Three Rivers Historical Museum and Visitor’s Center opened in October, 2000, and has been growing ever since, fulfilling its educational and research mission “to preserve the past for future generations” by collecting, preserving, and exhibiting materials relating to our region, and by providing lectures, demonstrations, special events, and participatory programs inviting scholars, residents and visitors to understand and experience our history. Inside are terrific displays, the unique Mineral King Room, and a thoughtful gift shop. Outside: historic structures, vintage vehicles, the 1600′ Heritage Trail, recreated Native American habitations, and Paul Bunyan. Stop, stretch, enjoy!

     The Three Rivers Historical Society, formed in 1991, established and administers the museum, and, along with a number of volunteers, staffs it as well. While focused on preserving, researching, and displaying the past, Society members always have their eye on the future and on how the museum can best serve its community, its many visitors, and history buffs at large.

     The museum’s purview extends beyond the town of Three Rivers to the surrounding foothills and their canyons carved by the forks of the Kaweah River, to Lake Kaweah to the west, and to Sequoia National Park and its famous Mineral King Valley to the east, as the town’s history (and its present and its future) are all bound tightly to what has happened and will happen in the larger area.

     The stories of this larger area are brought to life at the museum. Inside, you’ll find extensive textual and photographic archives, varied displays of historic clothing, tools of many trades, furniture and furnishings, books, toys, musical instruments, newspapers, demtal equipment, and the colorful, inviting Mineral King Room, constructed and furnished in partnership with the Mineral King Preservation Society.

     This room not only tells the stories of that remarkable place (once a mining boom town, could have become a major ski resort, still the highest settlement in Tulare County and the highest spot you can reach by vehicle in Sequoia National Park), but also includes a unique hands-on introduction to the remarkable people who have been indigenous to this region for thousands of years; they’re certainly still here, and we have much to learn from them.

     The stories continue outside, where Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe tower before you. Carved out of a 22-ton sequoia log by local artist Carroll Barnes in 1941, this huge statue reminds us of the many decades of massive industrial logging that occurred in our forests and that eventually caused the creation of the U.S. Forest Reserves, our National Forests system, and, very directly, Sequoia National Park.

     Just a few steps away, you can visit Native American habitations constructed by Johnny and Gary Sartuche, local Wukchumni Yokuts people. Many groups of regional fourth-grade students have gathered here in the fall to learn about the indigenous Wuksachi and Wukchumni Yokuts’ history and lifeways.

     The museum’s 1600′ Heritage Trail, built by the crews of the Mountain Home Fire Camp and the Three Rivers CALFire station, begins here. An easy 15-20 minute walk, it leads you under the oaks and near the old Bahwell Ditch to interesting historical sites from 1850 to the present, described in the brochures available at the start.

     The trail ends at the Bequette House, built here, on property purchased from the Bahwell family, by Bruce and Jessie Bequette in 1926. The Society and many volunteers restored it in 2017, and furnished it with a number of the family’s antiques provided by Bequette descendants. (Jessie’s grandfather was Walter Fry, who moved to Three Rivers in 1895 and served as superintendent of Sequoia National Park in 1912-1920.) Jessie and Bruce also built a structure nearby that became Bequette’s Gift Shop (1953-1967), then Mountain Arts gift shop and weaving store (1975-1995), and then another gallery for a while before it was purchased to become the Three Rivers Historical Museum.

     Near the restored Bequette House stands a replica of the tiny (8′ x 16′) Bahwell Saloon, built just 35 feet from its original 1895 location. Believed to have been the first public saloon in Three Rivers, the little bar lasted until July, 1919 (National Prohibition went into official effect six months later). One hundred years later, the replica, based on a 1907 photo and some archaeological work, was constructed with cedar siding from the Mountain Home mill, and completed in 2020.

     Next up, the Society has plans to build a blacksmith shop, perhaps a close copy of the Kaweah Colony’s smithy, including any changes required for it to function with a working forge, so that visitors (and prospective smiths) can be fascinated by watching a live blacksmith shaping and joining metal.

     To top things off, the Society envisions a 2,400 square foot barn housing first-settler displays and antique wagons that will take visitors back to those days. The barn will also serve as a gathering place for museum events.

     Meanwhile, the museum’s visitor center function was greatly enhanced by the construction of a much-needed, long-awaited first Three Rivers public restroom facility. Built by the County on the museum’s grounds, the restrooms opened to the public in 2021. The Society funds the maintenance of the facility, which is currently open 24 hours a day.  While the restrooms are currently free to use, donations can be made onsite and are much appreciated.

     Back inside the museum, visitors can get all kinds of information about the area from its knowledgeable volunteers, along with various printed materials. A myriad of fascinating historical items and their stories abound in the museum, and its gift shop is stocked with area-related gift, souvenir, and educational items, including loys, books, games, cards and postcards, and more.

     Adjoining the shop is the remarkable Mineral King Room, with its stunning mural of the breathtaking valley surrounded by high mountains which was “discovered” by hunter “Harry Parole” in 1863 (the indigenous Yokuts people had been coming to it in the snow-free seasons for centuries). Follow Mineral King’s tumultuous, hard-fought history here, and then learn more about the Yokuts people through the creative interactive display installed along the north wall of this mind-expanding room.

     Every time you’re headed into Kaweah country, a stop at the Three Rivers Historical Museum can enrich your journey by increasing your awareness and understanding of the endless treasures awaiting you in this marvelous sector of our big county. (Note that the Sequoia Shuttle stops here, too, on its route between Visalia and Sequoia National Park.) And if you love history and meeting people from all over the world who are on their way to discover these treasures themselves, remember that the Three Rivers Historical Society is always looking for great volunteers!

