In the summer of 1907, Sequoia National Park Ranger Harry Britten was charged with building a ranger station, as a headquarters from which to patrol the park’s southern boundary. The site he selected was very near Quinn’s Horse Camp, which had been there for decades, just north of Quinn’s Sheep Camp.

     Harry Quinn was an Irishman, born in 1843 on a small sheep farm in County Down. At age sixteen, he emigrated alone to Australia, hoping to strike it rich in the gold fields. Failing, like most, as a gold prospector and miner, Quinn worked on sheep ranches for the next eight years, learning the business well. Then, in 1868, he voyaged to California to pursue the American dream. Arriving in San Francisco, he worked as a stevedore and deck hand on boats between San Francisco and Stockton, where he met Archibald Leitch, a large-scale landowner and sheep raiser in Stanislaus County.

     Quinn’s desire was to buy sheep and rent land to pasture them on. He worked his way around the state managing sheep ranches and looking for opportunities. On the unsettled borderland where southern Tulare County and northern Kern County meet, he saw the free open range of stirrup-high, treeless grasslands as a paradise.

     In 1872, impressed by Quinn’s skills and energy, Leitch hired him to take flocks of his sheep to Kern County to graze. There, Quinn became one of the first settlers at Rag Gulch, about 10 miles east of Delano, just south of the Tulare County line. By 1873, he had filed a pre-emption claim on 160 acres and had purchased a half interest in Leitch’s band of 7,000 sheep.

     Leitch took him into partnership in 1874, and the firm of Leitch & Quinn prospered, eventually owning up to 22,000 acres of grazing land in both Kern and Tulare counties, including mountain land in Dry and Funston meadows, Peck’s Canyon, and even a small acreage in what became Sequoia National Park, where the sheep would be herded in the summer after the grass dried up in the Valley. While 28,000 sheep once pastured on the ranch, the flock averaged around 12,000 animals, divided into five bands.

     The profitable partnership continued until Leitch died in 1896, and then through his estate until 1906, when Quinn purchased the land and sheep interests of the firm. While he kept his ranch’s main headquarters at Rag Gulch, Quinn and his family often lived in Tulare County, where part of the ranch became the townsite of Richgrove. They often spent summers on their Upper Ranch west of Porterville.

     In 1890, the year Sequoia and General Grant national parks were created, none of the many men connected with the sheep interests of Tulare County had attained greater success or prominence.

     Naturally, Quinn opposed the ruling that sheep and cattle grazing would not be allowed on national park lands, when his sheep had used those mountain meadows for many years. He was also being forbidden to drive his sheep across park property to his own inholding and to others that he rented for grazing. Additionally, his horse camp, used to pasture the pack stock that regularly supplied his shepherds in the mountains, and sometimes serving as his summer home on the Hockett Plateau, was now enclosed in Sequoia National Park.

     In 1891, Acting Superintendent Captain Joseph Dorst sent troops out from Mineral King to survey the park’s boundaries. That summer, they covered almost a thousand miles patrolling from their base at Hockett Meadow (then called Zimmerman’s).

     They reported that the country bordering the area was so overgrazed that it could not support visiting parties of tourists. Thus, Dorst recommended that the eastern boundary of Sequoia National Park be extended all the way to Mt. Whitney and that the parks’ rules and regulations should be enforceable by legal penalties, since the troops’ only recourse to livestock trespass at the time was to escort the offenders back across the parks’ boundaries.

     In 1893, responding to the degradation of the public land’s resources, President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the Sierra Forest Reserve. This withdrew most of the central and southern Sierra land from sale to private parties, including most of the land adjoining Sequoia and General Grant National Parks.

     While Valley residents generally supported the reservation as an effort to protect their water supply, the sheep, cattle, logging, and mining interests were strongly against it, even though they were able to continue to heavily exploit the reserve lands, since the proclamation did little to protect their natural features (features which were specifically protected in the national parks).

     Thus, Quinn’s sheep continued to appear on the parks’ land, and the sheepmen’s encroachments occupied a good deal of the Army’s time in the parks’ early years. Acting Superintendent Lt. Alexander Tracy Dean reported that, “This condition of affairs renders the duty of guarding the park more difficult, as these large bands of sheep are kept close to the line on all sides, and if not constantly watched will feed over them.”

     The troops continued to patrol, but they had many other responsibilities, such as building and maintaining trails, assisting visitors, fighting fires, and preventing hunting, By 1898, there were still no penalties for trespassing sheep and cattle herders other than expulsion from the parks. When the soldiers were unable to reach the parks until September that year, due to the impacts of the Spanish American War, they found that over 200,000 sheep had gotten into Sequoia, devastating its meadows.

     In 1900, two civilian rangers were hired to protect the parks in the winters and to work with the cavalry when it was on duty there in the summer. In that decade, the problem of large herds of sheep and cattle trespassing on the park diminished for several reasons. The struggle for forage among the many competing cattle and sheep outfits resulted in severe overgrazing, extensive erosion, and widespread deterioration of feed value on the mountain and foothill ranges.

     Effective control of grazing on the Forest Reserve lands began at last in 1905 with the formation of the National Forest system and the establishment of the Forest Service. Also, the parks’ soldiers and rangers were patrolling more rapidly and efficiently as park trails were extended and improved and remote patrol cabins were built. By 1911, with pasture land increasingly hard to get, Harry Quinn switched to raising short-horn Durham cattle.

