be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning. join the discussion. >> next, a book to be exclusive. our cities tour visits by celia california. for eight years now, we have traveled to u.s. cities bringing the book seem to our viewers. you can watch more at c-span.org -- cities tour. >> welcome to by celia california. it is the gateway to

the national park. it is the center of the nations most productive agricultural region. --visaliaur by celia tour. on the really focuses problem children in our early history. we were remote for many years. what i mean by remote is that los angeles is 200 miles south of us. sacramento is 250 miles north of us. next-doorins are which made a great hideout for people on the run.

if you going to practice criminal activity, you want to do that without getting caught. the county made it pretty convenient for outlaws to hideout. when i first thought about this book, i was concerned that i was treating the county unfairly and i was very concerned that i did at paint the county in negative way when it was not deserving. fromrted collecting quotes people of the day. after i looked at all of the examples of what people would say about the county, my conscience was clear and i felt comfortable with the title of my book. it was a wild county.

one of the outlaws the called the city home commented in a book he wrote later. he said from early days, the town ahead maintained a hard reputation. everyone said that more questionable characters lived there than any place of its size in the world. when you hear that from an outlaw, that is pretty concrete proof that you have a tough town. duringnewspaper article the same. of the 1800s, it reported that no murders this week. frank is a guy. early 20's,teens, down the road and

he had his shotgun and with robbery as a motive, he shut mr. cornell in the back with a shotgun. he took his property. eventually, frank became the person of interest in the murder and at that point he was running for his life. salia and he was arrested for the murder of james cornell. he endedt on trial and up being found guilty of the crime. he was sentenced to die in san quentin. this was all in 1902. he was taken to san quentin to serve his sentence until the offense was taken care of. he appealed his case.

he was from a prominent family so the family appeared -- appealed the conviction. he won the right to a second trial. the sheriff went up to san quentin to pick him up. they handcuffed him and they sat on the train heading back for the new trial. him andiff befriended said we are going to be on a long ride. i am just going to take her handcuffs off. then you can be more comfortable. he did and when the sheriff got up to get a draft of water, frank does out of the moving train window and landed on the flat plains of the san joaquin valley. attempted to stop the train. in theit stopped and

distance, he saw frank running. buggyeriff commandeered a and ended up arresting him and taking him back for his new trial. twoconversation between the was much more below after that incident. he was handcuffed. he came back and he was again found guilty on the second trial. this time for whatever reason, he was sentenced to life and present it. not death. he was known as a rough guy in full some state prison. cellmate made an escape attempt and killed a guard and they made their way to

a little town and eventually, they were captured and brought back to prison. time, they said we have to move up the execution these guys are a problem for us. gallows ated in the full some prison for killing the guard. not for killing cornell but for killing the prison guard. is an interesting man. visalia in the mid-1860's. he came with a great reputation. he was a likable man. as is the case with so many, he was likable except when he was drinking alcohol. alcohol,as drinking

there was a massive transition that took place from nice guy to mean guy. he fit that to a t. he came here, he was likely -- likable enough to be brought on as a volunteer fireman. you will notice in the fire record, he was going astray a because he was expelled by the company by unanimous vote. he was already having problems but hefire department became deputy town marshal. in the process, he killed several people. most of which were probably the citizenshough were not terribly impressed with his techniques.

to look at him point, itand at one got so bad that they said you really need to leave town if you know what is good for you. he gave up his badge and left town and the citizens were very grateful that he left town because they didn't have to put and he had anymore owned a saloon while he was here. at the same time he was deputy , that did not help him with his alcoholism. and on december 24, alia andreturned to vis

came into town early in the morning. the person who sold his saloon was his friend charles and he said i don't have any money can you loan me $10? $10 all to drink the day long. the evening was christmas eve. be and henk as could ended up in the saloon that he once owned that was now owned by charles allen. he told one of the patrons there the next going to kill person who comes through the door of the saloon. sure of their response but i know it was concerning. the next thing the door opens

and he takes his revolver and shoots the guy walking through the door. not only does he shoot him, as soon as the guy falls on the ground, he walks up to him and fires at least three rounds into his head. the person walking through the door was charles allen, the person who bought the saloon from him and they were friends. the law men took him to the county jail. as they were walking to the puts inail, the sheriff behind the bars and the citizens say we want him so they ended up forcing their way, the sheriff not giving them the key. they forced their way into the jail and tied a rope around his neck and dragged him out of the and tied the under -- other

