Over a million people a year walk, hike, or ride horseback on the amazingly diverse trails of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. From a short, easy stroll into a magnificent giant sequoia grove to a strenuous backpacking trip to the summit of rugged Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the 48 contiguous states, these paths offer people of all ages, inclinations, and abilities a multitude of opportunities to experience the parks’ wonders in the very best way: at a walking pace, free to pause whenever they please, immersed in the sights, scents, sounds, and thrills of the wild world.

     Ranging in elevation from less than 2,000 feet up to 14,500 feet, the trails traverse over a thousand miles to connect the major features and extraordinary environments of these spectacular parks. Who builds these beckoning byways, and who maintains them in the face of floods, fires, avalanches, rock slides, falling trees, deep snows, and thoughtless trail-cutters?

     Since the National Park Service was established in 1916, this essential work has been carried out primarily by NPS Trail Crews (while Civilian Conservation Corps workers contributed a tremendous amount of trail maintenance from 1933 to 1942). Beginning in the 1970s, the parks have also been partnering with volunteer service organizations such as the Youth Conservation Corps to help maintain the miles of trails being “loved to death” by the increasing national interest in outdoor recreation.

     It’s not easy to get hired on to a Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks trail crew. First, applicants must realize that their work locations may be in any area of these two parks, which are 93% wilderness and span “an extraordinary continuum of ecosystems, arrayed along the greatest vertical relief (1,370 to 14,495 feet elevation) of any protected area in the lower 48 states.”

     Trail crew positions require wilderness travel and camping skills; the ability to hike at high altitude for extended periods of time and up to 20 miles a day while carrying backpacks, tools, and supplies weighing at least 50 pounds; and the ability to perform masonry and carpentry work in addition to a full spectrum of basic trail work, including clearing fallen logs, removing encroaching vegetation, digging to maintain drainage structures or trail tread, and moving materials of all shapes and sizes in rugged terrain.

     Are you still interested?

     Trail crews in these parks work outdoors in temperatures varying from over a hundred degrees down to near ten degrees, and may experience heavy rain, hail, and falling snow. Typically, the work environment is hot, dusty, dirty, and sometimes noisy. Working long hours, hiking or riding horseback in rough country, crews may encounter hazards such as poisonous plants and animals and high, cold, swift water at stream crossings.

     They construct, repair, and maintain bridges, abutments, aesthetically pleasing rock walls, walkways, causeways, trail tread, water bars and retainer steps. Their tools include rock bars and drills, jacks, chisels, a variety of saws, timber tongs, draw knives, planes, and other masonry and carpentry tools, which they also clean and repair.

     Heavy physical effort is required in using both hand and power tools; frequently lifting , carrying, or rolling objects such as rocks and logs weighing over 100 pounds; moving slabs and boulders weighing several tons with rock bars; using hammers to crush or shape rock; and shoveling extensively.

     To provide for visitor access and safety, the crews build all kinds of trails, from accessible trails meeting Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines in some frontcountry sites to trails that climb to high mountain peaks in the backcountry. Laws including the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Trail System Act, the Wilderness Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act all apply in Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

     These laws require trails to avoid damaging habitats or disrupting important lands, waters, or historic or prehistoric sites. To protect cultural and natural resources, crews may route trails around sensitive areas, construct boardwalks over wetlands, or seasonally close trails during nesting or migration times.

     Crew members must also have the ability to live and work effectively in remote, primitive backcountry areas in close contact with small numbers of people for two to twelve weeks at a time. Crews typically consist of three to ten NPS workers, and a Cook for work in the backcountry. Crews may be supplemented by work groups from the California Conservation Corps, the Student Conservation Corps, Volunteers-in-Parks, and other programs. To support backcountry projects, pack trains periodically bring in food, mail, supplies, and equipment.

     Would you like to gain the extra skills and responsibilities of a crew leader?

     Trail crew leaders not only perform the full spectrum of trail work themselves. They also have to perform inspections, surveys, and inventories of facilities for maintenance needs to provide for accurate planning and scheduling of work, and make informed recommendations for operational improvements. They plan, lead, and supervise the crew’s work, provide training, emphasize and monitor safety, and, of course, write reports.

     Additionally, crew leaders must possess and maintain an NPS Blasters License because they serve as Blaster in Charge to remove obstacles such as logs and rocks from trail tread, to quarry stone for masonry work, and to establish trail bench in bedrock areas. They also assist in mule and horse packing operations by riding on mountainous trails, preparing supplies and materials for mule transport, tying on loads, and leading pack animals. To move big boulders and logs in the wilderness, they set up and use human-powered winches and rigging such as high-lines.

     The crews often coordinate with backcountry rangers to determine and prioritize projects in their work areas, and frequently assist park visitors by providing information about trails and weather, helping with communications and directions, and even participating in searches for persons reported missing or overdue.

     Have you had the opportunity to thank a trail crew yet? Next time you’re traveling on some part of the tremendous trail network in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, pause to reflect on what you’re walking on and appreciate the work of the dedicated, skillful men and women who have labored for such long hours in such difficult conditions to make your journey as smooth and safe as they can.

     As a young worker from the Eastern Sierra Conservation Corps serving in our parks put it, ” It takes tremendous grit and passion for a member of a national park trail crew to thrive. Though the days may be long, the physical demands arduous, and the unexpected challenges difficult to navigate, one thing is for sure: serving on a trail crew guarantees an unforgettable experience.”

     (If you’d like to try to join a national park trail crew, check usajobs.gov and search for “maintenance worker trails”.)

May, 2020

NOTE:  To find the “History of the Wilderness Trail System of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks,“ see Granite Pathways, by William C. Tweed (Three Rivers, CA; Sequoia Parks Conservancy, 2021).

     Earth Day was still an infant, and the modern environmental movement was just getting its legs when the Yaudanchi Ecological Reserve was created in 1975.

     Back then, when most people probably couldn’t define the word “ecological,” the folks at the California Department of Fish and Game (now the California Department of Fish and Wildlife) noticed that a patch of unused former Tule River bottomland near the Porterville State Hospital was a popular breeding site for great blue heron, a wading bird partial to wetlands and the largest species of North American heron.

     That recognition became the starting point for a remarkable collaboration of interests that included the Tule River Indian tribe, state and local office-holders, local environmental activists, the Boy Scouts, the hospital, local farms and businesses, water districts, and many volunteers in creating a nature preserve.

     Today, the Yaudanchi Ecological Reserve continues to live up to its name on 164 acres adjacent to what is now called the Porterville Developmental Center. The account of how the site was defined and preserved comprises a series of changing players, fits and starts, and shifting motivations. The end result is a rarity in Tulare County: A sizable tract of foothills valley rangeland that is left almost entirely to the designs of nature, where indigenous animals, native plants, a pond, remnants of a riparian woodland, and migrating birds constitute the main attractions, and the public is welcome to walk among them.

     The Yaudanchi site was owned for many decades by the Porterville State Hospital, housing its sewage treatment plant and related buildings. But by the 1970s, those buildings were long gone, and the land had reverted to a wild, vacant tract. Thus, in 1975, the state of California announced its intentions to sell as surplus property the unused 88 acres next to the hospital.

     The movement to make this land a preserve was initiated by a rookery of great blue heron, the Porterville Garden Club, and the Tule River Indian tribe. The Garden Club was the first to identify the site as the home to a sizable rookery of the huge birds. The Tule River Tribal Council named the site “Yaudanchi” as homage to the original native Yaudanchi Yokuts residents of the Porterville area.

     Several local interests, including the Porterville Environmental Council, mobilized to preserve the heron rookery. Among community groups that joined were two local water districts, the Tea Pot Dome Water District and the Vandalia Water District; the local chapter of the Safari Club; the Boy Scouts; and eventually the Friant Water Users Authority and the California Department of Fish and Game.

     An important development occurred in October, 1975, when the Porterville State Hospital advisory committee supported a resolution for a wildlife reservation and heron rookery on the property. Made up of prominent citizens and health-care professionals from throughout the San Joaquin Valley and beyond, the committee included Dr. Jack Ramos of Fresno, Sue B. Ely of Tulare, Helen Hansen of Menlo Park, Margaret Foley of Visalia, and Howard Smith of Porterville. Medical Director Dr. James T. Shelton welcomed the resolution and suggested the property be sold to a non-profit for $1.00 so that it would remain preserved.

     The plan, however, needed the approval of the state Legislature. In early 1976, the Porterville Recorder reported that Assemblyman Gordon Duffy said the state would not sell the property but would retain it as a heron rookery.

     By then, a great number of groups were supporters, notably the Sierra Club; the American Association of Retired Persons; the American Association of University Women; the Audubon societies of Tulare, Kern, and Fresno counties; the Tulare County Board of Supervisors; the Porterville City Council; and the Porterville Farm Bureau.

     In mid-1976, the finishing touches were put on an agreement that would preserve the Yaudanchi property in perpetuity as a nature reserve. The agreement maintained that the preserve would continue to be owned by the state of California and managed by the Department of Fish and Game.

     For most of the next 20 years, however, there was little management, and severe drought in the 1980s devastated the grove of cottonwood and sycamore trees that was essential to the blue heron rookery. The big birds began moving away.

     Yaudanchi started on the road to its current status as a true ecological reserve with a couple of related developments in the 1990s. First, the California Sierra Chapter of Safari Club International, an organization that was among Yaudanchi’s original supporters, began some management of the site, promoting wildlife and restoring habitat.