     The parks’ new patrol cabins included the one built in 1907 near the sheepman’s long-used horse camp. Everyone who roamed the mountains knew the location as Quinn’s, and so the new ranger cabin used his name. The 1909 USGS Kaweah Quadrangle map labels “Quinn Horsecamp” right beside “Ranger Cabin.” Over the years, it has also been called Quinn Patrol Cabin and Quinn Snow Survey Cabin.

     In 1932, twenty-five years after the cabin was built, Quinn, a leading citizen of the bi-county area for over half a century, and “one of the last of the great landowners in the southern San Joaquin Valley,” died at his Quinn Ranch home, in his 89th year. He was buried in the Porterville cemetery.

     Some say the ranger cabin that bears his name is haunted. Perhaps Quinn’s dauntless pioneer spirit still pervades the high mountain meadow where he established his horse camp and spent his summers so many years ago. Or could it be Cavalry Corporal Klawing’s shade, still in pursuit of Quinn’s ghostly sheep? Or maybe Ranger Harry Britten, on his one good leg, is patrolling yet from the sturdy little cabin he built so long ago.

May, 2020

     In the summer of 1906, Sequoia and General Grant national parks were still being administered by the United States War Department (now known as the Department of Defense). That summer, Captain Kirby Walker was serving as these parks’ Acting Superintendent. In May, he led Troop F of the Fourteenth Cavalry and a detachment of the U.S. Army Hospital Corps (the latter detailed to work on sanitation issues in the increasingly-visited parks) on the 260 mile march from the Presidio of Monterey to establish their camp on the North Fork of the Kaweah River near the little town of Three Rivers.

     Four local civilian rangers were also employed by the government to work with the troops. Their principal duties were “the preservation and protection against injury of the flora, trees, animals, birds, fishes, and wonders of nature on the Government lands within the parks, and the carrying out of such rules and regulations as the Interior Department might see fit to issue.” They were also “to prevent the unauthorized use of Government lands within the parks by cattle and sheep men, [and] to prevent forest fires.”

     The troops were on site only in the summer, usually from early June to mid-October or earlier, depending on the weather. The civilian rangers were responsible for patrolling and working on park projects year-round.

     That summer of 1906, Captain Walker decided that more ranger cabins were needed, to “serve as shelter during inclement weather for the rangers and detachments of soldiers, as a storage place for provisions, forage, and tools, and as a central point from which to patrol.” Two cabins had already been constructed on the Giant Forest road, another was underway at Hockett Meadow. Walker wanted to add four more in 1907: in the Black Oak area (in Sequoia’s northwest quadrant ), and at Giant Forest, Clough Cave, and Quinn’s Horse Camp.

     Growing numbers of tourists were visiting the park, and they needed access to its attractions. Thus, the Tar Gap, South Fork, and Quinn’s Horse Camp trails were being repaired in 1906. At over 8300 feet in elevation, Quinn’s Camp provided cool weather for visitors coming to the mountains for weeks or even months to escape the Valley’s long summer heat. It was a good camping area, with fine fishing nearby and a large meadow offering plentiful forage for stock. The popular soda springs only a mile away were another attraction. From their water, said to rival the famous Apollinaris water of Germany, visitors could make sparkling lemonade for further summer refreshment.

     On July 23, 1906, when a new slot opened in the park’s ranger force, Superintendent Walker appointed Harry F. Britten to the post and assigned him to duty in the southern part of Sequoia. Britten had originally been hired as a park ranger in 1902, but while on patrol in March, 1903, he accidentally discharged his pistol into his right thigh, resulting in $1,000 worth of medical expenses, amputation of his right leg above the knee, and eventually being fitted with an artificial leg.

     A year after the accident, Britten had learned to walk on the new limb and was employed as a clerk in the Sequoia Forest Reserve (predecessor of Sequoia National Forest). He had received no government compensation for his on-duty injury and consequent expenses, so Captain Walker thought it only fair that Britten should be rehired by the park.

     Thus, Harry Britten became responsible in 1907 for building the Quinn Ranger Station. Located on the southeast corner of the Quinn Horse Camp Meadow in a dense pine and fir forest, the one-room log cabin measured nineteen feet long by thirteen feet wide. Each long wall featured a central door and a glazed window while the end walls were solid. Split logs, rounded side out, placed (unusually) vertically, formed the walls, and, laid horizontally, formed the floor. Each vertical log wall stood on a big horizontal log providing a sill that was supported on a foundation of granite and wooden blocks. Shakes attached to a wooden frame created the gable roof.

     The simple cabin had no interior paneling or ceiling, but it was equipped with a wood stove and shutters for the windows, and an outhouse stood nearby. Within a few years, a barn was added about 75 feet away, along with a rail fence enclosing a few acres of meadow for horse pasture.

     Captain Walker was pleased. His 1907 report praised the park rangers’ work. Captain Walker noted that “In addition to their ordinary duties they have been of great assistance this year in taking immediate charge of the construction of ranger cabins, trail work, telephone work, and the distribution of fish. There are ranger cabins now at Rocky Gulch, Colony Mill, Hockett Meadows, and Quinn’s Horse Camp.”

