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

The history of Woodlake is rather unique.  Most cities and towns in Tulare County began with a few people settling in one place, and within a few years, a town had come into existence.  But several pioneers settled in the Woodlake area, on both the north and south sides of what is now Woodlake, yet no town was formed for about fifty years.  As a matter of fact, Woodlake area's history is nearly as old as that of our county itself.

In 1850 John Poole established a ferry on the Kings River (about two and a half miles north of present Reedley); soon thereafter he established a trading post there in partnership with William Campbell.  That same year, a group of fifteen men, led by John Wood came to the Four Creek country.  (The four creeks were:  Mill Creek, Deep Creek, Packwood Creek, and Outside Creek.)  These men built one cabin, and foundations for more, on the south bank of the Kaweah River south of Venice Hill.  Then these men were massacred by Indians, but at least one escaped.  Further west, where the St. John's River now flows, Loomis St. John cleared and planted land unseen and unmolested by the Indians.  Incidentally, the river which bears St. John's name was formed by the great 1862 flood; previously there had only been a slough. In 1862 the new St. John's River took off from the Kaweah east of Venice Hill someplace southwest of Woodlake.  The old Kaweah, at that time, ran from  McKay's Point to beyond Woodlake where the St. John's River flows today.  By the 1880s the division was at McKay's Point as it is today.  It is because of the changing river channels that no one can pinpoint the exact location of the original Kaweah Ford east of Venice Hill.  Early explorers, such as Kit Carson in 1830, Joseph R. Walker in 1834, and John C. Fremont in 1844, who forded the Kaweah, must have passed very near, if not through the Woodlake area.

In 1851 or 1852, Thomas Fowler (for whom the town was named), Jim Fisher and Thomas H. Davis (a South Carolinian) traveled through the San Joaquin Valley en route to Carson City and the Nevada silver mines.  Upon passing the entrance to Antelope Valley (which they named) they observed several antelope grazing there and decided it would be an excellent place in which to raise cattle.  In 1852 Tulare County was created by an act of the legislature, the first election was held, and the Vise party arrived and built a stockade at what is now Visalia.  Among this group were Tipton Lindsay (who was prominent in Visalia affairs) and his brother Joshua, who later settled and raised cattle on two sections of land southwest of Woodlake.  The following year, 1853, the county seat was moved to Visalia in a heated election.  the first post office was established at Woodville - and the Woodlake area received its first settler.

That year, 1853, Thomas Henry Davis returned to the Antelope Valley.  Having been successful in the mines, they (Davis and his partners) ha bought cattle in Mexico which Tom Davis had driven to Antelope Valley where he settled near the spring.  In 1861 Thomas H. Davis married Leah Jackson Miller in Visalia.  The following year, their first son, Jefferson Jackson Davis, was born on the Davis Acres, making him the first white child born in the Woodlake area.  Thomas Houston Davis, his brother, born in 1865 arrived in the doctor's house in Visalia.  Meanwhile, a young man from Tennessee, Emanuel T. Ragle, helped drive cattle to northern California in 1865 where he first settled and later met the Blair and Moffett families.

In 1857, the Rev. Jonathan Blair organized and led a wagon train from Missouri to California.  This was known as the Blair-Moffett party.  Members included  Rev. Blair, a Presbyterian minister, his second wife, Nancy Moffett Blair; her daughter Lucinda Moffett; his eldest daughter, Sarah Blair Pogue, and her husband John Pogue and their two babies, (a third, Mary Nevada, was born en route); John Pogue's sister, Polly; their half-brother, JWC Pogue, age 18, whom John and Polly had raised; six other Blair children, including Nancy Melvina, then age fourteen, and several Moffetts among others.   Upon reaching northern California they first settled in the Santa Rosa area where they met Emanuel Ragle who married Eliza Moffett there in 1858.  Later, they settled at Little Lake, near present day Willets, where Polly Pogue married John Coble and JWC Pogue married Nancy Melvina Blair.  After a bad winter there, Rev. Blair came to Tulare County and settled in the Hamilton district east of Venice Hill.  He was followed by the Pogues and Moffetts.  These families bought and settled on land on the north bank of the Kaweah River in what is now the south end of Woodlake. By 1863 six families were living in what came to be called "Stringtown."

"Stringtown" was not a town; it was a string of families along the Kaweah, each of whom lived within shouting distance of the nearest neighbor.  Furthest east were the E.T. Rangles; next Rev. Blair's family; then JWC Pogues, followed by John and Polly Coble, and lastly, the John Pogues.  Farther west, beyond "Stringtown" were the Henry Moffetts.  At least two children were born in that area:  John Lee Pogue to John and Sarah (probably in "Stringtown"), and Jonathan Early Pogue born to JWC and Nancy in 1867 (definitely in "Stringtown").  "Stringtown's existence terminated abruptly.

Stay tuned for Part Two to find out what happened to "Stringtown."