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Understanding 9/11tv Agriculture in Fresno County CSPAN February 5, 2017 9:19pm-9:30pm EST
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abraham lincoln. the inspirations remain a subject of discussion and debate, inquiry. we have not solve the question of who was his great inspiration yet, but we have had fabulous interpreters in ronald whyte, richard burr kaiser and sidney blumenthal. thank you all for joining us. [applause] announcer: interested in american history tv? y.sits www.c-span.org/histor american artifacts, road to the white house rewind, lectures and history, and more at www.c-span.org/history. >> this week, c-span is in fresno learning more about the city's history. right now we are in kearney park, named for one of the city's ag pioneers. coming up next we will visit his
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home and learn more about his vision for this area. ruth lang: we are located here in the kearney mansion. this is built in 1903. this was the managers residence. mr. kearney did not intend to live here permanently. he had plans for a grander chateau to be built on the property. he's lived here for years until he died in 1906. mr. kearney was really a self-made man. he was not born here in california. he was born in liverpool, england. when he was 12 his family immigrated to america. they settled in a suburb of boston. and he went to commercial college, learned how to be a businessman. he worked for a truck manufacturing company there. he started as a clerk, worked his way up and before he knew it, he was a manager of the
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business there in boston. he eventually decided to come out here to california. it was a perfect time because the transcontinental railroad was coming through. they understood the people buying the land out here, this was the perfect opportunity to grow crops in this region. so, mr. kearney was hired by mr. william chapman, who bought a lot of the property out here through agricultural script. he hired mr. kearney to develop the colony farm systems out here. he started the first colony farm, central colony, out here in this area. mr. kearney, that is really where he made his money. he was just a great land promoter. he enticed people to come out here to the central valley and settle here. most of the properties were about 20 acre farms. the thing that really brought people out here was irrigation. the canals that were formed here would bring to the colonies their own irrigation water.
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also vineyards planted for them and other fruit trees and so on. so, it really was a great opportunity for people to settle in this region. the first crop they realized was successful was wheat. the result wonderful wheatfield that was growing here. once they realize they could bring water from the river to irrigate it, the soil was ideal. eventually fruit crops, raisins, a big part of what was grown out here and what we are known as today. we also have the regular grapevines out here. today we still have those. from trees, orange trees, almonds. many crops can be grown in this region and it is covered over the years that this was a perfect area for that. he was interested in the growing of raisins and he wanted to get together a co-op of raisin growers to structure the pricing, control quality of
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raisins, and so he started the california raisin grower association and became the president. everyone thought that is a wonderful idea. he was known as the raisin king of fresno. he was looked upon as a savior of the raisin industry. however, there were problems with people not getting along, not everybody agreeing with the ideas he had. eventually that went by the wayside. but the managerial ideas he had were later formed in another company, the sunmaid raisin company. starting in 1912. he is a big component of that corporation, which exists today. this is the kearney estate office. even though the kearney mansion was his home, this is where the business was conducted. a lot of people would come through the back door. this was the main entrance to the office door. the rail you see out there was the original rail. many years of people riding on the rail still show. you can see it in the wood.
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that is where they would come. people who wanted to buy property, perhaps people who worked here on the ranch, maybe the workers would come in and pick up their paycheck, fill out forms -- you can see many years of people using that particular area as they came in. so, the estate office changed a bit over the years, but it's very similar to how it was when mr. kearney was here. in the back of the mansion, at one time was a full count net at one time. this is all in the back. at the same time, the house had been constructed and there was a very large water tower. someone stood on the water tower and took this wonderful photo. they had everything in here that anyone really could use. and so it really was a full working farm. in the 1940's and 1950's, it was torn down.
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we do still have some structures remaining like the carriage house is still here today. but unfortunately we have these buildings today in the back. we at least have this wonderful picture to refer to. here in the estate office, a lot of people enjoy seeing the different things of what he had here in the office. here is the safe. it was a walk-in safe. vineyardse kearney syndicate on the top. that is, of course, were mr. kearney would store his important papers, money, anything he needed safely stored away was in that safe. we have a filing cabinet here during mr. kearney's time. the labels were added later. this shows you what was here on the ranch. all of the things that were grown. peaches, prunes, alfalfa, grapes, of course, raisins were obviously a big crop out here. today even as you come into
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kearney park, you see the big fields. that's where the alfalfa was grown. going over in this corner, we see this wonderful broadside poster. this is in original poster. 1889. this is when mr. kearney was selling the land here on the fruitvale estate. it was very similar to his colony farm system. these were 20-acre farms. very affordable for most people. this was here in the fruitvale estate. and you can see on the top, what the vision of one of those farms would look like. you see the canal. again, we have those today out here and all over the city to bring water to the crops. below was a picture of the chateau. that was going to be named chateau fresno, and it was modeled after a chateau in france. this is what kearney envisioned to be out here in kearney park, and that is where he would live. unfortunately, however, the chateau was not built. mr. kearney died in 1906.
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in april of 1906, he was actually in the san francisco earthquake at that time. he was not in the best of health. but then he suffered probably a mild heart attack at that time. he came back here to fresno to recuperate, and he was going to go to his yearly trip abroad. he would usually do that most years to seek investors for his fruitvale estates project or socialize. unfortunately, while on board ship, he died of another heart attack. once that happened the chateau was no longer being built. they had started a foundation here at the park but that refortunately, as soon as their was word he died, the link stopped. he was not married. he did not have any children. his will left everything to the university of california-berkeley, so they could build an agricultural college out here. they chose not to complete the chateau, and still continue to use it as a ranch. it would have been beautiful to have that, but unfortunately, it
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did never happen and we did not have a chateau fresno here in fresno. this is kearney's private office. this is very similar to how it looked when mr. kearney lived here. in fact, as we walked through the house, we have pictures of what the house looked like when mr. kearney lived here. this is what looked like in 1903. it almost looks the same way today. very similar to how it was when mr. kearney lived here. we kind of have a little hole in the wall here to show people what the structure is made out of, and that is adobe brick. it was two feet thick and that was very good insulation to keep the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer before we had air-conditioning and heating. when they started to excavate the land out here, it really was a sandy plain. not much out here. there was some vegetation, maybe some trees, but you can really get a sense of what it looked like when they did the groundbreaking.
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this picture shows chateau park -- that's what it was called. it was not called kearney park then. in february 1892. this is the first day of the groundbreaking of the park. mr. kearney is in the front there with the long duster jacket. right behind in the middle of the photo there is a building, and really it was the first manager's residents. kearney mansion was the second manager's residence. that was the first build. that building exists today. we call it these servants quarters and is the head quarters for the fresno historical society today. on the property, mr. kearney did have this wonderful general store that his employees could shop in, and they would give out little coins to the employees and they could actually use those in the general store and exchange them for goods. kind of kept everything within the business, obviously, but it
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