     He also wrote that “A first-class trail connecting Hockett Meadows and Quinn’s Horse Camp was built this year, an important addition to the trails in use,” and reported that about 1100 tourists and campers visited General Grant Park during the 1907 season and about 900 visited Sequoia Park, up from around 900 and 700 respectively in 1906.

     Rangers used the Quinn cabin for a number of years as a headquarters for patrolling the southern part of the park. In 1917, the newly-created National Park Service took over administration of the parks, and its rangers continued that use until sometime after 1940. Then, downgraded to a patrol cabin, Quinn continued to serve park rangers, trail crews, and pack trains in the warmer months, and snow surveyors in the winter.

     Over the many decades since Quinn was built in 1907, park craftsmen have worked to maintain, improve, and restore this iconic ranger station. The addition of windows, one in each end wall, and another in each long wall, brought in more light. Sometime in the 1950s or 1960s, the rustic cabin was renovated. Its foundation was improved, and new sills were placed under the walls. The doors and shutters were replaced, and fiberboard paneling on the interior walls and a fiberboard ceiling were added.

     Minor roof repairs were made in 1984, and the roof and walls oiled, followed by significant conservation work in the 1990s. In 2006, ranger Joe Ventura packed shingles from Hockett to Quinn and patched a hole in the roof apparently dug by a bear in the winter. In 2011, the park’s historic restoration crew leveled the building, provided new sill logs and sturdy log shutters, and applied a new coat of stain. The cabin’s bunks also got long-requested new mattresses.

     Today, when visitation to Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks is almost a thousand times greater than it was in 1907, the cabin that ranger Harry Britten built still stands and is still in use. For its local significance to military and conservation history, Quinn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It is the only ranger station remaining from the period when the U.S. Army administered Sequoia National Park. (The original Hockett Meadow Ranger Station, built in 1906, was replaced in 1934.)

     The trail to Quinn Ranger Station is still well maintained, the nearby fishing is still good, visitors can still camp near Quinn Meadow and graze their riding and pack stock there when conditions allow, and the water from Soda Springs Creek still refreshes thirsty hikers and equestrians. Stop by to salute this long-lived rustic cabin, savor its stories, and realize that you are a part of its history when you’re traveling on the beautiful Hockett Plateau.

May, 2020

     While some post offices today may not be seeing the traffic they once did, two Tulare County post offices — the Porterville Main and the Visalia Town Center — are definitely worth a visit. Both buildings are honored on the National Register of Historic Places, and both can easily be explored in a single day for a memorable double dose of artistry and history.

     Both feature distinctive architecture; timeless, eye-catching aesthetics; and high-quality construction. They’ve served their communities continuously since 1934 and are still going strong. Built during the hard times of the Great Depression, they provided jobs, services, faith in the future, and even a touch of glamour when these were needed most.

     America had been riding high on a wave of technical and industrial progress before the stock market crashed in 1929, followed by the onset of the Dust Bowl in 1930. By 1932, one in four American workers was unemployed. Tens of thousands of immigrants were streaming from other states into the San Joaquin Valley, desperately seeking work, affordable land, and a way to feed their families.

     In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to these crises by greatly expanding the nation’s public works programs begun by his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, creating jobs across the country to build significant, durable public facilities that included over 1,000 post offices, Porterville’s and Visalia’s among them.

     Renowned Fresno architects designed these two post offices in the Streamline Moderne style, typifying much government architecture of the thirties. The buildings’ classical, symmetrical proportions reduced design and construction costs while projecting a much-needed sense of stability and continuity.

     While these seem at first glance to be fairly simple buildings, their details are striking. Their use of modern, man-made materials such as etched glass, aluminum, chrome, and stainless steel reflected the nation’s burgeoning industrialism and brash confidence during the 1920s, and foretold a brighter future ahead. Art Deco geometric and nature motifs included plant, flower, and sunrise themes to simultaneously evoke growth, vigor, and renewal.

     H. Rafael Lake designed the Porterville post office. Its construction began in January, 1933, and was completed that November. The doors opened for business on January 2, 1934. Considered the town’s most sophisticated Art Deco structure, it was also Porterville’s last building with the basement dug by mules and a scraper. Now it is one of only three overtly Art Deco post offices remaining in California.

                                                              A Tour of the Porterville Main Post Office

     Note the two Art Deco columns flanking the steps leading to the front doors. The columns’ deeply carved designs echo the vertical piers and geometric and organic forms on the wall ahead, and these are reflected again in the etched glass and aluminum frames of the lantern atop each column.

     The grooved, vertical concrete piers on the front of the building hint at classical architecture’s columns and hold up a long horizontal frieze of strong, stylized federal eagles. Borders of curving Art Deco forms suggest thriving foliage and rising suns or the regenerative centers of flowers.

     The big north-facing windows are framed in bright polished aluminum, with cast aluminum panels below depicting forms like fern fronds about to unfold. In the panel above the entry doors, a circular leaf pattern points upward on either side. Beautiful bas relief panels on the east and west end walls of the post office reiterate these encouraging themes.

     Bright grooved aluminum panels frame the double doors, echoing the grooved columns, while cast aluminum letters above spell out the name of the post office. Inside, a lively black and white zig-zag patterned marble floor runs the length of the building, from the service area on the right, to the room housing the hundreds of individual metal post boxes on the left. Decorative aluminum grillework rises from the boxes to the ceiling, and traditional marble wainscoting lines the walls.