  Then in 1997, the Department of Fish and Game received a $20,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to make improvements in the site’s water supply, including lining some ponding basins and directing water to and from wetlands habitat. The Sierra Safari Club matched the grant with $10,000 of its own and donated more than 400 volunteer hours to developing the site.

     By that point, Fish and Game wildlife biologists noted that Yaudanchi was already a valuable habitat for wildlife, including bobcats, ducks, the San Joaquin kit fox, several species of hawks, great horned owls, and various wading and shore birds, including migrating species.

     The reported size of the Yaudanchi Ecological Reserve has fluctuated over the years, because an exact survey was never made and some land was added to the original site. Several sources identified it as 88 acres in 1975. The city of Porterville’s current general plan site map defines it as 164 acres, slightly more than a quarter section.

     The reserve also has continued to receive assistance. The Safari Club has worked to create habitat for many local birds and animals (more than 75 species) as well as migrators. Community groups and schools are invited to help by planting trees and other vegetation. The Tule River Parkway Association donated hundreds of oaks. Volunteers from organizations such as WildPlaces have periodically removed non-native invasive species. Managed uses include cattle grazing and groundwater recharge.

     Today, Yaudanchi Ecological Reserve enables us to amble through a landscape that after many years and many changes once again resembles this countryside as it appeared over a hundred years ago, now managed to abet the land’s service to nature. Visitors are invited for nature walks, bird-watching, field studies, photography, volunteering, and exploring the habitat of one of the San Joaquin Valley’s natural treasures.

                                                                                                                                                                           June, 2013

2017 Update: Yaudanchi Ecological Reserve is currently closed to the public. Its status as an Ecological Reserve and as a TCT Treasure is to be determined. As the TCT Project team learns more, we will post further updates.

     To walk the streets of Wilsonia is to walk through a living past. Perhaps nowhere is there a better example of the ever-changing American dream.

     The mid to late 1800s was a time of dreams, especially in the far western United States. Freedom, equal opportunity, and settlement of vast, unoccupied government lands were seen as the unquestioned rights of every citizen. In sprawling, newly formed Tulare County, the forests were there for the taking, to explore, settle, and cut without restrictions, to divide into sections of ownership, to use and abuse at will. There was certainly more than enough for everyone.

     In 1857, Joseph Hardin Thomas set up a lumber mill in the county’s high timberlands near today’s town of Pinehurst. That opened settlement and logging in a prime area of Giant Sequoia trees until the 1870s, when a growing conservation-conscious public began an effort to save the grove.

     Daniel M. Perry held a homestead claim for 160 acres that lay just outside the grove. He watched as the conservation efforts grew through the years, and finally sold the parcel to lumberman Smith Comstock—just one year before the formation of General Grant National Park, in 1890. Times turned hard in the 1890s, the land changed hands several times, and no extensive logging on it ever took place.

     The turn of the 20th century heralded astounding changes for Tulare County. With the mass production of automobiles, recreational roads began to wind into the mountains, and interest in preservation of the forests gave way to new leisure-time pursuits.

     California Fish and Game Commissioner Andrew Ferguson could see the potentials. He gained private title to the Perry tract in 1918 and turned a portion of it into a summer home subdivision. A staunch Democrat and ardent admirer of then President Woodrow Wilson, Ferguson placed a large sign with a portrait of the President at the entrance to the subdivision, proclaiming it “Wilsonia.” He also placed some restrictions. No meadows could be sold and no trees over six inches in diameter could be cut without consent of Wilsonia’s governing body.

     In 1919 Ferguson sold 20 of the 160 acres to a group known as The Masonic Family Club, and the self-governing group built 24 cabins as a separate part of the Wilsonia community. The rest of the land continued to be subdivided until, by the late 1920s, the tract had 180 landowners and 150 homes.

     Wilsonia was the perfect example of a recreational mountain community of its times. It was a family retreat, with the women and their children making the rustic cabins their full-time summer homes. Dances, social gatherings, neighborhood barbecues, cooperative campfire programs with the Park, hikes, horseback riding, and functions to raise money for a community clubhouse filled the summer days.

     But it didn’t last. In 1931, Andrew Ferguson died, and his son Thomas sold 20 acres of the Wilsonia tract to the federal government for a new approach to General Grant Park’s headquarters. Next, Thomas sold a 40-acre strip along the eastern boundary to a private individual. Finally, he sold the remaining unimproved land to the Park Service. This gave the federal government a large stake in the community and was to portend even more unsettling changes.

     The biggest change came in 1940, when General Grant National Park became part of the new, greatly expanded Kings Canyon National Park. Overnight, Wilsonia was transformed from a private National Forest residential enclave into a National Park inholding.

     Since the 1930s, the National Park Service had made it clear that one of its goals was to eliminate private inholdings in parklands. But it wasn’t until the 1960s, after the Great Depression, World War II, and recovery from them finally ended, that a new wave of conservation and preservation efforts could be addressed.

     Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks then included Wilsonia on a list of their historic cultural resources; but they also began working toward a now-mandated Park Service policy to eliminate private inholdings. With passage of the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund in 1965, the parks set up a “willing seller-willing buyer” program to acquire as many inholdings as possible. Kings Canyon National Park used the funds to buy as many cabins and commercial properties in Wilsonia as possible..

     One commercial owner and 12 cabin owners took long-term leases and continued occupancy until their leases expired. Eleven of those cabins remain as historic structures. The Park burned or razed others to return the sites to their natural state, but left intact some that might possibly be used for park administration, only to let the structures deteriorate. It denied uses such as horse corrals on some of the open lands, leaving them untended and uncared for, while it actively pursued more landowners who might be willing to sell. And the historic community began to disintegrate.

     The Park Service continued its land acquisitions until only 100 private acres remained. It also changed its management guidelines with a requirement that private property holders get approval from the Park Service before making any changes that might be deemed incompatible with the surrounding park.

     In 1978, a group of Wilsonia residents took a complaint to the United States House of Representatives, protesting the new Park policies that had not had adequate public hearings. Their action helped establish new legal guidelines for public input on government policies. Still, the policies didn’t change, and the community continued to decline.

     Finally, in the summer of 1991, another community group met to determine what could be done to save Wilsonia. Political action had achieved few results; perhaps national and state preservation guidelines would. If they could get Wilsonia listed on the National Register of Historic Places, further destruction of the community’s historic buildings might be stopped.

     The project took years of effort. The community raised funds to employ a professional historian who documented the private holdings and history of the community. Then it hired a Los Angeles firm to guide it through a long process of California State Office of Historic Preservation determination of eligibility. After that, the Department of Interior reviewed the findings. Finally, on March 14, 1996, the Wilsonia Historic District was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

     In the following years, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have worked together with the community to maintain and improve the district’s lands and structures. Once again, changing times have helped the process. For the Parks, not only the listing’s required need for historic preservation, but a growing American emphasis on public/private partnerships, has opened opportunities for new programs and cooperation.

     For Wilsonia, its recognition as an important historical resource has been the fulfillment of an American dream. That dream may continue to change, but the community and its vital history will live on for us to share.

April, 2016

     Located in a beautiful giant sequoia grove on Redwood Mountain, adjacent to Kings Canyon National Park, and now surrounded by Giant Forest National Monument, Whitaker’s Forest maintains the oldest permanent research plots (established in 1915) in California. There, the University of California, Berkeley’s (UCB) Center for Forestry studies vegetation, breeding birds, resident mammals, controlled burning, and giant sequoia growth and regeneration. At Whitaker’s Forest Research Station these types of studies will have been conducted for over one hundred years as of 2015.

     In 1910, Horace Whitaker donated all 320 acres of Whitaker’s Forest to UCB, with the restriction that the land be “held in its present condition for forestry investigation and research.” Whitaker had moved from the East Coast to California in 1856, and to Tulare County in 1858. Near Orosi he established a stock ranch in Stokes Valley.

     He was quite a colorful character, always driving a two-wheeled cart, forbidding dogs on his property, and sometimes putting up fences across roads. Even so, he acquired a significant amount of property. In a county tax lien sale in 1895, he bought the forested land at the end of the road leading up from Badger to the western slope of Redwood Mountain.

     The land had been logged from 1870 to 1878 by the Hyde Mill, and Whitaker made rails and fence posts by hand from the large quantities of sequoia chunks that were left scattered over most of the property from the milling days. John Muir visited the area surrounding the Hyde Mill and Redwood Mountain in 1875 and was in awe of the magnificent trees and vistas, but was equally appalled by the mill’s “. . . forming a sore, sad center of destruction . . .” in the sequoia forest.

     Whitaker built a cabin on the flat where the mill had stood. He became very attached to the property, spent time every summer there, and developed a strong sense of conservation and land stewardship. In 1910, in failing health, Whitaker met with the President of UCB to discuss donating his forest property to the university.

     In August of that year a deed was created and signed, giving the university title to the property upon his death. Less than two months later, on October 16, 1910, Whitaker died and was buried on his ranch in Stokes Valley.

     In 1914, the university’s Division of Forestry was established on the Berkeley campus, and in 1915, UCB professor Woodridge (“Woody”) Metcalf surveyed Whitaker’s Forest and began setting up study plots to monitor the growth within the sequoia groves. Some of these plots have been measured regularly ever since.