end of the rope around the frame of the bridge and tossed him over. this was new year's eve 1872. the same evening that parents and kids are walking across the bridge to go to their kids presentation at the school. was done intentionally. they left the body hanging to send the message to the criminal element that this is how we are going to deal with criminality in the town. there ford his body people to see. the fire department record, the secretary of the fire department wrote on the bottom in fancy cursive writing hanged by the

neck by an angry mob. justly deserved. story is probably one of the more gory and gruesome cases in the book. it involves cannibalism. in summary, what happened was a man named rogers owned a ranch. he was a tough guy on his own. the indian problem was a big deal over there. rogers to dealke with that problem because it was a very remote part of the state. one guy a man named king came up and said he was work -- looking for work.

rogers said i could use some help and employed him. the few people that were in the neighborhood noticed the rogers was gone. whichalled him hog rogers is a nickname for the guy that owned the ranch. they went up to king and said where is hog? he went someplace he is on vacation. he came up with several stories. none that were consistent. they looked around eventually of rogersound pieces sprinkled around the ranch. like he had been chopped up. the eventually arrested him and isalia put on trial in v which was the county seat. thatfound good evidence

rogers was killed by king, cut cooked his flesh was like you would cook -- cook beef jerky. travelers that were going down the valley. stop and is a way station. it was a pretty gory, gruesome image. trial ande was put on found guilty of murder. year, he was executed in the courthouse square. it was a legal execution. ofwas within half a block where mccrory was killed. because io write this

always had an interest in the outlaws of the old west. involved from so an enforcement point of view and from a crime point of view that when i got into the subject matter, i fell in love with the research and could not believe what i was reading that it occurred on the same ground that we walk on every day. for me, i want the reader of salia and to look at vi the county in a different light. childrene some problem but at the same time a lot of good things were going on. it is more of a balanced approach. that aree there things all good or all bad. it is a combination.

>> we are headed today initially in the downtown area. shopping malls were starting to spring up. effort to bescious sure that the downtown area state of vibrant. on main street, you will tend to see locally owned shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues. to our left, we have the fox theater. it is one of the anchors of our downtown. it is an icon for downtown. to our left is the post office which is an art deco building. a sequoiat, we have

tree that came here as a three-year-old sapling. since it is a federal building, was workingendent out of an office in the basement. the town has a close relationship with a sequoia national park. with the park service, we had a bit of a roll in getting sequoia designated as a park. man started a campaign to get the park designated and to protect the sequoia trees from logging. i wanted to mention the palace hotel. it is on the left over here. the second floor of that was always a hotel. the ground floor was always retail. in 1915, a party came and stayed

at the hotel. touched and over 80 years. through the a trek sequoia national park. the point of the journey was to emphasize how the national park were falling into just repair. they were pushing for the creation of what would soon become the national park service. all of these properties would be under one management directive. preserved for the american people throughout time. that solidified our connection to our national park neighbors. >> standing in front of the vault in the history room. uple we were here, we opened

the ball to take a look at some photographs and our graphs to tell a history of the area. >> the county is very interesting because we are such an old county. it was founded shortly after the gold rush. this is the oldest town between stockton and los angeles. we are fortunate that we have a big community of people who are interested in history. we all work together to try to preserve it. the annie mitchell history room. as you can see, we have our fault -- a fault and that holds are more sensitive information. rare books, obsolete media. we have old newspapers. then we do have personal papers

from local citizens that helped reserve our history here. our first item that we are going newspapering at is a called the commonwealth. it is the newspaper of a utopian society that lives near sequoia national park in the 1880's and 1890's. the colony was a socialist utopia and their economy was based on logging. they were followers of the socialist ideals and their impact locally is that they did explore the area. germans sherman tree. then when the sequoia national park was created, that was the beginning of the end of the colony.

luckily, we do have a reminder of the colony through the newspaper. they did a lot of exploring of the national park. photo of aem is a giant sequoia being cut down. it was cut down in 1892. to be sent back to the 1893 chicago world's fair. before logging the redwoods became illegal, they were desired because the wood it was fire resistant. a lot of the towns in the late 1800s were susceptible to fire so if you had a redwood house or building, you had a better chance of the building surviving. you can't log redwoods anymore. unfortunately, when they cut the

tree down, due to the size and weight, 50% of the tree was shattered and became unusable. even though there was a desire for wood, it was not cost effective but they still tried it became illegal.