June, 2026

NOTE:  The Project Team will be conducting research for a full article page as volunteer time allows.  Contact Us if you’d like to help research, write about, and/or illustrate this Treasure!

     The original Tule River Indian Reservation in Tulare County was established in 1856 on prime farmland in what is now east Porterville. After California’s Gold Rush began in 1848, thousands of discouraged prospectors began settling instead in the Central Valley to farm its rich soil. Their rapidly increasing population and conversion of the natural landscape caused increasing conflict with the Yokuts-speaking people who had thrived here for thousands of years and were being rapidly dispossessed of their land and livelihood. In 1856, hundreds of the Yokuts were forced onto this “permanent homeland” reservation.

     By 1857, Thomas Madden and two other local Indian agents illegally acquired state patents and title to most of the 2,240-acre original reservation, which came to be called the Madden Farm. The reservation Indians peaceably cultivated the farm’s fertile land and an additional 800 acres of adjacent federal land, producing abundant fruits, vegetables, wheat, and barley.

     But by 1863, white settlers were agitating ever more insistently to push the Indians off their “permanent homeland” so that it could be opened to the whites. Consequently, in 1873, a new reservation was established about 15 miles to the east in foothill and mountain land. While the new reservation was much larger, 48,000 acres, only about 250 of its acres were farmable, so it could not begin to support the Indians. They refused to abandon their crops on the original reservation until, in 1876, they were violently relocated to the new one, where their enduring descendants continue to strive for self-government and self-sufficiency on that land today.

     In 2025, the Tule River Indian Tribe regained 17,000 acres of its ancestral land, which it plans to restore to reconnect landscapes between the Giant Sequoia National Monument, the Tule River Indian Reservation, and San Joaquin Valley wetlands. Partnering with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the tribe has reintroduced beavers and tule elk to the land and is protecting the California condor’s historic range. The tribe’s management of the land is expected to improve groundwater recharge, reduce flood risks, and secure water supplies for disadvantaged communities downstream. So importantly, it is also a place for the tribe “to gather, heal, and simply be.”

March 2026

NOTE:  The Project Team will be conducting research for a full article page as volunteer time allows.  Contact Us if you’d like to help research, write about, and/or illustrate this Treasure!

     The Tulare Assembly Center at the Tulare County Fairgrounds (one of 16 Temporary Detention Camps for Japanese Americans) incarcerated almost 5,000 people in April-September, 1942. Most were then transferred to the hastily built Gila River concentration camp in Arizona and imprisoned there until autumn, 1945. (It was Executive Order 9066, issued in February, 1942, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, that a month later stripped of their rights about 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry — 2/3 of whom were U.S. citizens — on the U. S. West Coast, followed by their forced imprisonment beginning in April.)

     The military relocation order was finally rescinded in December, 1944, after the Supreme Court ruled that continued detention without cause was unconstitutional. The Gila River internees were released in phases, with the majority of the camp shut down in the fall of 1945.

     While the Tulare Assembly Center (along with all the other temporary detention camps in California) was registered as a California Historical Landmark in 1980, the Tulare Center has never had a historical marker or any memorial erected at its site to commemorate and explain the unconstitutional continued detention without cause of the Japanese American internees in 1942.

     Fortunately, that will change, as a group of history students at Tulare’s Mission Oak High School have been working for a number of years now to remedy this omission, with the Tulare County Fair Board’s approval and support.

     The students’ ongoing efforts have already resulted in the creation of a 5’x8′ bronze bas relief sculpture by noted artist Sam Pena depicting internees arriving at the Center. It will be a major feature in the historical monument these scholars are planning to create and install prominently inside the fairgrounds’ main entrance. Amid Japanese garden-inspired landscaping, the memorial will include informational panels and bronze plates naming all those who were incarcerated in the Tulare Assembly Center.

     The hundreds of thousands of diverse visitors to the fairgrounds’ events annually will be met and enlightened by this arresting display. And the monument will also focus a long-range educational program with local schools and the Tulare Historical Museum to continue the students’ mission to increase awareness and understanding of what happened here in 1942 — so that we will Never Forget that something like this must never happen again in our nation.

January, 2026

NOTE:  The Project Team will be conducting research for a full article page as volunteer time allows.  Contact Us if you’d like to help research, write about, and/or illustrate this Treasure!

     The Tule River Stage Station serving the Butterfield Overland Mail stage route through Tulare County in 1858-1861 was housed on this site (which had been a riverside stopover on the old emigrant trail since 1854). In 1860, Royal Porter Putnam was the station’s keeper. In 1862, a huge flood moved the Tule River’s course south a mile. Convinced that the river would stay in its new course, Putnam bought 40 acres of land around the station’s site, got the parcel surveyed, and laid out the plat of a new town, still called Porterville today.

January, 2026

     Woodville Park provides the small town of Woodville with a free, fenced, 10-acre gathering space for residents and visitors of all ages and abilities, offering shaded playground equipment, an arbor, 5 picnic tables with BBQ grills, a soccer field, a 9-hole disc golf course, a baseball diamond with backstop, a basketball court, horseshoe pits, paved pathways, open green spaces, and a restroom. Volunteers tend and add to the grounds (new plants, flagpole, baseball field), and put on events (movie nights, resource fairs, holiday celebrations) keeping the park alive and lively. Vive el parque!

January, 2026

NOTE:  The Project Team will be conducting research for a full article page as volunteer time allows.  Contact Us if you’d like to help research, write about, and/or illustrate this Treasure!