     In 1926, Metcalf, along with the heads of 4-H organizations in Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern counties, began to organize a summer youth camp at Whitaker’s Forest. They planned to educate the campers in forestry and conservation. Camping began in 1926, and in the late 1920s and 1930s the camp expanded to include multiple tent platforms, a bathhouse, and a swimming pool on the site of the old Hyde Mill.

     From 1945-1947, an additional camp site, the Bruin Camp, was developed on the northeast side of the road. Consisting of five buildings and 25 tent platforms, it functioned as a camp for children with diabetes. At their peak in the 1950s, the two camps served over 15,000 students a year. But the last camping season was in 1960, and in the fall of 1961, due to increasing health standards and safety concerns, and because the extensive development went well beyond Whitaker’s provision that his forest should remain a forest, almost all of the camp facilities were removed. Three cabins, a barn, two bathhouses, and a power shed from the camps remain.

     Until the early 1960s, the western national parks and national forests adhered to the old Smokey Bear philosophy of putting out all fires on the lands they managed, no matter where the fires occurred. In the late 1950s, however, Dr. Harold Biswell of UC Berkeley’s School of Forestry began research and an informational campaign that would change nearly everyone’s view of how best to manage these forests.

     He and his students conducted what he called his “little burns” in the Whitaker’s Forest groves. This was the first research on the use of prescribed burns in western forests. Biswell tirelessly advocated for a more modern and beneficial method of dealing with fire in the forests, and now his doctrines are widely accepted among forest ecologists and forest managers.

     Today, research continues at Whitaker’s Forest with the goals of providing methods on how best to sustainably manage sequoia forests while protecting the native flora and fauna that live there. In accordance with Horace Whitaker’s deed restrictions, the property is being maintained in its forested state in perpetuity, used for research and teaching. The public is allowed access free of charge (with reasonable regulations), but large-scale grazing activities are prohibited, along with selling or dispensing “whiskey or other intoxicating liquors.”

     What a great gift Horace Whitaker gave to benefit his beloved forest, forestry science, and all the generations to come. You can stop and thank him for it when you visit, because, in 1936, at the request of his niece, his grave was moved from his old ranch to lie forever in his forest, beneath a fine group of young sequoias just where the road bends in the old mill clearing. There, inside a little picket fence, a sequoia wood marker commemorates “Horace Whitaker, Donor of the Forest.”

November, 2014

     It all started with the vision for a river refuge — a place for the people of Porterville to access the natural world without leaving town. The Tule River Parkway Association (TRPA) was originated by Don Zuckswert, a professor at Porterville College, sometime prior to 1990 to advocate for and assist the City of Porterville in creating a pathway along the river.

     Today local residents can retreat to the 2.2–mile Tule River Parkway for a stroll, jog, bicycle or horseback ride under leafy shade trees. The more adventurous may explore a network of informal sandy trails winding along the river’s floodplain and to the river’s edge from Jaye Street to Westwood.

     This story is about how the action of local residents transformed the river and simultaneously inspired a change of heart about the value of the Tule River.

     The Tule had been neglected and mistreated. The river was looked upon as simply a conduit for water conveyance rather than a dynamic ecosystem. Old tires, discarded appliances, furniture, and refuse littered its path. Bulldozers scoured the riverbed to open up the channel for flood control and attempted to decrease an infestation of the noxious Arundo weed ( Arundo donax). Unfortunately, the unwanted plant thrived after bulldozing by sending up thousands of new shoots while native plants including Elderberry bushes were plowed over.

     TRPA members Don Zuckswert, Don Stover, Art Cowley, Teresa Stump, and later Cathy Capone dedicated themselves to the cause of cleaning up the river and making it accessible to the public. They rallied the support of residents by holding meetings, and writing letters to city officials and editorials to the Porterville Recorder. They documented the trash-strewn riverbed, infestation of invasive plants, and bulldozing of the riverbed in a photographic slide show titled “River of Shame” – and presented it to local service clubs such as the Morning Rotary and the Garden Club in order to raise awareness and support for the parkway.

     The vision for a river pathway earned the attention of Porterville’s civic leaders early on. In 1992, the City of Porterville’s Tule River Parkway Master Plan proposed a pathway stretching from the Friant-Kern Canal eastward to Bartlett Park near Lake Success– a distance of more than 12 miles. The City began the slow and tedious work of purchasing the land, acquiring permits, and obtaining funding. A break-through happened when Edward B. “Ted” Cornell and his wife, Elizabeth, of Cotton Center, donated a key 17-acre parcel. That donation fulfilled the matching funds needed to procure a $400,000 grant from CalTrans, and the trail building began.

     The TRPA built momentum by activating the populace — getting hundreds of people to come down to the Tule and work together to begin transforming the river of shame into a healthy waterway ecosystem. “People did not realize that there was this potentially incredible resource right in the center of town,” stated Capone. “We had to engage them.”

     Naturalist-guided walks engaged residents in learning the importance of fostering native plants and trees along the riverbanks to provide wildlife habitat. The walks educated residents (and the powers that be) about more environmentally friendly management practices for taking care of rivers.

     River cleanups involved volunteers from Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Wal-Mart Distribution Center, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Porterville, to hundreds of others working together to remove the heaps of trash, discarded tires, and appliances from the riverbed.

     According to Cathy Capone, the slow growth of oak trees seemed, at times, to parallel the pace of progress with the river parkway. When asked about the ultimate lesson learned from her over twenty years of involvement in the project, Capone summed it up, “If we work together we can get a whole lot more done than if we work individually. Look to your city council, look to your board of supervisors, look to other organizations. Don’t give up your goal. Find partners.”

     Porterville broke ground on the first section of the parkway in December, 1998. In April of 1999, the first half mile had been completed, from near the Highway 65/Highway 190 junction north and eastward to Indiana Street. In February, 2003, the next segment, from Indiana to Jaye Street (.9 mile), was dedicated. Next came the .7 mile stretch from Jaye Street to Main Street, dedicated in January, 2005.

     TRPA has gotten grants and donations and involved many dozens of volunteers in beautifying the parkway by helping to plant and maintain hundreds of trees along the paved trail. Improvement and expansion of the parkway continues with a new neighborhood park adjacent to the river at Plano and community interest in formal parkway paths between Westwood and Highway 65, and from Main Street east to Plano.

     At the heart of Porterville’s General Plan 2030 are guiding policies that include protecting the Tule River Corridor as an open space resource to meet multiple needs, including bike and trail linkages, storm water drainage and treatment, wildlife habitat, and active and passive recreation.

     Truly, a change of heart has occurred, and the value of a river has enriched the lives of Porterville residents. And the Tule River Parkway continues to grow. “We’d love to connect the parkway to Bartlett Park at Lake Success, and connect it going farther west also. Some of our more adventuresome members would love to see it go to the Great Divide,” says Cathy.

                                                                                                                                                                                       February, 2014

UPDATE, 09/27/24:  In 2014, the City of Porterville was planning to extend the Parkway eastward from Main Street to Plano Street and westward from Highway 65 to Westwood, for a total length of 3.5 miles.  Construction has now begun on the eastward extension, to take the paved pathway from  S. Main Street to Fallen Heroes Park near S. Plano Street.  Two bridges will connect the pathway with the large island that can be seen from the Plano Street bridge and the park.  The new section will include solar lighting, retaining walls, and trail signage, and should be completed within a year.  TRPA and the City of Porterville will also use U.S. Fish and Wildlife grant funding to enhance habitat for native birds and wildlife in the project area, removing invasive non-native plants and planting and tending four distinct habitat communities.  (Volunteers have already created 31 wildlife-friendly gardens in the Native Plant Demonstration Project that runs east along the existing Parkway from the trailhead at the intersection of Parkway Drive and Oak View Street.)

At 5:34 p.m. on March 11, 1933, the Long Beach earthquake severely shook California. It set off a chain of reactions which brought down a major building at Tulare High School and replaced it with today’s cherished and historically recognized auditorium.

Centered offshore, the magnitude 6.4 1933 temblor damaged many of Southern California’s unreinforced buildings, including a large number of schools. Between 115 and 120 people were killed. A month later, the state legislature passed the Field Act, mandating that school buildings be earthquake resistant. Shortly thereafter, the main building at Tulare High School, including its auditorium, was condemned as unsafe.

Accordingly, the big 1908 Greek Revival style building was then torn down, and classes were moved into local businesses, onto the front porches of neighboring homes, and into tents on the school’s lawn. School activities were spread around town, with assemblies and concerts held in the Tulare Theater and the Women’s Clubhouse.

Construction of the new building, with an attached classroom wing, was one of the 19,004 projects across the U.S. that were partially funded through the Public Works Administration (PWA), a New Deal program that spent 3.3 billion dollars during the Great Depression to provide jobs and stimulate the economy. It gave Tulare Union High School District a grant of $60,388 toward what would become $175,000 in construction costs.

Plans were developed for the new building to hold the school’s offices, a larger auditorium, and several classrooms. The architect was W. D. Coates, of Fresno, who also designed the Civic Auditorium in Hanford, the Fresno Auditorium and Hall of Records, and Porterville High School. Coates used the then popular Art Moderne style. This form of Art Deco emphasized curves and long horizontal lines with smooth exterior surfaces to create an aerodynamic form. Its simplicity also reflected the hard economic times of the early 1930s. Blueprints were completed in November, 1935, and construction began immediately under general contractors W.J. Ochs and Midstate Construction of Fresno.

