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

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 explained the founding of the Elderwood Colony and the coming of "The Father of Woodlake."  In Part Four we will find out what the Father of Woodlake, Stevenson, dreamed for Woodlake and whether or not his dreams came true.

(Steve Webb) bought more land for Stevenson, the land west and north of Bravo Lake for which Stevenson had truly grandiose dreams as a resort.  Webb's office was in the brick building overlooking the Bravo siding where the train stopped.  This enabled him to corner every newcomer as he stepped off the train.  One of these was De Witt Cole.  Cole, teaching in Southern California, had been so impressed with a talk about the Woodlake area that he had bought forty acres of orange land sight unseen.  At first he worked as a carpenter in Woodlake.  Soon his wife and daughter joined him.   Zelda Chase ran a boarding house where folks stayed until their homes were built.  Of course, priority construction went to the business block building.

In early 1912, the first business in the "brick building" or "brick block" opened. M. H. Mills, a Quaker with a wife and two children, operated a grocery store.  A. P. Haury had the dry goods store in adjacent quarters.  One year later, in 1913, Mills sold out to Haury who then cut an archway throught the partition which separated the two stores.  Later the post office resided in a partitioned-off portion of Haury's dry goods store.  The post office was initially moved into the town in 1913, by the simple expedient of Steve WEbb and postmaster J.P. Day loading the"Post Office" into a wagon one evening and reinstating it in the drug store that night.  The drug store was jointy owned by Frank Mixter and Arthur Schelling of Exeter.  Schelling, a pharmacist, ran the Woodlake Drug.  Chandler's restaurant was also located in the "brick block."  In January 1914, the First National Bank of Woodlake received its charter and opened in the "brick block" building with W.S. Bean as cashier/manager and James Henry Blair as president.  Both men remained with the bank in those capacities until it folded in 1932.  It reopened as the Bank of America in 1938.  J.W. Otto ran a hardware store. South of the tracks, W. R. Clevenger had a livery stable and Gordon Day was Woodlake's blacksmith.  In 1911, while Woodlake was being built, Gibson Campbell, a bank clerk, arrived with his invalid mother (who soon died) and his sister; he became the bookkeeper of the Elderwood Citrus Packing House.  Campbell's hobby was landscaping and he landscaped the grammar school D. B. Day built in 1913.  He also landscaped his own home and helped and advised others on landscaping their homes.  In 1913 Woodlake received tow or more firsts.

Dr. Pinkley came to town and set up office upstairs in the brick block building.  One year later he left and Dr. and Mrs. J. F. Pringle arrived.  Dr. Pringle took over Pinkley's practice.  Also in 1913 the Woodlake Echo was born.  E. H. Snedeker, a publicity man for the Visalia Morning Delta, arrived in Woodlake to sell a full-page ad in his paper's progress edition.  He sold the ad but was persuaded to edit and print the first Echo - in the Morning Delta's offices.  The real newspaperman arrived in Woodlake and took over the Echo.  His name was John G. Ropes.  The Ropes had three children:  Gladys, Richard and Edwin.  When John Ropes retired in the 1930s, Gladys and Richard continued to run the paper.  Edwin became a dentist and served Woodlake in that capacity for many years.  The high school was established one year after the Echo.  Gilbert Stevenson, meanwhile, was working on his scheme for the lake.  He had the sides/levies built up to make the lake deeper.  He bought a steam boat to run excursions on the lake;  then he bought two more.  He planned a great hotel on the west bank and an excursion train to run all the way around the perimeter on the banks.  He planned three islands in the lake: each for a different purpose; one for a bandstand and dancing, one for bathing, and one for something else.  But all these dreams came to naught when he ran out of money and went bankrupt.  At least his dreams for the lake were lost.  His town lived on.  Eugene Menefee, in his History of Tulare and Kings Counties, published in 1913, said of Woodlake ... "between Naranjo and Redbanks and near the north Shore of Bravo Lake, is a town whose growth during...its existence has been so phenomenal as to merit special attention.  The town is now solidly and substantially built, having a handsome two story hotel with pressed brick front, several shops, a large concrete garage, a general store, a newspaper, a bank and other features.  During the present year an auction was held ... (for town lots) and quite high prices were realized.  Cement sidewalks and graded avenues are in evidence here as the suburbs of a large city.  Handsome residents are building in great number."

In its 1914 Progress edition, the Visalia Morning Delta reported of Woodlake, "Less than two years old, it has a population of three hundred with five miles of cement sidewalk and curbing, a national bank, a $35,000 store block ... two churches and a school. ...  108 scholars ... Post Office receipts of 1913 were double those of the preceding year.  Shipments of fruit by the Electric Railroad this season numbered thirty-four.

Thus ends the progress of Woodlake from 1853 to 1914.  Thank you to Sally Pace for bringing this document to me from Roy Lee Davis to share with all of you.