     Near the service windows, framed historic photos depict the construction of the post office. It was built in less than a year, but with meaningful materials that brought together the past and the future, and highly-skilled design and workmanship that have withstood the tests of time and changing tastes.

     Before leaving this landmark, you may want to take a few photos, so that you’ll be able to compare Porterville’s post office with Visalia’s when you get there.

     The Visalia Town Center Post Office was designed by William D. Coates, Jr., California’s State Architect from 1909-1911. Coates designed many significant buildings in this area, including high schools in Fresno, Hanford, and Porterville; the original Porterville fire station, and Bartlett Middle School in Porterville.

     His outstanding plan for this post office resulted in “the clearest statement in monumental Art Deco architecture applied to any public building constructed in California, . . . one of the most aesthetically successful post offices in California, and . . . one of the most sophisticated buildings in Visalia,” per the National Register.

     With blueprints completed in 1932, construction began in 1933, and the new post office opened to the public on July 30, 1934. While at first glance Visalia’s post office looks very different from Porterville’s, there are many similarities.

                                                                A Tour of the Visalia Town Center Post Office

     Like Porterville’s, its basic symmetrical exterior form is enlivened with Art Deco stylized plants, regal eagles, and many flower or sunburst motifs. They appear in the plaques and friezes above the tall north-facing windows, which feature elegant bronze-colored aluminum dividers. Cast aluminum panels below form ferny, feathery shapes along with zig-zags and chevrons.

     The raised brick panels on the russet-colored brick walls suggest simplified classical columns, topped with abstract designs in honey-colored terra cotta. Darker brick outlines a simple diamond pattern above the windows. The windows and doors are framed in the same terra cotta, grooved vertically to suggest columns again, and also grooved horizontally. The terra cotta panel running the length of the building at the top of the wall repeats the harmonious framing effect.

     As at Porterville, light fixtures flank the entry stairs. These are bronze scallop shells, supported by decorated columns that continue the building’s mixture of organic designs with abstract geometric patterns. Inside, geometric forms in red, yellow, gray, and green enliven the lobby’s terrazzo floor, while marble paneling and door frames enrich the walls.

     In the early 1980s, detailed restoration work was done at the Visalia post office, carefully following the specifications in Coates’s original drawings. The original service windows, bronze light fixtures, lobby desks (custom designed for the building), bronze post office boxes, and cast aluminum radiator grilles are all still in use 85 years after their installation. (Unfortunately, when the Porterville post office was remodeled in 1965, some of its original interior features and fixtures were lost.)

     These two iconic buildings connect us still, physically and aesthetically, to key events in the history of our nation and our communities. They embody a significant period in architecture and decoration, and reflect the enormous changes that were occurring culturally, economically, and technologically when they were created. Innovative when they were built, enduringly attractive, they continue to delight us and serve us well into the twenty-first century. They are true treasures of Tulare County.

May, 2018

     Hundreds of thousands of people bound for the giant sequoias speed past the old Pogue Hotel in Lemon Cove every year, never realizing that the handsome green and yellow two-story building, now home to the Lemon Cove Women’s Club, was once an important stopping place on the road from the Valley to the mountains.

     This enduring edifice was constructed in 1879 to offer dining and lodging to teamsters, tourists, and commercial travelers at the spot where the stage to the Kaweah Colony and Mineral King changed from horses to mules for the long, hard pull uphill. It has stood ever since as a witness to much of Tulare County’s history.

     Originally called “The Cottonwoods,” for its surrounding grove of trees, the hotel was built by a partnership of J.B. Wallace and C. W. Crocker of San Francisco, and James William Center Pogue as on-site superintendent. The three men bought about 9,000 acres of ranch land together in the 1870s on which to farm and grow livestock to supply the Mineral King silver rush, which began in 1873. The partners raised sheep, cattle, and grain, and also accommodated travelers in the 13-room hotel, which the J.W.C. Pogue family lived in and operated.

     In 1881, J.B. Wallace died, and his widow took her one-third share of the partnership as the Wallace Ranch. J.W.C. Pogue purchased C.W. Crocker’s share and became sole owner of the other 6,000 acres and the busy hotel, which had become a popular gathering place.

     Pogue was a visionary. He had come to California in a wagon train in 1857, married Nancy Melvina Blair, the wagon master’s daughter, in 1859, and then moved with her to Tulare County in 1862. He served two terms as a Tulare County supervisor, pioneered the citrus industry in the area, and introduced the cultivation of lemons to Tulare County. And he developed the town of Lemon Cove.

     The very first few orange trees were planted in Tulare County in the 1860s; the county assessor recorded a total of 100 in 1870, including some being grown by Pogue. By 1877, he had established about 20 trees, which he replanted from his ranch to near the hotel, adding some limes, oranges, and lemons.

     All thrived, even though no one else thought lemons could succeed so far north. In the sheltering cove of the hills, watered from irrigation ditches he’d built, they grew so well that Pogue’s lemons won a blue ribbon at the Los Angeles Fair in 1885. By 1904, Pogue had 75 acres of citrus, and others had formed enterprises such as the Kaweah Lemon Company, the Ohio Lemon Company, and the Lemon Cove Citrus Company, planting hundreds of acres around Lemon Cove in the fruits that were to become a billion dollar citrus industry in Tulare County.

