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THE STORY OF BALCH PARK
by William Tweed
The largest trees in the world grow in the mountains that dominate the eastern half of Tulare County. Most of these trees can be found in two large federal reservations – Sequoia National Park and the Giant Sequoia National Monument, which is a part of the Sequoia National Forest. But nestled amongst these vast and famous places is a unit of the Tulare County park system – Balch Park. How is it that Tulare County came to protect this beautiful piece of land?
The story goes back to the late 19th century and a pioneer entrepreneur named John Doyle. Taking advantage of the generous land sales statutes of the times, Doyle took control of the 160 acres of sequoias in the middle 1880s. He intended to develop the property, which he called “Summer Home,” as a mountain resort. Doyle hoped to sell up to 125 lots to families seeking relief from the summer heat of the San Joaquin Valley.
The lot sales never happened, however, and Doyle maintained control of the entire tract until he finally sold it in 1906 to the Mt. Whitney Power Company. This corporation, which was developing hydroelectric facilities on the Tule River, intended to cut the sequoias and use the lumber to build a flume to carry water to a new power plant. (Just a few years earlier the company had done the same thing on the Kaweah River, where it cut sequoias at Atwell’s Mill to build a flume to provide water to Kaweah Power Plant Number One.)
Now fate intervened. A major figure in the power company was engineer John Hays Hammond, and it was Hammond’s wife, Natalie Harris Hammond, who, after visiting the property, convinced her husband not to allow the harvesting of the 200 large sequoias on the site. So the Mt. Whitney Company cancelled its logging plans and held on to the property. Eventually it was purchased privately in 1923 by Allan C. Balch of Los Angeles, president of the San Joaquin Light and Power Company. (San Joaquin Light and Power had taken over the Tule River power plant project from the Mt. Whitney Company; today, its facilities are part of the Pacific Gas and Electric system.)
Allan Balch and his wife Janet purchased the property with the express intent that it be given to the County of Tulare as a public park, and that donation was finalized in December 1930. In subsequent years, an attempt was made to transfer the property to the State of California for addition to the surrounding Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest, but the terms of the Balch donation made such a transfer impractical.
Eventually, the county parks department installed a number of recreational improvements on the property, making it a comfortable place to camp, and confirmed the identity of the site as “Balch Park.”
Now, more than eighty years after Tulare County took title to Balch Park and its campgrounds, the small park offers exactly what John Doyle dreamt about so long ago: a “Summer Home” in the green, cool forests of the Sierra for those seeking relief from the heat of summer. For that we can thank Natalie Hammond and Allan and Janet Balch.
September, 2012
“. . . the “premises hereby conveyed shall forever be and remain in their present state and condition so far as may be possible and, subject to this controlling purpose, shall be made available for the use, pleasure and enjoyment of the general public.” — from Deed conveying title of Balch Park from A. C. and Janet Balch to Tulare County, December 10, 1923
“Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of the green deep woods.” – John Muir
“. . . [we] felt the power of the trees, trickling into our bodies, mingling like the smokes of two campfires, like spirits reunited after being separated for much too long. It was always hard to leave the grove.” — Joe Medeiros
“Mr. and Mrs. A.C. Balch deserve full credit as the godparents of Balch Park, but John J. Doyle was its natural Father. . . he was instrumental in getting them to buy his old Summer Home from the Power company for the purpose of donating it to the County as a park.” — Floyd L. Otter
Address: 48200 Bear Creek Drive, Springville, CA
Latitude/Longitude:
N36° 14.0971′, W118° 41.709′
36.2349516 ,-118.6951494
From Visalia: Take Hwy 198 east to Hwy 65 south. Follow Hwy 65 to Strathmore and turn left (east) onto Road 276 toward Springville. At the junction with Hwy 190, turn left (east) toward Springville.
In Springville, turn left (north) onto County Road J37, and then go right (east) onto Bear Creek Road (M-220) and follow it up the mountain to Balch Park.
To return via Porterville:
Retrace your route back to Springville and then take Hwy 190 west to Porterville. At the junction with Hwy 65, go north back to Hwy 198, and then west on Hwy 198 to Visalia.