The building’s front features tall square columns and a curved upper facade. Entry is through large steel doors with leaf designs sculpted into a stucco border. The lobby has large rounded curves at its corners, and gold Art Deco light fixtures run the length of the interior corridors. A large mosaic on the east wall depicts the first Tulare high school of 1891, the second of 1908, and workmen constructing the new building. One of the goals of the PWA was to employ artists as well as construction workers.

The new 25,187 square foot auditorium had a seating capacity of 1400. At the time, the population of Tulare was 4000. Scott & Co. furnished and installed the seats, and General Seating Co. of San Francisco supplied all the stage equipment.

The building was finished in the spring of 1937 and was dedicated on May 30. It was first used two days later, for the Class of 1937’s graduation ceremony. The following year’s graduating class included Elmo “Bud” Zumwalt, who later became a U.S. Navy Admiral and the youngest man to serve as Chief of Naval Operations.

Thereafter, the auditorium was used for school plays, musicals, graduations, and community concerts. During WW II, cadets at Rankin Field, the Army Air Force training center southeast of town, put on “The Follies,” a talent show of humorous skits based on popular radio shows and movies. Jack Webb, famous for acting in and producing the “Dragnet” TV series popular in the 1950s and ’60s, was the Activity Director at the base and produced several of these talent shows.

The newly-formed Tulare County Symphony Orchestra performed its first concert on April 8, 1960, in the auditorium, with tickets selling for $1.00. Tulare High School orchestra conductor Robert Cole led this group of volunteer musicians that would develop into one of the county’s premier musical organizations. For many years, the Symphony has performed Children’s Concerts in the auditorium for local third and fifth graders each October.

During the 1970s and 1980s the auditorium developed significant problems. The roof leaked, the stage curtains and rigging systems badly needed repair, and the wooden floor of the stage was seriously worn and becoming unsafe for dancers. Additionally, the building was inadequately cooled by its 1937 swamp cooling system.

A committee of community members formed and planned for a major expansion and renovation of the building, but it soon became apparent that the projected $3 million cost was too high, and the planned changes would diminish the historical value of the building. The committee chose instead to preserve all the distinctive Art Moderne features while still refurbishing the auditorium.

Meanwhile, the Auditorium Restoration Committee worked on nominating the then-60-year-old building for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. The research for this application outlined the significant historical features of the structure and provided the basis for the renovation plans. On December 17, 1999, the Tulare Union High School Auditorium and Administration Building was listed on the National Register, cited as an excellent example of well-preserved Art Moderne/Streamline Moderne architecture, and recognized for its beautiful design and outstanding PWA construction.

Contributions from many individuals and organizations raised the $1 million needed for the renovation. Seats in the auditorium were named for those contributing more than $125. Benefit concerts, including ones performed by country singers The Gatlin Brothers and Pam Tillis, also helped raise funds.

The entire building, inside and out, was repainted, and new maple flooring restored the stage, along with a new rigging system, curtains, and lighting and sound systems. For audiences, the most noticeable upgrade was the seating. The old and creaky wooden seats were shipped to Michigan, where they were refurbished by the same company that had made them in 1937. With refinished wood and new padding, they provided a much more comfortable audience experience. Six dressing rooms and an upstairs bathroom and shower were also refurbished.

The Grand Opening of the restored building was on October 13, 2001. The program was a doo-wop extravaganza, with performances by The Charades, The Platters, and The Cornell Gunter Coasters. Bill Ingram, Tulare Union band director at that time and Restoration Committee member, said “Their music will highlight the acoustic changes in the space.” Classic cars from the 1950s and ‘60s on display in front of the auditorium enhanced the doo-wop theme. A highlight of the grand opening was the unveiling of the striking Art Moderne style Donor Board in the lobby.

Now in its ninth decade, the TUHS auditorium building continues to serve its community well. Facing Tulare Avenue, its sleek, aerodynamic façade reminds passersby of how the people of a small city can work together to preserve and renew one of its greatest treasures.

May, 2017

     In June, 1980, a group of citizens concerned about the loss of historical buildings and artifacts from the City of Tulare’s past formed the Tulare City Historical Society. Their first project was a big one: to raise $375,000 to build a museum on the site of the town’s first public school. With the help of their chief fundraiser, C.R. “Budge” Sturgeon, within two years they raised enough to begin construction.

     The first phase, a 7400 square foot structure, opened on November 16, 1985. Phase two was completed seven years later. It added office and storage space, the Tom Hennion Archives Center, and the Heritage Art Gallery, which serves as both an art gallery and event/reception space used by the community.

     In addition to military memorabilia, the museum’s exhibits concentrate on the city’s founding, life at the beginning of the 20th century, and the achievements of the town’s heroes. A self-guided audio tour of the museum is available at the entrance desk.

     On July 25, 1872, Southern Pacific Railroad engineer Andrew Neff drove the first locomotive to the end of the line at what would become the town of Tulare. Southern Pacific was pushing its rail line south through the San Joaquin Valley then and expected the existing communities to offer it land grants and up to $300,000 in cash.

     When the twenty year old town of Visalia refused, the railroad decided to establish a new town ten miles to the south. Farmers in that area gladly granted land to the railroad, and Tulare was born. Named for the tall “tule” reeds growing around the edge of nearby Tulare Lake, the town was intended to be the major railroad terminal for the southern Valley.

     Southern Pacific soon built a machine shop and roundhouse south of the current Inyo Avenue, and a passenger and freight depot on the southwest corner of the future Tulare and J Streets. With the monthly $40,000 railroad payroll, the town grew steadily from a population of 25 in 1873 until the early 1890s, when its population was 2.697.

     Then a double disaster struck. In 1891, Southern Pacific decided to move its repair center to Bakersfield, since it was extending its tracks south through the Tehachapi Mountains. The loss of the railroad jobs to the Tulare economy was compounded by the national financial panic of 1893 and the depression that followed. Though the local economy floundered and a number of businessmen left town, the community survived by emphasizing its strong agricultural base.

     Exhibits in the C.R. Sturgeon Hall recreate a historic barber shop and blacksmith shop, plus what one would have seen a hundred years ago in the kitchen, parlor, and bedroom of a typical Tulare home. Other displays remind visitors of important 19th century events in Tulare’s history. One exhibit shows the devastation wrought by three fires that destroyed the wooden buildings of downtown. No record shows exactly how many were destroyed in the fire of 1875, but 25 buildings were burned in 1883, leaving only one standing, and then the 1886 fire leveled 77 more.

     Among the unique exhibits at the museum are those about Tulare’s heroes. These include Bob Mathias, Sim Iness, Richard Torrez Jr., Bryan Allen, Admiral Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt, and Manuel Toledo.

     Mathias and Iness were local boys who became Olympic champions. Mathias was a football and track star at Tulare Union High School. After graduation, he concentrated on the decathlon, and in the following summer of 1948 won the decathlon Olympic gold medal in London. He then attended Stanford University and in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics repeated his gold medal triumph.

     Both of Mathias’s Olympic medals are on display in the museum. During his career, he competed in 13 decathlons, winning all of them. After appearing in four Hollywood films and a short-lived TV series, he was elected to the United States Congress in 1966 and served for eight years representing the Central Valley.

     Garland Simeon (Sim) Iness was a football and track standout at Tulare Union High School, alongside fellow teammate and classmate Bob Mathias. Specializing in the discus, Sim narrowly missed making the 1948 Olympic team. Continuing to set records at Compton Junior College and USC, Sim won the discus Olympic gold medal at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, where each of his throws set a new Olympic record.

     Sim would go on to set the discus World Record in 1953. He, too, returned to the Valley, and served as a teacher, counselor, and coach at Porterville High School and Porterville Junior College for 39 years. Memorabilia of both Iness and Mathias from high school through their Olympic competitions are displayed at the museum, as are remembrances from Mathias’s political career.

     Richard Torrez Jr. became the third Tularean to bring home an Olympic medal, winning the silver in men’s super heavyweight boxing in the summer 2020 Games (held in 2021 in Tokyo). Born, raised, and trained (by his father) in Tulare, Torrez shone athletically from age 5. Before winning the U.S.A.’s first Olympic heavyweight boxing medal in 33 years, Torrez achieved ten national championships (his first at age 10), a Golden Gloves national title in 2017, and a bronze at the Pan-American Games in 2019.

     He signed up in late 2021 for a pro boxing career that will enable him to continue to train with his dad in the family gym and to give back to the community that raised him. Many of his medals, uniforms, and other memorabilia are on display in the museum.

     Another Tulare High School graduate, Bryan Allen, a hang glider pilot and a very strong cyclist, became the first to fly a human-powered aircraft that met the difficult criteria for the historic Kremer Prize when he pedaled and piloted the Gossamer Condor around a 2 kilometer figure-eight course in Shafter in 1977. The plane had a wingspan of nearly 100 feet, but weighed only 70 pounds. Three years later, Allen flew (pedaled) the Gossamer Albatross, a successor plane, across the 22 mile wide English Channel. Pictures of both these flights are part of the display dedicated to his achievements.

     Admiral Zumwalt, a Tulare High class Valedictorian, attended the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1965, at the age of 45, he became the youngest Rear Admiral in U.S. history. He also commanded the U.S. Naval Forces in Vietnam. In 1970, he became a Full Admiral when he was appointed Chief of Naval Operations, once again the youngest in history. Tulare named a downtown park in his and his father’s honor, and the U.S. Navy recently named its newest class of destroyers for him.