     The town of Lemon Cove began in 1894, when Pogue laid out 48 lots on 15 acres of his family’s ranch, centered on the bustling hotel. By the early 1900s, Lemon Cove had a population of 500. A store, a post office, a school, a church, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable and stage depot, and several other businesses, including, of course, the Pogue Hotel, served residents and the many travelers on the main road from Visalia to Three Rivers, Sequoia National Park, and Mineral King.

     In 1891, Pogue’s wife, Nancy, died. From 1898-1904, the hotel was operated as a rooming house by Pogue’s oldest child, Mrs. Martha Louisa (Lydia) Pogue Moffett, and her husband, who leased it and a blacksmith shop from Pogue. In 1904, Pogue gave the hotel to Nora Alice Pogue, the youngest of his nine children. Nora had been born in the building, and now was marrying Dr. Robert Bruce Montgomery, Lemon Cove’s first resident physician and justice of the peace. The young couple turned the hotel into their home, and Pogue lived his last three years with them and died there in 1907.

     In 1920, the Montgomery family moved from their hotel-turned-private-home to a new house built on their ranch. Nora continued to be active in community affairs and in 1924 became a founding member of the Lemon Cove Community Club, organized to promote friendships and community service.

     The distinguished old hotel stood empty until the 1930s, when local residents became increasingly aware of its historical and social importance to their town. In 1934, Jonathan Early Pogue, J.W.C. Pogue’s son, remodeled the structure to become a community center. In 1936, the Community Club officially chartered itself as the Lemon Cove Woman’s Club and voted to assume the debt of the building; Nora Pogue Montgomery gave the club the use of the remodeled house and its quarter acre of land, but stipulated in the deed that if the club ever ceased to use the property, it would revert to the Pogue heirs.

     Today, 80 years later, the Woman’s (now “Women’s”) Club is as active as ever in its gracious, lovingly maintained home. The members meet there and host a number of special events annually, with several open to the public. They also collect and preserve local artifacts and memorabilia, many of which are on display in the clubhouse.

     In 1976, the club voted to work on making their building a historical landmark. Pogue’s grand-daughter Marion Pogue Polly chaired their two successful campaigns. In 1977, the Tulare County Historical Society placed a Historical Marker on the lawn, recognizing the importance of the Pogue Hotel and the Pogue family to the area. In 1991, the Pogue Hotel gained listing on the National Register of Historic Places, noted for its distinctive Late Victorian architecture, and because “The Pogue Hotel/residence forms a tangible link with the central themes of the history of Lemoncove, California. The building has been directly associated with the settlement, development of area agriculture, and the civic and social history of the community.”

     So, next time you’re heading for the hills, don’t just drive by this beautiful building, still surrounded by hundreds of acres of thriving citrus. Pick a day when the clubhouse is open and walk into 135 years of Tulare County history. In December, at the Women’s Club’s annual Christmas Luncheon and Bazaar, you can even stop there just as travelers did on the old wagon road to the mountains back in the 1800s and enjoy eating a meal in the dining room of the fine old Pogue Hotel.

May, 2016

2017 Update:  This beautiful building has now been painted green with yellow trim and doors, replacing the previous yellow-with-brown-trim color palette.  Don’t miss it!

     For hundreds of millennia, Tulare Lake’s vast wetland ecosystem supported a rich tapestry of life, strongly woven and resilient to the variations in climate and fluctuations of water availability. It provided essential winter habitat for tens of millions of migrating birds and abundant wildlife such as Tule elk, pronghorn antelope and grizzly bears. For at least ten thousand years, Yokuts and their ancestors hunted and fished from the tremendous bounty of these freshwater wetlands. Reports of the sky being darkened overhead by the enormous flocks of migrating waterfowl came from Yokuts and early non-native settlers alike.

     By the late 1800s, however, California’s growing population began to transform the landscape. Settlers living along the upstream tributaries began digging ditches to divert water for growing wheat and barley, diversifying to other crops as irrigation systems were developed. Tulare Lake and its surrounding wetlands dwindled as tule marshes were drained and reclaimed as farmland.

     A seemingly inexhaustible wealth of water supported the expansion of Central Valley farming communities in the last two decades of the 1800’s. Artesian wells irrigated the semi-arid land in Pixley, Tipton, and Tulare. But by the early 1900s, these wells dried up, and farmers began drilling deeper wells and pumping ground water to nourish crops. The once-vast wetlands shrank and shriveled as farm operations increasingly diverted water from the Kaweah, Tule, and Kern rivers until Tulare Lake, once the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi, was gone.

     As the great lake and its ecosystem dwindled away, so did the huge flocks of ducks, geese, and cranes that had wintered there. Alarmed at this loss, local sportsmen formed duck clubs, private organizations of hunter-conservationists dedicated to preserving wetlands for continuing the tradition of waterfowl hunting; and so, in the 1920s, a resurgence began. The clubs bought or leased tracts of marginal agricultural land and flooded them in the fall to create wetlands that attracted birds. In spring, the land dried, creating fields in prime condition for cattle grazing. For many years, duck clubs were the sole provider of wetland habitat for over-wintering waterfowl in the Tulare Basin.