this was found in upstate new york in the 1970's. this was purchased by someone who is on vacation in new york, and they saw it and recognized the statue right away. it tells the history of where it was found. 1973. found in how did it get from california to upstate new york? people are aware of the statue. it is kind of interesting that the painting -- we do not know how it got to new york, but it did make its way back to visalia. the next photo is a photo of a train robber, a notorious train whopper -- train robbers year-end visalia. the gentleman -- a notorious train robber here in visalia.

the gentleman standing behind him was part of a posse sent to get him. he was laid off while he was group rating from injury. he conspired -- while he was recuperating from injury. he conspired with his friend to do these train robberies up and down the valley. finally, they were caught. went up to the foothills and tracked them down, and then there was a shoot out. lost evans escaped, but he an eye and left arm. this is a colorful outlaw history of tulare county. her next photo is a reproduction, but it is valuable, because this is a nd, bornn named edmob

as a slave back east. he came to california as a slave and work in the gold rush. he bought his own freedom and then moved to visalia, where he raised his kids. to the, he sent his son local school, and the school said, send your son to the school for all students who are not white. district.d the school it went to the state supreme court and he won. effectively it ended segregation that was recognized and unrecognized in the state of california at that time and set a legal president saying you students based on the color of their skin. the next photo shows george combine,team powered

and it is self-propelled. i chose this because tulare county is the second-largest agricultural producing county in the state. our climate is very universal, where we can have cows, dairy, kim bro stone fruit -- can grow stone fruit, nuts. it shows the agricultural scene, but it also shows the ingenuity. we were trying to produce agriculture better or more efficiently. our next item is a catalog. it is interesting because it is bound almond leather. this is from a company that produced saddles. it was started in 1870 by a gentleman named d.e. walker, and

he produced saddles that were exquisite, a lot of handcrafted leather. it became popular. there was a saying that if your saddle isn't from visalia, you are not a real cowboy. the saddles themselves are collectible items. if you go on ebay and look for by sally a saddles -- visalia saddles, they are looked after. when the visalia stock saddle company moved to san francisco, all their records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, which makes this day will sought after piece of history. of tulare county

as it appeared at the time. this map was made by a gentleman , and itomas h thompson shows the entire tulare county, including part of what is now known as is county. on the right-hand side, you have sequoia national park, the sierra nevada mountains, and also the great western divide. as you move last, you see the central valley, places such as visalia, but as you go west, at the very edge of the map, there is a big body of water called tulare lake. this is significant because tulare lake is no longer there. at one time, it was the largest freshwater lake west of the rockies. now it is gone. due to management of water, it is no longer around.

it was referred to as the ghost lake, because depending on how much water came down from the sierra nevadas, the size would fluctuate. it could be really large, could be really small. the map is indicative of how the landscape has changed. this item is part of our george stewart collection. george stewart was a newspaper editor who owned the visalia weekly delta, now known as the visalia times delta. he was influential because he used his editorial hours and his opinion pieces to advocate her protecting the giant redwoods nearby. convince was trying to public opinion on saving these giant trees. part of his efforts resulted in a sequoia national are being established -- the sequoia

national park being established in 1890. stewart was friends with john muir, was familiar with him. they were spotted with questions about the creation of the national park on the sea euros. uir replied back, saying he would stop by and say hi. we have all his papers and correspondence that highlight that an document that. it is important to preserve these and collect them and try to hold onto them as long as we can, because they are evidence of the stories we have heard in the past. or there is history we have heard rumors about and we want to verify whether it is true or not. we try to hold off on them as

long as we can, not just old, dusty books in the corner. that book may hold a revelation to someone that may not know about it. >> we are outside of the three members -- three rivers museum in tulare county, california. it is just outside of sequoia national park. we spoke with a local office circular more about the history of this mountain range and the ancient peoples who called this area their home. -- we spoke with a local officer to learn more about the history of this mountain range in the ancient peoples who called this area their home.

