings and wooden buildings would be lit up at night with candles and other flames and they'd catch fire and burn down.
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And what happened was there were several devastating fires over a period of five years which completely wiped out the downtown area of Hanford.
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Initially the citizens of Hanford did not want to incorporate as a city because they didn't want to have to pay the city taxes for the fire protection.
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But what happened was was in 1891, when the last fire happened, the insurance companies basically said we're not doing business with you till you guys get a fire proper fire protection.
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And so they were.
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The citizens were basically they were forced to incorporate so that they could pay the fees to hire a fire crew to watch the city.
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Interesting little note was that the original fire station was not on Dowdy Street north of 7th Street.
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The original fire station was on Harris Street north of 6th Street, called the Hanford Hook and Ladder, and it was a volunteer fire department and that was the precursor to the Hanford City Fire Department.
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I have a Sanborn fire map that shows the location of that and I have a 1913 aerial photograph of downtown Hanford in which you can actually see the building, and it's the only picture I've ever seen of that structure and it's from a balloon that was taken in 1913.
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That's crazy.
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That's you know.
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I think you know we talked about the fires that we've witnessed.
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You think of Sam and you think I was there the one down in China, near China Alley, right In the China Alley Alley, one, well, where.
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Jack in the Box, I'm sorry where Burger King is.
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That was a major fire.
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There was a furniture store and a warehouse there that caught fire.
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There was a furniture store in a warehouse there that caught fire and that's the reason why that property was vacant was because there was a fire that destroyed the structures that were there.
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There was also a fire on going to notice that the buildings are newer, in the middle of the block, and that's where that fire was and I remember I was a young kid when that happened and the noise of all the fire engines and everything was just incredible.
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I'm reading this.
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So in 1891, and on August 8th they had to petition Tulare County to become incorporated city, because at that time Hanford there was no Kings County, no, it was Tulare County.
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It was Tulare County, yeah.
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And so they did that on August 8th, and then four days later they handed the written articles of incorporation with Secretary of State on August 12th 1891, which, as I said, marks the birthday of the city of Hanford.
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And then in 1893, kings County was formed and Hanford became the county seat.
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Correct.
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So the story about Kings County being peeled off from Tulare County, that in itself is quite.
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There's a lot of intrigue in that story because the Tulare County didn't want to lose the Kings County lands from their control.
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Some of the most lush and verdant farms were in the Lucerne area, which is just north of Hanford, and it was lots of alfalfa and fruit trees, and it was lots of alfalfa and fruit trees and it was very, very profitable to have those type of businesses within the county reach.
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The issue was was that Hanford was just too far away from Tulare, from Visaya, to do any actual business.
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It was just it was isolated.
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Even today I always say that you have to want to drive to Hanford to come to Hanford and so the county.
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At the time there were people within Tulare County supporters to petition the state to create two counties and so Madera and King's County were created out of the same act in 1893.
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That's some fascinating history for sure.
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Let's move on.
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You know, james Madison Hanford, people think of Hanford history and they think of James Madison Hanford.
00:18:09.896 --> 00:18:13.185
But there are you mentioned the Coe family as well.
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I want to touch on HG Lacey.
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We, you know we recently experienced the closure of Lacey Milling after many, many, many years and hope to have their family on soon to discuss their family history and that.
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But I thought it would be a great opportunity for us to kind of recognize some of the contributions of HG Lacey.
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I know that the Hanford Department of Parks and Community Services is looking at honoring some of the historical figures in Hanford and I don't think any kind of recognition is right unless it includes HG Lacey.
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What kind of contributions did he make to the area?
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Well, Horatio Lacey was quite a visionary for the area.
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Here I would say probably his biggest success was bringing electricity into Kings County or Tulare County at the time.
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Just right next door to Lacey Milling is the Southern California Edison Transformer Station.
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It's there for a reason.
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That's because Lacey established it there back in the 1880s.
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Lacey was the owner of Lacey Milling.
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He was a verdant promoter of the Hanford area and Kings County.
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He was also very much into getting the establishment of Flag Day happening within Hanford.
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Unfortunately he died before the first Flag Day happened and it was 1917.
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So he was just.
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When you see pictures of him you can tell that he took up a lot of oxygen in the room and I'm not saying that in a bad way, it was just.
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He was a very domineering individual.
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He had pizzazz, he had an aura and he worked his magic for the area.