     Meanwhile, by around 1930, the highly alkaline soils in the Pixley area were proving unfit for agriculture, forcing numerous homesteaders to abandon their 160-acre tracts. When this non-productive farmland reverted to the government, it was retired from agriculture and placed under the management of the United States Forest Service. These changes created a profound opportunity for bringing back what had been lost.

     Momentum built as scientists and ordinary citizens began to recognize the importance of providing places for waterfowl to take up winter residence or stop to rest along this inland portion of the Pacific Flyway — an avian superhighway that stretches from northern Canada’s summer breeding habitats south to Mexico.

     Outspoken J. Martin Winton, who grew up hunting in waterfowl- rich wetlands of Tulare Basin, became an enduring advocate for protection of this vanishing habitat. Local interest grew for creation of a waterfowl refuge in the southern Central Valley. Sportsmen supporting the refuge included State Fish and Game warden Joe Burnett of Tulare; Eldon Ball, Superintendent of Sequoia National Park; and Judge O.W. Bryan of Pixley. In January, 1957, Tulare resident Zaven Egoian approached the Tulare County Board of Supervisors and won their support for a waterfowl management area in the worn out farmlands outside of Pixley. Less than three years later, Pixley National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) was created by Federal action, on November 17, 1959, to be administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Migratory Bird Conservation Act for the benefit of migratory birds and other wildlife.

     Now all that prevented the recovery of wetlands and waterfowl at Pixley NWR was lack of a reliable water source. With no water and no waterfowl, attention turned to expanding the refuge’s Valley Grassland habitat—its plant communities, native songbirds, and wildlife. Over 2,200 acres of additional grasslands were acquired in an effort to support populations of three threatened or endangered species living there: the Tipton kangaroo rat, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, and the San Joaquin kit fox. Grasslands thrive with appropriate grazing levels, so cattle grazing was — and continues to be — used as a tool to maintain healthy upland habitat.

     Finally, Pixley NWR was granted a permanent allocation of water from the Friant-Kern Canal as part of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act of 1992. Unfortunately, no suitable canals or pipelines connect the refuge to its water source.

     Then Ducks Unlimited (DU), an organization of duck hunters dedicated to increasing waterfowl populations nationwide, stepped up to help make refuge wetlands a reality. In partnership with the refuge, DU acquired grants to drill a deep well as an interim water source and create wetland basins contoured to meet the needs of waterfowl. In autumn of 1994, the first water flowed out to flood the basins and revive the wetlands.

     The water brought increasing populations of migrating waterfowl to rest and feed at Pixley. But the refuge had no infrastructure for public access until Barbara Hopkins, then Tulare County Audubon Society president, became desperate to view her first-ever Fulvous Whistling Duck. As she ducked under the barbed wire perimeter fence and hurried along the levee with her spotting scope, Nick Stanley, the Refuge manager, observed her intrusion and approached in his pickup truck. When he confronted Barbara with her trespassing, she fired back, “Well, you should consider giving the public access to this place.” And so a nature trail and viewing platform were born, built by volunteers from Tulare Audubon and opened to the public in 2001.

     Today, from the public parking lot, the half-mile nature trail, and the viewing platform, you can watch dynamic flocks of ibis swoop into flight over fields of emerald and gold. When an approaching falcon stirs the flock, you’ll hear the thrumming wing beats of thousands of ducks taking off from grasslands and wetlands, and the cacophony of ducks, geese, and cranes conversing. Come an hour before sunset in fall and winter to experience the thrilling evening fly-in, when the glowing sky fills with skein after skein of calling wildfowl seeking refuge for the night. And as you marvel at this vital habitat and its wonderfully diverse populations of birds, plants, and animals, you can thank the tenacity of life itself and the persistence of dedicated individuals— ranchers, hunters, scientists, farmers, bird watchers, and wildlife enthusiasts—working together for the common goal of conservation.

October, 2014

     Awakening to the soft whir of a wood pellet stove. Eyes opening to the glow from the small glass pane in its metal door. Looking over to the window in the wall above, its eight panes etched with frozen ice crystals, then up at the heavy, hand-hewn pine beam above the bed. Reaching one hand out of a warm sleeping bag to touch the cold dampness of the hand-cut granite wall. Listening to the muffled sounds of movement in the loft above the long main room, then to the clump of footsteps coming down stairs. The voice of the hut’s winter manager breaks the spell.

     “Good morning, everyone,” he calls from the kitchen area. “It looks like we’re in for a perfect Pear Lake day!”

     Tucked into a glacial valley below one of the most prominent peaks in Sequoia National Park, Pear Lake offers a rare opportunity of a true backcountry experience within front country hiking range. The sparkling, high alpine lake, set directly under 11,208 ft. Alta Peak’s rugged cliffs, is a day hike or overnight backpack trip worth every moment of the six-mile trek on foot, skis, or snowshoes. And its historic winter ski hut/summer ranger station is a treasure to be remembered.

     The routes to Pear Lake are just as special as the hut itself. In summer, the Lakes Trail passes three small alpine lakes, each nestled into its own high-altitude scenery. The Watchtower segment, its popular summer portion of the trail, takes you through a cliff-hugging section with a spectacular view of Sequoia National Park’s mountain ranges.

     Starting from 7,200 feet of elevation at the park’s Wolverton trailhead, both routes are rigorous hikes with a 2,000-foot vertical rise to reach the Pear Lake Hut. On the Lakes Trail, summer campgrounds at Emerald and Pear lakes provide the opportunity to make it an overnight adventure.

