she said, you were there? he wasn't. he had somehow intuited it. this was his high water mark. >> today at 6 p.m. on "the civil war." you're watching american history tv only on c-span3. weekend, american history tv joins our comcast cable partners to shore visalia, california. we continue now with our look at the history of visalia. we are headed today in downtown visalia. starting tols were spring up and people were moving outside of the town center. visalia made a very conscious

effort to make sure that their downtown stayed very vital. so merchants on the downtown area in main street, you will tend to see locally-owned shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues. we have the fox theater. fox theater is one of the , an iconf our downtown for downtown. states postunited office, which is an art deco building built in the wp a -- pa -- wpaete -- dubya era. a grovea sapling from of trees. .his is a federal building a federal employee, the superintendent would spend his winters down here working out of

an office in the basement. roll inad a bit of a getting sequoia designated -- a in getting sequoia designated as a national park. a local newspaper man started the movement to protect the trees from logging. this building that is catty , ther to us to the left second floor was always a hotel on the ground floor was always retail. i mentioned a little bit about visalia's historic connection to the national park. , the vice president came to visalia. beenecond floor had not changed. the point of the journey was to emphasize how the national parks

had been designated, were falling into disrepair because they were not under one umbrella. mather was pushing for the creation of what would become the national park service, all these properties under one , and thet directive preserved for the american people throughout time. that is a great historic building their, and really just solidified our connection to our national park neighbors. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to visalia, california to learn more about its rich history. learn more about by visiting -- learn more about visalia by visiting www.c-span.org/c a huge steel tank filled up with more than 2 million gallons of molasses collapsed on boston's

waterfront. the resulting flood of molasses left 21 people dead and 150 injured. about hiselo talks book "dark tide". he traces the history of the disaster from the tanks construction in 1950 through the lawsuits. this was recorded at the boston statehouse in 2003 and is about an hour. everyone from the time they first hear about it is fascinated by the concept of a molasses flood. here in boston, too, no less. i'm sure that tonight's speaker would probably admit to a similar fascination. the difference is that his background includes experience as a newspaper reporter and columnist and investigative reporting awards from u.p.i. and the massachusetts press association.