     The Robert & Geraldine Soults Hall serves as the Military History Wing, which houses the Manuel Toledo Military Collection donated by World War II veteran and Tulare jeweler Manuel Toledo. Its foundation is an extensive group of U.S. military uniforms and artifacts from the Civil War to the first Gulf War. Uniforms from Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire, as well as other military memorabilia, round out the displays.

     Toledo grew up in Tulare and fought during WWII with the U.S. 7th Infantry in the South Pacific, where he was wounded several times. During his last long recovery, he resolved to do whatever he could to help other veterans. After returning to Tulare, he was instrumental in establishing the local AMVETS post, the largest post in the nation. In 1987, he opened his own military museum, which provided the foundation for the Tulare museum’s current collection.

     With its ongoing art exhibits, extensive displays, special events, and community involvement, the Tulare Historical Museum is indeed “A jewel among the small museums of California.”

March, 2016; updated July, 2023

     Nestled within the oak preserve protected by Visalia’s Mooney Grove Park, the Tulare County Museum complex holds a vast collection of our county and state’s history, including one of the largest Native American basket collections in California. It also displays a great variety of artifacts of the pioneer era, a trove of historic agricultural equipment, dozens of restored structures from the late 1800s on, and many other treasures, appealing to all ages, that tell the history of Tulare County.

     The seed of the Museum was planted in 1934, when Hugh Mooney and his family donated five thousand dollars to fund the building of a museum in Mooney Grove, which had itself been sold to the county in 1909 by his parents and is the oldest county park in California. But it wasn’t until 1947 that approval was given by the county Board of Supervisors to begin building the museum on the specified site.

     In 1948, construction began with the laying of corner stones and a dedicatory address by Dan McFadzean, who was one of the County Historical Society’s first members and also the attorney who had prepared the legal papers for the County’s acquisition of the park from the Mooneys in 1909. The museum was opened to the public on July 1, 1949, and the Tulare County Historical Society ran its operations from 1948 to 1956, when the county took over that responsibility.

     For almost three quarters of a century, the Tulare County Museum has actively partnered with the County Board of Supervisors, the County Historical Society, members of the county’s varied and historic cultures and communities, and many other local organizations and institutions “To protect, preserve and promote a shared understanding of Tulare County’s past and its place in the future by providing the community with innovative, diverse, and engaging exhibits and events.”

     The 1948 structure was originally a single gallery, now known as the Middle Room. Today, it houses a military display, tractor exhibit, Sequoia and Rankin fields aviation display, a Visalia Electric Railroad model train, and the Mountain Connection exhibit, which highlights the Sierra Nevada mountains.

     The East Wing, holding the native basket collection, was added in 1956 and the West Wing, or Annie Mitchell Room, with displays of living styles and early county families was added in 1967, making a total of three galleries. Around 1970, the Gun and Saddle gallery was added onto the main gallery to house the growing collection of firearms and tack, including several of the famous Visalia Saddles.

     The beautiful Masonic Building Façade was donated in 1961 and placed behind the original museum building to create an enclosed space for the Main Street gallery, which holds life-sized replicas of historic business establishments. During the 1960s, many structures, such as the Surprise School, the Emken House, and Visalia’s first jail, were added to a Pioneer Village of original historic buildings and preserved on the museum grounds.

     The museum’s newest addition is the History of Tulare County Farm Labor & Agriculture Museum. This building’s displays include a large steam tractor and a Hackney Auto Plow, along with a reconstructed Linnell Camp house that was used to shelter migrant farm workers. But the main focus of this Museum is its cultural gallery that highlights, one at a time, each of sixteen different cultural groups and their contributions to our county’s agricultural history.

     Each new exhibit brings new involvement in the museum as members of each group provide many of the photos and items on display. The Tulare County Office of Education also produces a video to accompany each exhibit, featuring interviews of local members of the highlighted group. An opening reception with food, guest speakers, and often music offers another opportunity for the Museum to connect with each community in a wonderful way.

     Over the years, the Museum has collaborated closely with the Tulare County Historical Society to acquire historical items for display and to host fundraising events that support vital restoration projects throughout the museum complex. The Clocktower that houses the clock that used to be in the Bank of Visalia building downtown, the Southern Pacific Caboose that was used on the Visalia Electric Railroad, the facade of the Masonic Building that used to be in downtown Visalia, the Main Street gallery, and recently the Agricultural Equipment project have all been funded by these events.

     The Agricultural Equipment Project has been in the works for several years with two components – restoration of displayed equipment, and construction of a building in which to showcase it. Don Vieira and Carl Switzer, members of the Tulare County Historical Society, have been integral in the conception of the project as well as bringing it to fruition.

   Through their efforts, the Museum has partnered with local high schools whose students have been working to restore several pieces of equipment from the collection that have been weathered by the elements over the years. The students’ research on each piece of restored equipment will contribute to the timeline of the history of local agriculture, a main focus of the new building.

     As the Tulare County Museum continues to expand its collection and its educational programming — including yearly classroom tours, lectures, publications, and events — community engagement is vital in making those efforts successful. The Main Street Jamboree is one such free and fun event for the whole family that has helped to connect the museum to the community. Held each year on the last Saturday in April, the Jamboree provides many new and fun ways for visitors to learn about Tulare County history and its important part in the life and growth of California.

     The Tulare County Museum, with its constantly growing and improving displays and events, lies at the core of our county’s history. Set in one of the most beautiful oak groves in Tulare County, it is the perfect place to discover the wonderful preservation of our fascinating past. History can be intriguing. It can be fun. Come join us!

March, 2021

     The gentle loop trail from the foot of Crescent Meadow to Tharp’s Log is one of the easiest and loveliest in Sequoia National Park. In just under a mile, at the top of this loop, lies the oldest man-made structure in the Park. It is a truly unique tree house — a genuine log cabin.

     Hale Dixon Tharp, the pioneer rancher who is credited with being the first Caucasian American to discover and explore the Giant Forest, modified this fire-hollowed fallen sequoia tree in 1861 to provide a comfortable, convenient, weather-proof dwelling for his summer sojourns there.

     Ten years earlier, the Michigan-born 23-year-old Tharp had come to California with a wagon train. He had been hired by Mrs. Chloe Ann Smith Swanson, an Illinois widow with four young sons, to drive her prairie schooner across the country to Placerville.

     There, Tharp began working in the gold mines, and soon married Mrs. Swanson. But after a mining injury, he decided to find a better way to make a living. Reasoning that California’s growing population would continue to make a ready market for beef, he went searching for free range for cattle.

     It was 1856, one of California’s worst drought years, but eventually, Tharp found what he what he was looking for. In Tulare County, he followed the Kaweah River east from Visalia. Where the Kaweah ran through a broad plain bordered by the last high foothills (now the site of Lake Kaweah), water, grass, and game abounded, and the hundreds of Native Americans living in the area seemed friendly and curious about the first Euro-American most of them had ever seen.

     Near the confluence of Horse Creek and the Kaweah (about 2-1/2 miles below what is now the town of Three Rivers), Tharp made a preemption claim on the land, erected a brush shelter as an improvement, and returned to Placerville.

     Two years later, he came back to his Kaweah homestead with his brother-in-law, John Swanson. They built a cabin and a barn, then explored the area further, looking for summer pasturage for their cattle. Tharp befriended his Native American neighbors, visited their large village at Hospital Rock, and was intrigued by their stories of green meadows and gigantic trees in the nearby mountains.

     That summer, two of the local Yokuts guided him up past Moro Rock into the Giant Forest. At Crescent and Log meadows, Tharp saw excellent forage for his animals. He laid claim to the land, inscribing his name and the date, 1858, with his knife on a huge, hollow fallen sequoia at the north end of Log Meadow.

     Thus Tharp was not only the first Euro-American settler on the Kaweah above the Central Valley, he was also one of the first non-Indians to see this majestic sequoia forest. Soon, however, others began to settle in the Horse Creek and Three Rivers area. As a result, the local Indians were decimated by the whites’ contagious diseases and steadily displaced from their homeland. By the summer of 1865, almost all were gone.

     Meanwhile, Tharp had moved his wife and family to Tulare County and continued to explore the mountains. By 1861, he decided that he had to take further action to hold his claim to the Giant Forest country: He drove a herd of horses up to graze Log Meadow all summer, and he turned its fallen sequoia into a summer home.

     The great tree’s trunk had split crosswise into two sections when it crashed to the earth some centuries before. The upper segment was not hollow, but the larger, 70-foot-long lower section was entirely hollow, its interior charcoal black from fire. Almost 55 feet of it was large enough in diameter for Tharp’s use, with an interior diameter of almost six feet at the large open end.

     For light and ventilation, he cut a large window into the south side of the log. He made a shutter for it of redwood shakes attached to a redwood frame with hinges made from leather straps and horseshoes. He enclosed the big west end of the log with an 8 x 10 foot shake structure of three walls, a roof, and a door, but left the east end open for additional ventilation. On the cabin’s south wall, he built a mud-mortared fireplace and chimney from local granite boulders. He furnished the cabin with a rough bed, table, and bench, made from massive slabs of redwood, all standing on a smooth floor of packed earth.

     Every year thereafter, until Sequoia National Park was created in 1890, members of Tharp’s family and herds of Tharp’s livestock spent summers ranging in the Giant Forest. Tharp’s Log also sheltered hired hands who tended his cattle, and various visitors — including a very famous one.