     In winter, the Watchtower portion is impassable and the Lakes Trail takes all the traffic up one final pull called “The Hump” to the ski hut. The sight of the hut, standing at the edge of a grove of lodgepole pines and surrounded by granite highlands, welcomes the visitor to a true alpine experience of historic significance.

     The winter hut ski experience came late to the Sierra Nevada. Born from the recreational use of sheep and dairy cattle herders’ huts in the alpine regions of Europe, the concept formally arrived in the northeastern United States and Canada in the 1880s. From there, it spread to the Rocky Mountain regions and finally, to California’s Sierra Nevada.

     It took the financial boom years of the roaring 1920s to make it happen. As America’s National Parks began encouraging their concessionaires to increase their summer services to accommodate rapidly increasing numbers of summer visitors, California’s Sierra Club began demanding that winter sports be included in their services. Both Yosemite and Sequoia national parks responded by installing small rope ski tows and small ice-skating rinks in their tourist areas, but the concept of wilderness skiing was just a talking point.

     It wasn’t until the National Ski Association’s 1936 convention openly castigated the Park Service for effectively keeping winter recreation a low priority in its parks that Sequoia National Park Superintendent John R. White promised to start planning the construction of ski huts in its wilderness.

     It wouldn’t be easy, for the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression, and any construction depended on a workforce from the federal Civilian Conservation Corps. But it wasn’t until 1938, when the CCC program was winding down, that a plan was finally approved. Then, after April 29, 1939, when the CCC did fund $3,000 for construction of three shelter cabins in Sequoia’s backcountry, the park’s new superintendent, Eivind T. Scoyen, immediately made some changes.

     Urging a “cautious approach to the development of an extensive system of trail shelters in Sequoia,” Scoyen put the focus on just one hut at Pear Lake and revised the building plans to a cheaper, one-and-a-half-story, two-room, low-to-the ground structure. In August, a stub camp of the Three Rivers Camp Buckeye crew was opened. The crew had already done much work on Sequoia National Park’s truck trails, the Generals Highway, and buildings at Ash Mountain headquarters. But the Pear Lake Hut was a new experience.

     Following the Park’s architectural focus that emphasized the relationship between a structure and its natural environment, the wood and stone hut was placed at the edge of a grove of lodgepole pines where it blended in with its surroundings. Nearly everything on the exterior of the building came from the surrounding area, and the work was handcrafted as much as possible.

     By October, an access trail had been built, and all the local sand, rock, and logs needed gathered. Fifteen percent of outsourced building materials had been packed in to the site, and preliminary work on the site was begun. Then, with the onset of snow season, work stopped.

     In July, 1940, work began again with a 20-man CCC crew. Scoyen’s monthly reports were terse and noted growing problems. “Due to inexperienced labor, this project may not be completed,” he wrote in August. In September: “Cold weather may prevent the completion of this project this year.” And in October, after completion of all the rock work, except for one corner, he reported “Work has been discontinued until next year.”

     The next year was no easier. “The snow is still deep in the backcountry, even JO Pass is not open as of the end of June,” Scoyen reported. Work wasn’t restarted until August, with the completion of the masonry, and plate logs, porch brackets, and beam logs in place. It wasn’t until September 29, 1941, that the building was declared completed. And just in time. “The CCC program is rapidly coming to a halt,” Scoyen noted. “From a high of 7 camps in the park, only two are operating and one of these is about to leave.”

     The Hut was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 5, 1978. Its nomination form cites two main contributing factors. One was the structure’s intensive levels of hand labor and high levels of craftsmanship that made it a particularly appropriate memorial to the CCC program. The second was its example as “the best of National Park Service rustic architecture . . . one of the most environmentally successful alpine structures ever designed by the NPS.”

     It took time for the Pear Lake Hut to become reality. Careful time to make it the special treasure it remains. As you go out from its seemingly indestructible basic comforts to ski or hike the inviting granite slopes surrounding it, you might take time to pause and look back before the hut melds into the landscape. And marvel, that there is a place you can go where human enterprise and nature can still be one.

March, 2022

 *The geology of the Pear Lake environment is in many ways visible and ongoing: Pear Lake is a glacial lake in a small basin under the north face of 11,208-foot Alta Peak, rimmed by vertical cliffs to the south and west that were eroded and sculpted by glaciers as they periodically advanced and receded over time. Before the glacial period, Alta Peak was a large dome of intruded granite formed from cooled molten rock miles below the earth’s surface. This granite pluton was exposed with the uplift and erosion of the Sierra Nevada starting nearly 10M years ago.

Today the visitor can see the remaining southern portion of the glaciated dome of Alta Peak, as well as remnants of the glacial sedimentary deposits from eroded bedrock at its base. There are also bedrock surfaces “polished” by the advancing glaciers, and even boulders that were transported long distances on glaciers and left stranded after the glacier receded. Weather related erosion continues today with rockfalls and landslides visible beneath the cliffs. — Laurel Di Silvestro, geophysicist

     By 1937, Tulare County boasted four large county parks. Mooney Grove and Cutler, near Visalia, and Bartlett and Balch, accessed from Porterville and Springville, regularly attracted large crowds and offered many amenities. But the southwest county had only Alpaugh’s little 2-acre park, which was much too small to serve the area’s growing population.