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So the next time you're driving down Lacey Boulevard you can thank HG Lacey and his family for all that they did and once again, a shout out to the family there that has been working so hard to keep that open for many years.
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Okay.
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So how did Lacey Boulevard get its name?
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Who named it.
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That's an interesting one.
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Let's go.
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There was a gentleman here in Hanford the last name of Lemon L-E-M-O-N.
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And he was an early Portuguese immigrant who did quite well in the Lemoore area in agriculture, but he lived here in Hanford.
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In fact, the house that he lived in is right next door to the Kentucky Fried Chicken building.
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That was the Lemon House, and he was offered the opportunity to name the new road that was being built between Hanford and L'Amour at the time and everybody wanted him to name it Lemon Avenue and he declined.
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He says no, I want it named after Lacey because he had much more of influence than I did.
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That's awesome.
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I hadn't heard that before.
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That's super neat.
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Hanford High School.
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We could spend hours and hours and hours on local history on Hanford High School and my focus of this part of the discussion won't be necessarily on the old administration building, but I thought it might be fun to talk about two parts.
00:21:37.736 --> 00:21:44.182
One is the formation of Hanford High School, where they first started meeting and where their first actual building was.
00:21:44.182 --> 00:21:55.561
Since football season's coming up and a lot of people will be visiting the new remodeling of neighbor bowl, maybe we could talk about jacob neighbor a little bit.
00:21:55.561 --> 00:22:00.877
So first of all let's talk about, uh, hamford high school and its origins in in town and their buildings.
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Uh, hanford High School's first building was constructed out of wood.
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Uh, on a piece of property that is bound by Harris, florinda, dowdy and Elm streets, and that area now is called Lacey Park.
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If you'll notice, on the east side of the park there's a grove of well-established trees that look like they've been there for over 100 years.
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Well, that was the trees that were around the high school there at the time.
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That was the site of the high school.
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It was a beautiful building.
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It was built in 1895, and then it was remodeled in 1911 because of the amount of population growth within Hanford and it still wasn't enough room.
00:22:48.779 --> 00:23:03.849
And so the school board negotiated with the Vieira family and bought the property on the northeast corner of Dowdy in Grangeville, and at that time that was out in the country.
00:23:03.849 --> 00:23:13.661
It was out in the country, it was away from town, and a lot of the citizens were upset as to why would you be moving the high school out in the country?
00:23:13.661 --> 00:23:16.970
Go figure, yeah, I know, go figure.
00:23:16.970 --> 00:23:30.894
So there were several attempts by the board to raise enough money to build a high school there, and the first bond issues that were presented to the voters failed.
00:23:30.894 --> 00:23:45.186
They failed because the voters felt that the school was not needed or that it was too extravagant, and so the bond issue was then reissued as a smaller amount, and that failed as well.
00:23:45.186 --> 00:23:47.531
And third time they brought in a smaller amount, and that failed as well.
00:23:47.531 --> 00:23:54.113
And third time they brought in a smaller bond issue, and then people began to see the need for having another high school, so they passed it.
00:23:54.980 --> 00:24:17.108
The problem was was that it was not enough money to build the school, and that doomed that building the administration building from the very beginning, because they ran out of money when they were building the high school and they had to slap it together to get it up, and that's what created the structural deficits that plagued that building to the very end.
00:24:17.108 --> 00:24:22.107
Now people are going to say, hey, that building, you couldn't knock it over everything like that.
00:24:22.107 --> 00:24:36.826
Well, everybody was out front watching the columns going down, but in the back, every time that the ball would swing to knock the column, the theater, the stage area was collapsing without anything hitting it, and that was the problem.
00:24:36.826 --> 00:24:43.848
So I again, we could have a whole hour just talking about that and uh, uh.
00:24:43.848 --> 00:24:50.310
So the high school went out in the country, and when you see aerial photographs from like, I have one from 1920 more.
00:24:50.310 --> 00:24:52.840
It's in the middle of the country, it's out in the middle of nowhere.
00:24:53.782 --> 00:25:05.005
So in those maps you also see a stadium like a field and a track on the Dowdy street side, which was a precursor to the stadium, Correct?
00:25:05.605 --> 00:25:14.645
Yeah, so the original high school track was north of the high school and there was a stadium that was built there.
00:25:14.645 --> 00:25:26.986
It was big According to Victor Rosa, the superintendent of Hanford High School, if you looked at it today, there's no way that that would pass ADA or OSHA requirements and it looked rickety.