     Not everyone who came to the region wanted to exploit its resources for profit. In 1875, John Muir arrived, wandering over the plateau with his mule, Brownie, and marveling at the number, size, beauty, and extent of its Big Trees. Inspired, he gave it the name still used today — Giant Forest.

     Muir writes that he encountered a man on horseback, but doesn’t name him. It was likely Hale Tharp or one of his sons who then invited Muir to make himself at home in his “camp in a big hollow log on the side of a meadow.” Enchanted by this “noble den,” and greatly enjoying his host’s company and conversation, Muir spent several nights in Tharp’s Log before continuing south in search of the farthest sequoias. For years thereafter, he worked and wrote tirelessly to save the Big Trees from destruction.

     In 1920, eight years after Tharp died, the Park Service bought the last of his inholdings in the Giant Forest, paying his son Nort $33,130 for the 120-acre tract that included Tharp’s Log. Soon, the Log, also called Tharp’s Cabin, was opened for public display. The Park Service restored the structure to its original condition in 1923, aided by donations from the Three Rivers Woman’s Club. More work was done in the 1930s and ’50s. Unfortunately, Tharp’s engraving, “H.D. Tharp 1858,” was destroyed by vandals in 1953, even though it had been protected for many years beneath a glass plate.

     In recognition of its local significance in the field of exploration and settlement, Tharp’s Log was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The cabin is over 150 years old now; the log itself may last another thousand years. That adds a long perspective to the enjoyment of this special summer home and the contemplation of Tulare County’s history.

June, 2020

     The old foothill stage road to White River hasn’t changed much in one hundred seventy years. It is paved now and widened a bit, but still winds like a writhing snake through the green and golden foothills of the southern Sierra Nevada. Miles stretch without a building in sight.

     In the early 1800s, current Tulare County’s south borderlands were a virtual wilderness. There was little to draw settlers to the dry, summer-scorched area; only a few isolated Yokuts families and renegade outlaws called the southern Sierra foothills their home.

     Even California’s 1848 gold rush passed the area by. The Forty-niners who followed an ancient Indian, Spanish, and emigrant trail north from Los Angeles through California’s Central Valley were intent on reaching the American River diggings 400 miles away. If any of the travelers saw possible mineral prospects on the hillsides or in the gulches and streams they crossed, they seem to have ignored them on their flight to more certain riches. But that would change.

     As the easy pickings of the northern California placer mines played out, a few of the prospectors began heading back south, down the old Spanish trail, newly designated the Stockton-Los Angeles Road. Where it veered east to avoid the marshlands of immense Tulare Lake, they crossed the Kaweah, Tule, White, Poso, and Kern rivers and some paused to explore the foothill waters of each stream.

     Few of their efforts bore fruit until, in 1853, De Witt Clinton Biggs and Andrew J. Maltby made a significant gold strike near White River. David James also claimed he had found gold farther south in the Greenhorn area. Then in spring of 1854, major finds of placer gold were discovered on Kern River.

     As word spread, thousands of miners rushed south, and some stopped at White River. When they found placer gold in the river’s waters, a rough camp sprang up that they called Dog Town. It wasn’t long before the seasonal river dried and the easy river pickings gave out, but there were good finds in the dry hillside gulches of the White River Mining District. Finds that required significant investments, big mining equipment, and a good wagon road to haul it on.

     California’s roadways were untidy affairs in the 1800s. They zigged and zagged around property lines, avoided ditches, led to private ferry river crossings, connected farms and ranches and were the lifelines of small towns. In the foothills, they also avoided cliffs and gulches, skirted granite outcroppings, curved around giant oak trees, and rose and fell at the whim of the mounded landscape; and they detoured or branched to every active mining district.

     The road to White River was no different. It headed as directly as possible for the mining district, by-passing the shanties of Dog Town. Undaunted, almost overnight, a core of serious miners moved upstream to the road and set up a more permanent settlement that sported real houses, saloons, and a store. They gave it the name of Tailholt.

     The name is shrouded in mystery. Passed down through generations, several stories have emerged. One claims the term originated as an identifying direction to the town’s original cabin where a miner (or the town’s first female occupant) had hung a cow’s tail on the front door to pull for entry. Another says it was in honor of an early miner who always took his faithful cow to town with him so he could hang on to her tail while she led him home from a hard-drinking night at one of the saloons. Yet another was of a screaming lady stage passenger grabbing the tail of her little dog when it jumped out of the stage, and the driver yelling back to her, “Get a good tail holt and hang on until I can help you!” Whatever the story, a general saying emerged that “a good tailholt is better than no holt at all.”

     Life in the extensive White River mining district was somewhat primitive in the early 1850s. Although Tulare County had been formed in 1852, White River didn’t get its own voting district, justice of the peace, or constable until 1855. The mining processes were limited, too, with the major digs still using the South American arrastra or a small stamp mill to crush the ore and separate out the gold. Gradually, stores, hotels, saloons, a church, and two graveyards dotted the hills.

     By 1862, Tailholt was a thriving community of perhaps 1,000 to 3,000 souls, and when an official post office was established that year, store owner and hotel keeper Levi Mitchell chose the more dignified name of White River for its postmark. It was a name the growing community could be proud of. But it was basically a one-purpose town, away from any major commercial route with little to sustain it beyond mining. This circumstance came from a decision made five years earlier.

     After California achieved statehood in 1850, the need for good connections to the rest of the nation became paramount. Congress immediately set up a national overland mail service to the west coast, but it was a fragmented system and it could take months for a letter to arrive. So, in 1857, the government issued a $600,000 permit to John Butterfield for development of a 2,700 mile-long transcontinental stagecoach service that would deliver semi-weekly mail service to 139 stations along the route.

     Speed, not passenger service or community connections, was the main criterion. The service began on September 15, 1858, and its route through Tulare County followed some of the old foothill road to Kern River. But it by-passed the foothill towns of White River and Woody to follow the more direct Los Angeles-Stockton route lower down. Gradually, the populations along the old Stage Road to the Kern diminished. Only during droughts and depressions did the mines see much activity through the years.

     By the late 1890s and early 1900s, the town of White River had become a small rural hamlet whose citizens valued the preservation of the area’s history and uniqueness, even petitioning the county in 1903 for the creation of a local fish and game preserve.

     Today, as we take the Old Stage Road to White River, we are following a drive through history: from the prehistoric route of what became the Los Angeles-Stockton and then Butterfield Road; along the 1854 miners’ foothill wagon road; to the remnants of the town of White River. Drive slowly, take a picnic lunch, relax and enjoy as side trips along the way and the continuing road to Woody and Posey beckon. It will be a day through rural California history to remember.

     What to see in Tailholt/White River:

     Visitors can still find intriguing traces of the old boom town, signed by a Tulare County Historical Marker: a couple of short dirt roadways leading off the well-maintained Old Stage Coach Road, sites and remnants of a few old buildings; a tall tombstone in the graveyard on the hill north of the road; some small tunnels; a smattering of rock tailings; and the remains of a reverberatory furnace—all sitting on private land. (Permission to explore can depend on the local residents.)

     Here’s What Tailholt Looked Like circa 1898:

November, 2019

     Paul and Ruth Buxman’s Sweet Home Ranch will remain forever in farming. And that’s just the way they want it. In fact, that’s what they stipulated when they traded the development rights on their 40 acre farm east of Kingsburg for one of the first two farmland conservation easements in Tulare County. The other is held by close neighbor and friend Jim Moore.

     The easements were facilitated by Sequoia Riverlands Trust in 2009 with funding to buy the farmers’ development rights coming from Tulare County’s Measure R road improvement tax fund. As part of the county’s project to widen the Visalia/Dinuba highway (Road 80), Cal Trans stipulated that the farmland being eaten up by the widening must be mitigated by placing farmland conservation easements on comparable prime agricultural land.

     In addition to being a farmer, Paul Buxman is also an artist, musician, teacher, mentor, rural philosopher, and visionary. He was eager to save his farm from the threat of urbanization as new subdivisions leap-frogged across the fertile Kings River plain toward his property.

     His son, Wyeth, the fourth generation of Buxmans at Sweet Home Ranch, is also greatly relieved. He didn’t think he could continue the family’s farming tradition if faced with the traffic, dust, and noise generated by a population explosion nearby.

     Paul points to an amazing fact when he considers why he wants to preserve farmland. “A little more than one percent of the earth’s surface is actually farmable. That’s it. Only that one percent enables us to survive. I don’t think people realize that. When you remove arable land and put it into something non-productive – at least in the way of producing food and fiber – to bring it back into some kind of agrarian use is a massive undertaking,” he said.

     He and his neighbors live and work in an area they call the Golden Triangle of farmland. “Great water, great fertility, great location, great weather – and we’re trying to draw lines of farmland forever.”

     Paul understands completely the current trends in agriculture nationwide: (1) the average age of farmers is increasing as fewer young people choose to return to the family’s farm, and (2) farms are getting larger to take advantage of the economies of scale.

     Paul and like-minded small farmers are not only vested in farming as a livelihood, but they see it as a way of life – a place to raise their children and teach them about working and living with nature – “cultured nature, agriculture,” in Paul’s words. They believe land would be taken care of better for a longer period of time if children were introduced to it early, so farming is perpetuated.