     The Pixley Chamber of Commerce determined to remedy this situation by adding a substantial county park in Pixley. Located on Highway 99, Pixley was central to the communities the park would serve, including Alpaugh, Angiola, Ducor, Earlimart, Edendale, Saucelito, Terra Bella, and Tipton. The Chamber appointed a committee to work with the Pixley Community Club to promote the plan, and in a remarkably cooperative effort, the surrounding towns, instead of squabbling over which should host the park, joined in supporting Pixley’s campaign.

     The committees advertised for a site and soon received an offer of a 20-acre tract a half mile north of town beside the highway. The $750 price was a lot of money in the Great Depression, but Jay G. Brown, newly-appointed Supervisor of the Fifth District, offered his support and advised the park advocates to present their case to the County Board of Supervisors.

     The Supervisors admitted the need for the park and discussed how it might be financed. In August, at Supervisor Brown’s request, County Parks Superintendent R. B. (Bob) Tucker visited Pixley and concluded that trees and shrubs could be furnished from the Mooney Grove nursery while lumber for the park attendant’s home, fences, and restrooms could be provided from the county’s Balch Park saw mill, greatly reducing development costs.

     In April, 1938, the Supervisors unanimously adopted a resolution to accept the proposed parkland. Following Porterville’s example, the communities would raise the money to buy the land, then deed it to the county, which would develop and maintain the park. The Pixley Chamber promptly appointed a Ways and Means committee to raise the funds.

     The very next week, Supervisor Brown and Superintendent Tucker inspected the site to work out a budget for the park. Their report had to be submitted before the county’s fiscal year ended on June 25th for the park’s development to be funded in the 1938-39 budget. Otherwise, construction would be delayed for a year.

     Tucker estimated it would take about $3,500 to make the park land ready. He included an entrance gate, roads and parking areas, fences, a caretaker’s cottage, two “thoroughly modern” restroom facilities, lights, and a storeroom. A pump house and irrigation system would distribute water from the existing 200-foot well. The county would apply for help from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the New Deal public works program.

     Fund-raising began immediately, along with work to clear stumps, rubbish, and weeds from the site. Superintendent Tucker planned to top and trim the existing trees, to transplant at least a hundred oaks to the park to provide permanent shade, and to fill in the area with more fast-growing trees while the oaks matured.

     Tucker and County Surveyor Wayne Switzer surveyed the site and prepared detailed drawings of what the park would look like within twelve years. Meanwhile, the communities that the new park would serve decided to raise money with a barbecue picnic and festival to be held at the park grounds on June 2.

     On that day, the new Southern Pacific Railway station at Pixley was being dedicated, with Governor Frank Merriam invited to speak. A crowd of over 1,000 was expected, so for a $1.00 admission, many people would be able to see the park site and help raise the $750 to pay for it.

     In May, a large road camp crew was at work readying the site for the June event, which would start after the 10:00 a.m. depot dedication. The program committee had arranged for music by the Delano band, an old fiddlers’ contest, track events, contests, and sports in the afternoon, followed by an evening dance at the Soares dance hall. The menu for the BBQ dinner was set, and cold drinks stands and concessions would dot the grounds.

     The big day was a success. The money was raised, the land was purchased and turned over to the county, and the park plans were finalized. The project got a huge boost in October when the County learned that the WPA had approved $7,045 for park improvements. Along with $2,538 of county money, the funds would be used to complete the clearing, grubbing, and grading, construct the buildings and infrastructure, add landscaping and drinking fountains, and perform “incidental and appurtenant” work.

     Superintendent Tucker’s plan for the park showed two entrances and the caretaker’s house in the middle with roadways radiating from it out to the corners. Parking facilities and 20 picnic tables with benches were scattered throughout, with restrooms near the caretaker’s house. Other amenities included an arbor, a playground, a ball park, and a big barbecue pit in the southeast corner. The pumping plant, the caretaker’s quarters, and the restrooms would be constructed first, with other improvements made “as fast as funds are available.”

     Work began in mid-November, with 23 WPA men, Superintendent L.C. Canaday of Tulare, and two county men on the site. The park caretaker had been hired and was on the job along with a carpenter from Mooney Grove Park building the 24’x26′ caretaker’s house.

     Six months later, on June 2, 1939, when the second annual fundraising barbecue and dance for the park was held, the program included the park’s opening and dedication service, followed by an amateur talent contest and a ball game. The Park Booster Club sold tickets for 50 cents, with the proceeds going into the treasury for a lighted ball field.

     At the third annual park BBQ, in June, 1940, the new lighted ball diamond was dedicated. The united efforts of the southwest district’s communities, with considerable help from the county and the WPA, had achieved all their original goals for their park, a very bright spot in those dark Depression days.

     Now, over 80 years since the people of Pixley envisioned a park in their future, that green open space continues to serve not only southwest county residents, but also thousands of travelers seeking a respite from hectic Highway 99. They come to enjoy a stretch outdoors, walk their dogs, let their kids run free or exercise on the playground equipment, participate in sports, socialize, celebrate a special event, or have a picnic in the shade of its many trees. Next time you’re passing through Pixley, stop and join them — and check out the granite marker near the park entrance to learn some history. A famous train robbery occurred nearby in 1889!

October, 2018