>> the sierra nevada mountains are probably the most unique range in the world. however, the sierra nevada mountains are a very long range, and they sit in a portion geologically that is still very active. they are still creating a lot of problems for humanity and have forever. to me, the southern sierra specifically, which ranges from sonora pass into the actual range as it curves around into the coastal mountains. it encompasses just about everything that every range in the world has. what makes this unique is the position of where we sit, as far as where we are on the earth. it is in a region that is quite a mediterranean climate, even up to the higher areas of the sierra nevada, the more northern

areas. therefore, they are accessible, livable a great portion of the year. they are probably able to sustain more life. the sierra nevada before history is about the actual people who lived here in what we call prehistoric times. theyrehistoric times mean did not have an actual written word and it was not written down. it goes back 10,000 years, you will be able to review how the people got here and why they moved into the mountains from the low lands. bookore specifically, the is telling in its second part about the individual groups that were in the area.

we tend to say indians. there were no such thing as indians. there were different groups of people who came at different times, just as we have now. everyone was an immigrant. were the -- the first people in the sierra nevada actually getting two ways. they came by see and from overland down through what is canada, washington, oregon, and into the california central valley, and then open to the sierra nevada from there. we are just learning this, and as we go along, wiki any new evidence -- we keep getting new evidence and artifacts.

but we are now saying probably they got into the actual area, the foothills, probably around 7000 to 10,000 years ago. the two groups i am mentioning that came in different waves and head different genetic backgrounds actually join forces at different times. it was not a sudden influx. it took hundreds of thousands of years for them to come in, all different routes of immigrants, so they had different backgrounds, different cultures, and they settled first in the coastal areas. then became what we call subgroups. one subgroup came from the eastern group that came here. they had a very long journey.

another group were very western people that came down probably from siberia, etc. -- thetermann aji western group came mostly from the eastern side. you go back and forth, there are different ones. the early evidence in this area was some artifacts that were found for hunting, because the sierra's first opened up as hunting grounds. they had hunting trails. havehad then found that been 10,000 years and older. we tend to lump native americans into a group of native americans. there is no such thing. number one, none of them are native. they all came from different places. a sickly, from the asian --

basically, from the asian continent. in this area, it all caps from there in the beginning. aree are communities, there familial communities. the book i have written tries to point that out strongly. the conditions they lived in in the early days were probably the reason there are similarities between what the people lived, how they survived, what their practices were, but there were such differences because of their all-separate cultures as broken down little communities. there is no such thing in my mind -- and i try to approach the book this way -- there is no such thing as an indian.

there is no such thing as a native american. they are all different cultural groups at different times that had come in with their own lives and customs. the tribes are still here, but they are so intermarried that it is difficult to depict them as such. ,owever, government regulations government aid, government recognition is being changed all the time now, because the idea was you had to be whole-blooded. to happen not going anymore, to be able to say that you are part of a tribe. it is one thing that i would want the reader to walk away with -- if there is one thing i would want the reader to walk away with, it is an understanding of common humanity, what affects us, how the environment affects how we live, think, and believe, and

how different our cultural backgrounds are and how they blend. and they can be actually not only blended, but reinforced and made into something wonderful , if we understand each other, understand why we are that way, and how to work with each other. >> the san joaquin valley is the bread basket of the world. tulare county is the second largest producer of agriculture in the country. some of the crops we are going to see, we have a lot of nuts, pistachios, pecans. that is what we will see when we first start to leave town. we will have oranges, pinellas, lemons, limes that are growing. as we are driving along, we start to see young crops going in here.

as i mentioned, walnuts, pistachios, pecans growing throughout here. although it feels flat, we will go up a little bit and start digging into the citrus fruit. we are starting to see citrus here. we are the number one navel orange producer in the country. most people are surprised that -- they think florida oranges, but the oranges are very strong here. the problem with farming, water is a huge issue. many people in the big cities do not want our water to be wasted by our farmers. there is a discussion about the best use of the water and whether or not we are able to store as much water as we need for our farms to grow. not only does it look beautiful, especially today, but i would much rather eat our locally grown fruits and vegetables and

other agricultural crops than have to import it from somewhere else. takescer: next, an author us on a walking tour around the cilia, highlighting -- around visalia, highlighting its landmarks. >> i came to tulare county because it is beautiful, because i am a fly fisherman. i love fishing in the mountains. . love the town of visalia it was a town of 30,000 when i moved here, and it became a big city now of 150,000. i watched it grow up, and it still has a small town feel. i wrote this book, "a walk around visalia," and it is about 10 different walks we can take around visalia.