00:25:26.986 --> 00:25:45.181
So what happened was was in 1935, uh, high school was contacted the works project administration and they were able to secure funds to build, to construct a bowl which was on the East side of the high school.
00:25:45.181 --> 00:25:50.381
And, uh, it took, and it took about five or six months for them to build it.
00:25:50.381 --> 00:26:00.109
And then there was discussion about okay, it was basically a dirt hole, so they had to come up with a different way of finding money to put in the seating.
00:26:00.109 --> 00:26:10.355
And then the bowl was formally dedicated in October of 1936 into quite a bit of fanfare at the time.
00:26:11.539 --> 00:26:14.931
So it was a bowl, literally a bowl.
00:26:14.931 --> 00:26:23.528
I can only imagine One of the common misconceptions is that it was neighbor bowl to begin with and that didn't come till later.
00:26:23.528 --> 00:26:24.949
No, no.
00:26:24.989 --> 00:26:42.147
It was named after Jacob Naber, who was the superintendent of schools there, or the high school superintendent from 1918 through 1930s, I don't remember when he was retired, and it wasn't really named after him until after he died.
00:26:42.147 --> 00:26:44.952
And so, uh, it's it.
00:26:44.952 --> 00:26:45.413
You know.
00:26:45.413 --> 00:26:46.454
You look at it today.
00:26:46.454 --> 00:26:47.698
It it is.
00:26:47.698 --> 00:26:48.799
It looks different.
00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:49.240
I mean it's.
00:26:49.240 --> 00:27:04.583
It's a construction project that you know at the time was was built with uh, WPA funds, wpa WPA employees, uh, but you know again, it's just part of who Hanford is and and or what Hanford is, and people were proud to have a bowl.
00:27:05.703 --> 00:27:08.987
Well, I'm certainly impressed by the remodeling of the stadium.
00:27:08.987 --> 00:27:11.890
I think it looks great and I'm looking forward to some football games.
00:27:11.890 --> 00:27:25.041
Let's go back downtown, and one of the things that Hanford prides itself upon is the preservation of historic buildings and, as you said, Hanford High School administration building was not going to be saved.
00:27:25.041 --> 00:27:32.650
But there are buildings downtown that groups are working to restore or trying to secure funding.
00:27:32.650 --> 00:27:39.876
We think of the Kings County Courthouse the Civic Auditorium just underwent a big remodeling the Episcopal Church.
00:27:39.876 --> 00:27:45.653
There's so many historical buildings in downtown, including the Carnegie Museum of Kings County.
00:27:45.653 --> 00:27:53.169
Can you speak to maybe some of the restoration efforts of some of the buildings downtown and then we can talk specifically about the Carnegie?
00:27:54.421 --> 00:28:02.147
I've always said that the Hanford High School administration building was sacrificed to preserve the rest of Hanford.
00:28:02.147 --> 00:28:08.703
I think it woke up the community in terms of being able to say we can't allow this type of destruction to happen.
00:28:08.703 --> 00:28:16.605
You go to other towns in the area and a lot of their lovely buildings that they had are gone.
00:28:16.605 --> 00:28:22.022
Fresno comes to mind, visayas, tulare well, visayas not so much, but Tulare comes to mind.
00:28:22.022 --> 00:28:23.665
It is quite sad.
00:28:23.665 --> 00:28:34.369
Hanford has been fortunate that many of the buildings that are in downtown are owned by families and people that live in the area.
00:28:34.369 --> 00:28:46.830
So they have to look at the quality of the building on an ongoing basis and these people, these families, have been very instrumental in maintaining the integrity of these buildings.
00:28:46.830 --> 00:29:10.990
I was walking down Main Street just the other day with a fellow member of the Rotary Club and I pointed out there is a particular building that is just east of the Opera House and I said that is the last building in Hanford, downtown Hanford, that has the original facade on it.
00:29:10.990 --> 00:29:16.750
On 8th Street the original facade would be the Oddfellows building.
00:29:16.750 --> 00:29:24.664
That still has the original facade as well, but it's a building where Bernstein's Bakery was and it was right there.
00:29:24.664 --> 00:29:27.727
It still has the original facade.
00:29:27.727 --> 00:29:27.988
On it.
00:29:28.759 --> 00:29:29.865
A lot of money's been spent.
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