     To express those concepts Paul started something called Celebration of the Small Family Farm. He formed a group of farmers called California Clean Growers (CCG). Their goal is to farm responsibly and win the hearts of urban people. California Clean Growers became known for making their farms and homes accessible to visitors, for conserving fertility of the soil and water through the practice of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and for marketing their products with the CCG backing.

     Paul and Ruth practice what they preach. Every year they set aside a portion of Sweet Home Ranch to give young people the experience of growing a crop. Through their church, the Buxmans are introduced to at-risk youth, who are invited to participate. Given tools and seeds for planting, the teens began with growing food items they could easily sell: watermelons, corn, and other favorites. “The kids had to grow it, tend it, weed it, harvest it, and sell it,” said Paul. They also learned to cook it and eat it. And they profited from it.

     With the earnings, Paul and Ruth began taking the youth on overnight trips to the nearby national parks – places the youngsters had never seen. “So, in this case,” said Paul, “farmland is being used as a way of gang prevention, a way of intervening in young people’s lives … and changing their lives for the better, we hope.”

     When not cultivating, irrigating, pruning, and taking care of his farm, Paul finds time for his other passion – art. A trained and noted painter of the Plein Air impressionistic style made famous during the Arts and Crafts era, Paul doesn’t have to travel far for his inspiration. He finds it in nature at his and nearby ranches and farms. He paints what he sees and what he understands – even the flow of water through the weir of an irrigation ditch is made beautiful with his choice of vibrant colors, shadows, and depth. Many online articles and interviews detail his art story.

     To share the beauty and the bounty of Sweet Home Ranch and nearby farms, Paul and Ruth host a harvest festival every year on the two days following Thanksgiving, inviting their neighbors and other small farmers to participate. The public is invited to enjoy the art show and tasting of locally handcrafted foods from 9-5:00 on Friday and 9-4:00 on Saturday at the ranch.

     Offered for entertainment, amusement and sale are: art, art cards, fresh fall fruit, trailer rides on the farm, locally made wines, 12 kinds of bread, handcrafted cheeses, dried fruit from small family farms, jams, jellies, soaps, infused honey, nuts, and more. Paul says, “Come out and see what we’re growing here for you.” On land that will be farmland forever.

November, 2012

     It can be hard to know when an important idea is conceived. To ninety-eight-year-old Virginia Radeleff the concept of a community museum is simply part of a small town’s unique history. Raised from birth in the foothill community of Springville, California, Miss Virginia grew up and spent most of her adult life living her community’s history.

     “I think I realized from the time I was a little kid, that the town was a little bit different, that it needed to be preserved.” she reflects. “It wasn’t quite like other towns.” Born in 1919, Virginia left Springville to attend two universities, obtain two teaching credentials, and to work in an aircraft factory during World War II. But she always returned home.

     “People knew from the time I started teaching when I was about 21 years old, that I was working for a museum. We talked about it. They knew it. The way youngsters grow up in a town like this needs to be preserved.”

     The way they grew up in Springville was indeed special. Small by any community standards, it was a foothill town without borders, with few fences or restrictions. Its children of the early 1900s played, ate, and grew up together under the direction of all their neighbors. According to Virginia, “Everybody had a garden and a milk cow and lived within their means.”

     The original town was formed when John Crabtree, one of the first settlers on the Tule River, sold a piece of his 1856 land patent to William G. Daunt. In the 1860s, Daunt built the area’s first combination store and post office, which served the growing area for many years. That piece of property, sitting beside today’s rodeo grounds, and still supporting the original post office/store chimney, became the eventual home of Springville’s Tule River Historical Museum.

     The story of Springville’s museum is a tale of vision, determination, cooperation, perseverance, and hard work. Its very existence stands as a testimonial to the kind of community Springville is, and to the woman who made it happen.

     Virginia Radeleff constantly gathered its history. The heritage of its prehistoric Yokuts people who thrived in the lush landscape of its clear springs. Its early years as an important way station for southern Sierra Nevada hunters, trappers, miners, stockmen, and sheep herders. Its years as a major lumber mill town, with a railroad line to serve it. Its evolving role in ranching and farming. Home to a major regional hospital facility during a pandemic of tuberculosis that ravaged the nation for over 50 years. Its importance as a gateway to the Sierra Nevada’s recreational opportunities on both federal and private lands.

     Every time someone had something they thought should be in the museum, they gave it to Virginia to store. Finally, in the 1970s, she had to tell the town, “It’s time for us to hunt for a museum because we can’t just keep putting it in Miss Virginia’s garage!”

     The first places the community approached—the closed hospital, an old railroad right-of-way site, and the property of the Springville Hotel that had burned down—all proved unworkable. Then an interesting offer came. Lindsay dentist Dr. Franklin Baughman and his wife were going to build a new house on the property of one of the area’s early homesteads. The historic Murphy House was in the way, so they offered it for use as a museum. But there was one caveat; the old building had to be hauled away.

     On September 13, 1981, the Tule River Historical Society became a legal non-profit entity with two stated goals: to research and preserve the history of the area—and to move and preserve the Murphy House.

     Four years later, with the Baughmans ready to build but still without a home for the building or the capability to move it, a crew of volunteers started taking the structure apart. Piece by piece, they numbered each one and stored them all in nearby turkey sheds, a sea cargo container, and a barn. It took almost ten years before the Society found a place to re-assemble them into a house. That place turned out to be the property of the old Daunt store and post office.

     Daunt’s one acre site, its location by the rodeo grounds, and its history made it a perfect location for the museum. The Historical Society approached Mariann Sanders, who owned the property, but, once again, there were problems. Funds to buy the property, access to it, water and electrical connections were all missing.

     A committee of the Historical Society went to work on the funding first. It offered to handle the sales of local historian Jeff Edwards’ book, 100 Year History of the Tule River Mountain Country, in return for a donation to buy the property. When the donation reached over $4,000, negotiations with Mariann Sanders began in earnest, and in 1988 an agreement was reached in which she donated the land in exchange for payment of back taxes.

     The next few years were busy. The Rodeo Association granted access to the site, the Lions Club donated over $5,000, and in 1990, after the Tulare County Planning Department issued a building permit and approval of the site plans, the Southern California Edison Company brought in an underground electrical conduit. The Historical Society repaired the Daunt chimney, fenced the site, and poured the slab for its first building. Finally, in 1994, the Murphy House was reassembled in its new home and its restoration began.

     Today, Springville’s Historical Museum stands as a wonderful repository for all the artifacts and historic records of the upper Tule River region that Virginia Radeleff and the Tule River Historical Society have gathered through the years. The fully restored Murphy House is a museum in itself, filled with pioneer furnishings, fascinating artifacts of early America, interpretive photos, stories, documents, and genealogies.

     The museum grounds display restored and refurbished artifacts seldom seen in a rural museum. A full blacksmith shop, freight wagons, a covered wagon, historic trucks and cars; early lumbering and water power equipment, farm and ranch equipment, a replica post office and stores; and the original Daunt chimney standing tall, as a witness to the passing times.

     One of Miss Virginia Radeleff’s goals for the future is for the Tule River Historical Society to collect the modern industrial and personal technologies that are changing rural America’s way of life today. To maintain and grow the Springville Museum as continuing testimony to an ever-evolving community and its special can-do people.

October, 2017

UPDATE: On Sunday, January 26, 2025, Miss Virginia Radeleff died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 105.  Her dedication to the education of generations of Springville’s students and to the collection, preservation, and dissemination of the community’s (and its region’s) history has left a lasting legacy that is truly a Tulare County Treasure.

 Mt Whitney lies on the boundary of Sequoia National Park and Inyo National Forest. About 30,000 people per year want to hike Mt. Whitney, so hikers must secure a permit from the Forest Service* in order to enter the Mt. Whitney Zone. Permits are required year-round, for both day and overnight use, and a quota system is in effect between May 1 and November 1.

 Applications to reserve a backpacking trip on the Mt. Whitney trail or a day hike in the Mt. Whitney Zone are accepted in the Mt. Whitney Lottery from February 1 through March 15. Any space left over after those dates will go on sale April 1 at 10:00 a.m. Go to https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/inyo/passes-permits/recreation/?cid=stelprdb5150055 for Inyo National Forest permit and trail information. Wilderness Office Information Line: 760-873-2483. Reservations can be made through www.recreation.gov.

Hikers are advised to carry crampons and ice axes when snow and ice may be on the trails. Those on the summit are warned against seeking shelter in the Smithsonian hut during lightning storms.

The Smithsonian Shelter was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 8, 1977, because it is “a monument to the difficulty of high altitude research in the period before prolonged human flight was possible.”

*If your trip begins in Sequoia or Kings Canyon national parks, then the Inyo National Forest will accept the permit issued by that agency as long as you meet the requirements for continuous wilderness travel.

     In terms of the acreage involved, no other conservation effort in the history of Tulare County comes close to the establishment of the Sequoia National Forest, and that story, like so many others, has its origins among the citizens of this county.

     When the effort began, the campaigns that would ultimately result in the creation of both Sequoia National Park and the Sequoia National Forest were one and the same. The goal, quite simply, was to protect all the Sierra Nevada watersheds that provided mountain water to the expanding farms of the San Joaquin Valley.