downtown is especially a feeling because it is full of independent restaurants and stores, all doing a good business. it has grown up in the last 30 years or so to the this. we've fixed up the fox theater and have shows they are -- shows there all the time. are standing in front of the office, founded in 1851, and visalia was founded in 1852. it had a paper before it was actually a city. is interesting, because there were several papers at that time, and as the lead up to the civil war progressed, one paper took the side of the south, and another paper took the side of the north. the conflict was severe enough that the state of california,

which was a union state, sent visaliaown here to fort , and they actually enforced the laws in on ways. at one time, in the 1860's, the southern sympathizing paper put out an editorial that was very much against lincoln. the union soldiers stationed here came into town and for the presses out and threw them on the streets. that paper is up and running again in a week or so, but it still was a lot of conflict. thefunny thing is, in 1860's, essentially the two papers merged, and that's how we got "the visalia times delta."

up toward the ben mannix house, built in 1876 by ben maddox, who was a newspapermen. he owned the "visalia times delta" when it merged and owned it for a long time. so famous, we have a street named after him. this house is now occupied i owners. bed-and-breakfast for a while, but it has turned into a single family house. we are standing in front of the total county library built in 1936. get is part of a program to the united states out of the depression. it is a beautiful building itself and turned into the children's wing of the newer library that was added to it in

1976. it goes back from here into the main library part. the original library was on main 1902t, and it was built in by the carnegie foundation. here.n 1936, it moved behind me is the annex to the tulare county courthouse. the county courthouse itself was destroyed in a small earthquake, -- a small earthquake that happened in the 1950's, and it was torn down. the courthouse before, they had jails and a man named james mccurry, not a good guy. when he was in these cuffs. -- when he was in his cuffs, he took it out on other people.

he went to the bar and shot a man three times and then laughed about it. this made the citizens of visalia mad, and the police arrested him and put him in jail in the courthouse. takeitizens wanted to their own justice. so they overpowered the guards, dragged him out, and hung him over a bridge, right at this corner here. it is only about 10 feet high, but high enough to drop him and break his neck. here you see a nice mural painted by high school students. they say a post office was built in the 1930's. you can see it was a beautiful building.

work, the brick work, it is just amazing. marble ornaments inside. they did a lot of work and employed a lot of people. it is still an active post office, although it is not the main post office anymore. that has moved to a larger building. on each side of the post office, , one aanted two trees magnolia exterior in front, and behind it is a sequoia. are the largest trees in the world. this is a smaller specimen that has been here for about 80, 90 years.

we are standing in the lobby of the fox theater, built in 1926, 1 of many fox theaters throughout california. it had been badly used for years when they nonprofit group took over and refurbished it into the beautiful theater it is today. we have wonderful ironwork on the stairs. we have elephants on beams. we have all kinds of special wooden carvings. it is an amazing building. let's take a look inside. these fox theaters often had exotic themes, mythological

elements, ajax in architecture, paintings of exotic places with palm trees and giants on the stage to watch over you. it is an amazing conglomeration of fun things. acousticsas excellent , and the tulare county symphony performs here, as well as many other groups. i guess this is the end of the walking tour, although there are many more beautiful places to see in this wonderful town. i call it a little town -- there are 150,000 people now. when i moved here, there were more like 30,000. i encourage you to come here. it still has a small town feel with lots of independent people doing independent restaurants and stores, and lots of things for kids to do. we have nearby national parks.

yosemite is not far away. if you want to go to the ocean, it is only a couple hours in the other direction. it is a great place to be and a wonderful place to live. >> we are now in a lake that was created to dam water from the mountains in the springtime for use in the valley. it was elevated to hold 30% more water recently. it is used for recreation, but it is also important to us in the valley. one of the largest native american communities inside a national park was here in sequoia national park. when they fled in this area, it did flood some of the areas -- native american areas, and they pulled some bedrock mortar up and put it on display.

mortar is where they were able to take acorns and mashed their meal. there is lots of evidence in the park of these native american cultures. they call this hospital rock because they assume native americans used that as a location for curative measures. as you are walking along, it is not uncommon to find evidence of their life in the mountains. announcer: our visit to visalia, california, is a book tv exclusive, and we showed it to you today to introduce you to c-span's cities tour area for eight years now, we have traveled to u.s. cities, bringing the book seem to our viewers. you can watch more of our visits at c-span.org/citiestour. [captis