The History of the Woodlake Area from Roy Lee Davis Part Three

In Part One we learned that the first rural settlement of "Stringtown" disappeared.  In Part Two we learned about the beginning of the church and school, and whether the first school public or private?

Part Three

In the 1880s, Reverend Satterfield bought the Horse Shoe Ranch, now the north part of Sentinel Butte Ranch.  That decade Jake Bierer came to work for Mr. Waugh.  He and Waugh planted figs in what later became the Mori orchard. Later, Bierer became a well borer and water wizard.  In the 1880s, more irrigation ditches were constructed, and once again Watchumna Ditch Company controlled most of the water in Bravo Lake.  In 1888 Jude Steven Nye, who had retired from the bench in Oakland and was an ex state senator, came to Woodlake where he bought a ranch.  Nye's daughters, Myrtle and Harriet, married the two youngest Davis sons, Thomas Houston and Phillip, respectively.  Nye died on the Davis Ranch in 1906.  In 1889 he told of driving through a bed of continuous wildflowers eleven miles long from his ranch.  The following year, 1890, the Kaweah Lemon Packing Company was founded by Dan Overall, D.J. Giddings, Adolph Lewis, S.C. Brown and William Hammond.  Wesley Ragle set out the first oranges in the Naranjo district about that tie.  In 1893 Reverend Satterfield's granddaughter, Annie Mackey and her husband John Wesley Brown came to Horse Shoe Ranch.  John Brown planted oranges and lemons on Horse Shoe Ranch which he and Annie later inherited from Reverend Satterfield.  Also, in the 1890s Jake Bierer married Janie Place and the Canans arrived and bought Joshua Lindsaey's land.  Probably the most important development of the decade was the founding and naming of naranjo.

Naranjo was named by land owners Harry Brown and Senator Fred Harding (ex Illinois senator).  Harry Brown built the Naranjo store in 1918.  Harry Brown also built the Hein house which was unique in having gas lights.  By 1903 the Mt. Whitney Power Company was delivering electricity to the Woodlake Valley.  Harry Brown also had the first car in the Woodlake area, but he couldn't drive it, so had a chauffeur.  Harry Brown also planted oranges for both Senator Harding and Mr. Pattee, in the Naranjo district.  Fred Harding's great niece, Justine Robinson now lives in his home.  Her mother inherited Harding's property in 1914 at which time Justine Robinson's parents, Captain and Mrs. Forest Lancashire, came to Woodlake to manage the property.  Justine was raised there and attended the Naranjo school.  Meanwhile (3 years after the Lime Kiln Post Officed moved away to Lemon Cove), in 1902, the Naranjo Post Office was established in the store.  In the first decade of the 1900s, Woodlake saw many milestones.

In 1904 the Redbanks Orchard Company was formed with Dr. Squires and Phil aker bought the south slope of Colvin Hill and set out early peaches, Demsen Plums, and grapes.  When this fruit was ready to harvest, they built a packing house and hired William Murray to manage it.  The Visalia phone exchange had a line out there and the Davis's, Blairs, and Brothertons built exchanges on to it. By 1906, the Visalia Electric Railroad was extended to Terminus Beach, which became a popular local resort; it was located just downstream from our present Terminus Dam.  In 1907, the Elderwood Colony was founded.

Elderwood was named by its founders:  Jason Barton, J.W. Fewell, and Adolf Sweet, who had bought and subdivided land on the east side of Cottonwood Creek.  Near the Elderwood Colony, on Badger Road, J.P. Day had a small store.  In January 1908, a U.S. Post Office was established therein with J.P. Day as postmaster.  People fondly recall it as the Elderwood Post Office, but post office records show it only as Woodlake.  But the most significant event of 1907 was the arrival of Gilbert Stevenson, the "Father of Woodlake."

Stevenson bought both John W. Brown's Horse Shoe Ranch and the adjoining Waugh property.  He named this large ranch, Sentinel Butte.  He drilled wells and built a cement reservoir.  Later, Stevenson had the largest, individually owned, orange ranch in the world, 1,500 acres.  In 1917, 149 cars of fruit - oranges - went to market from Sentinel Butte Ranch.  But Stevenson dreamed of and platted a town.  He hired one Henry McCracken to manage his ranch while he bouth land south of Elderwood and laid out his town, which he called Woodlake.  In the fall of 1910, the year Stevenson laid out his town, D.B. Day, a contractor, and Charles Lare, a carpenter, arrived to work for Stevenson.  The Visalia Electric Line had been extended to Woodlake that April.  D. B Day built his family the first house in the (on Palm) Woodlake townsite, but his big project was building Stevenson's "Brick Block", a block sized building to house businesses.  Meanwhile John Lee Pogue directed the laying out and grading of the streets.  Thomas Crawford laid five miles of concrete/cement curbs and sidewalks.  Steve Webb, a realtor who had first come to Woodlake area to see Stevenson about 1909 was back to stay.  He bought more land for Stevenson, the land west and north of Bravo Lake for which Stevenson had truly grandiose dreams as a ...

What did Stevenson, the "Father of Woodlake" dream of doing in the Woodlake area?  Find out in Part Four.