     The initiative got under way in Visalia in October 1889, when four local residents – Tipton Lindsey, Frank. J. Walker, John Tuohy, and George Stewart – launched a campaign to protect the mountain lands adjacent to the southern half of the San Joaquin Valley. Each of the four brought special skills to the movement. Lindsey, because he worked in the United States Land Office in Visalia, provided his knowledge of federal lands. Walker and Stewart were associated with the Visalia Delta newspaper. Tuohy, a rancher, knew the mountains first hand.

     Collecting information from the group, Stewart drafted a map of the area they wanted to see protected from overgrazing and logging, a huge tract of over two hundred thirty-six-square-mile townships, and circulated a petition calling for its protection as a federally-controlled reserve.

     The threat to the giant sequoia trees soon became so intense, however, that Stewart and his friends temporarily set aside this broader target and shifted their focus to a more limited and immediate goal – the establishment of a national park to protect the best of the giant sequoia trees. This effort gained energy over the summer of 1890, and Congress passed a bill establishing such a park in September 1890. A mere week later, the new park was enlarged, but it still contained only seven of the two hundred townships the group wanted to protect.

     The Visalia group remained in close contact with Interior Department Secretary John Noble, who was highly sympathetic to what they were trying to accomplish. Noble had the ear of President Benjamin Harrison, who had appointed him. This was an important connection because Harrison supported what came next when Noble succeeded in adding a forest reserve clause to an obscure piece of legislation focused on repealing obsolete timber culture laws.

     The March 1891 Forest Reserve Act, as it came to be known, gave the president the right to set aside lands from the public domain as “forest reserves,” thus withdrawing them from sale to private interests.

     This provided the Visalians with just the authority they needed to renew their campaign for protecting the entirety of the southern Sierra. The Visalia group resumed their political efforts.

     Responding to the resulting local interest in forest protection, Secretary Noble put special land agent B. F. Allen on the ground in the Sierra studying what lands might logically be placed within a “Tulare Forest Reserve.”

     Allen, working largely alone, resumed his efforts once the snows melted from the Sierra in the spring of 1892, and he finished his report in January 1893. He had spent most of a year riding the trails of the Sierra, checking on conditions, and listening to local concerns.

     Time was running short now, for President’s Harrison’s term was ending, and thus Noble would soon also be leaving the Interior Department. Noble pushed Allen’s report onto the president’s desk, and on February 14, 1893, just two weeks before the end of his term, President Harrison created the “Sierra Forest Reserve” under the authority granted to him by the Forest Reserve Act. The new reservation set aside for permanent public ownership over four million acres of forest land.

     It took another dozen years and a government reorganization before effective management came to the reserve, but the changes did come. In 1905, management of the reserve was transferred to a new agency in the Agriculture Department, the United States Forest Service. In 1908, the new managers renamed the Tulare County portion of the forest reserve the Sequoia National Forest, the name under which the huge area is still managed today (with 353,000 acres of it designated as Giant Sequoia National Monument in April, 2000).

     Tipton Lindsey, Frank. J. Walker, John Tuohy, and George Stewart had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The Sequoia National Forest is the direct result of the efforts of these forward-thinking early Tulare County citizens.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     October, 2012

     The Sequoia National Forest includes elevations ranging from 1,000 to over 12,000 feet, more than 30 giant sequoia groves (and Giant Sequoia National Monument), over 1500 miles of maintained roads, 1000 miles of abandoned roads, and 850 miles of trails (including 78 miles of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail and three National Recreation Trails: Summit, Cannell Meadow, and Jackass Creek), over 200 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers, over 300,000 acres of wilderness, 158 ponds and lakes, 52 developed campgrounds, and frontcountry and backcountry winter activity areas. Portions of four of its six designated wilderness areas are within Tulare County: South Sierra, Dome Land, Jennie Lakes, and Golden Trout. Three USDA Forest Service ranger districts — Hume Lake, Western Divide, and Kern River — administer the 1.1 million-acre Sequoia National Forest.

     Joseph Walter “Shorty” Lovelace may not have looked like the classic image of a mountain man, but the National Historic District bearing his name in the rugged high Sierra Nevada of Kings Canyon National Park is a testament to the lifeway, ingenuity, and endurance Shorty embodied for forty years as a totally self-sufficient fur-trapping mountain man.

     Born in 1886 in Sacramento, he moved with his family two years later to a homestead several miles above the village of Three Rivers in the foothills of what became Sequoia National Park in 1890. Shorty spent his early years exploring, hunting, and trapping with his four brothers and his pioneer father.

     The family moved to Visalia in time for Shorty to attend high school there, and he turned out to be a fine mechanic. He operated a garage in Tulare County and then in Reno, Nevada, before opening a pump shop in Visalia in partnership with his boyhood friend Charles Hammer, whose sister he married a few years later.

     But by 1920, Shorty had lost his partnership, his marriage, and all his prospects to alcoholism. His father and his brother Bryan helped Shorty find a way out. Together, they completed a cabin compound begun in 1911, including corrals and pelt-drying racks, in Crowley Canyon near Comanche Meadow, a few miles beyond Sequoia National Park’s northern boundary. Shorty would live there all winter, where the solitude, peace, beauty, labors of trapping, and absence of liquor stores would keep him sober and productive for half the year.

     From that base camp, Shorty steadily extended his range, building as many as 36 smaller shelters throughout the South Fork of the Kings River drainage. All but one were smaller than six by ten feet, with none taller inside than five and a half feet, which was fine for Shorty, who stood only about 5’3″.

     They were tiny because he built most of them single-handedly, so the materials couldn’t be too large or heavy. Also, he didn’t want them to be noticed, by people or animals. A small space was easier to heat, important when temperatures often fell below zero, and snugly accommodated his furnishings, consisting of only a little plank bed at one end, a mortarless stone fireplace at the other, and numerous shelves to hold his utensils and supplies.

     Shorty constructed these winter homes usually in the summer or early fall, from the natural materials available at each site. Whenever possible, he used small fallen trees, which he cut into logs 6-12″ in diameter for the walls. He notched them lightly to fit together and spiked wooden wedges or poles into place to fill the gaps. Sometimes he used stones for foundations, but his floors were all just dirt.

     He cut poles to serve as rafters. Shakes made the roof and also the door, which hung on leather straps. He tied a piece of rope to an overhanging branch so that he could dig below it to locate each den in the snow.

     By October, Shorty was loading pack animals, his own or ones he rented, with canned goods, traps, toilet paper, blankets, candles, matches, reading material, and everything else he would need alone in the mountains for the next five or six months. As he stocked each cabin and lean-to, he also laid in a big supply of firewood, his only source of heat for the long winter. When all his shelters were ship-shape, he took the pack animals out of the mountains and watched the peaks for snowfall.

     Shorty was a strong, skilled, resourceful mountain man, who worked hard as a fur trapper. He travelled only on foot or his home-made skis (equipped with pine marten climbing skins for trekking uphill) until he brought the pack animals back in the spring to haul out his winter accumulation of furs.

     His huge territory covered most of the watershed of the South Fork of the Kings River, spanning 50 miles from his Crowley Canyon compound to his cabins in Upper Basin, and ranging in elevation from 4,600 feet to over 12,000. Unless the weather was too extreme, he was out every day, traveling over steep, trackless, rugged terrain, setting his traps, checking them regularly, killing and skinning the animals he caught, processing their pelts, watching for treacherous ice or snow, wary of avalanches, falling rocks and trees, and sudden storms.

     Only once did the mountains almost beat him. One winter in the 1930s, a falling tree crashed into his Granite Pass cabin, caught fire, and burned him out. Despite painful internal injuries, Shorty had to reach shelter before nightfall. Gradually he moved from cabin to cabin, covering almost 50 miles back to his Crowley Canyon headquarters. A snow survey crew, finding him there in March, still in bad shape, offered to take him out of the mountains, but Shorty refused. When the snow melted, he walked out alone.

     Shorty continued his annual schedule by selling his pelts in the spring, in Visalia or San Francisco. He earned up to $2,000 a year for his furs (fisher furs averaged about $45 each, wolverines $25 to $30, and martens about $15), when most California trappers reported making about $160.

     After giving his brother enough money to cover his re-stocking costs in the fall, Shorty spent his summers blowing most of his earnings on binge drinking, but also, when sober, working on his shelters in the mountains and on odd jobs in the valley, and visiting his extended family at various gatherings, where he was especially a much-loved uncle of the children.

     A letter was waiting for Shorty when he came out of the mountains in the spring of 1940. It said that Kings Canyon National Park had been established on March 4. Encompassing virtually all of Shorty’s trapping range, the park did not allow hunting or trapping.

     Shorty, age 54, knew what he had to do. Within just a few years, he completed a new layout of traplines and shelters north of the new national park, on the watershed of the North Fork of the Kings in the Sierra National Forest. He worked his new territory for another 20 years, until, at age 75, he brought his winter harvest down from the mountains for the last time.

     Shorty died two years later, in 1963, but at least two of his structures survive. In the 1970s, and again in 2012, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks restored his Cloud Canyon and Vidette Meadow cabins (the latter just north of the Tulare County line). Visitors can duck under their low doorways and imagine spending 15-hour nights there under 10 feet of snow with only a candle and an old magazine for company and a little fire for warmth after working traplines alone in the wilderness all day.

     As one visitor remarked, “Shorty must have been one tough, savvy woodsman.” While our time spent in the high Sierra is different in many ways from Shorty’s, these magnificent mountains are still a haven of solitude, respite, peace, beauty, and adventure for us all.

November, 2020