Lenora Graves' Collection of Newspaper Clippings

Virginia McKee loaned me her mother's collection of newspaper clippings.  Among the Lenora Graves saved Woodlake Echo, Visalia Times-Delta, Valley Voice and Sun Gazette articles organized into old file folders. The news articles are valuable today because old copies of the Woodlake Echo were destroyed. A few years in the 1950s have been preserved on microfilm. You can look through these at the Visalia Branch of the Tulare County Library.

The articles Virginia gave me are not in chronological or alphabetical order. I kept the items in their original order and took inventory of each file folder as well as listing the loose full editions papers that were also in the assortment that Virginia loaned me.

The pictures in this post are linked in the inventory. It takes a long time to digitize each of these articles, which will preserve them as long as the cloud is a viable storage. As I scan the materials, I will attach them to the inventory. You will not be able to edit the document. So bookmark this post or the inventory document link as it will be updated automatically for you.  ---Ah the magic of Google Docs.

One caution about using Google Docs that you may not know. If you have a Google Account, you can save the document to your own account, but it is no longer a shared document, so you will not get the updated links when I add additional resources.

Here is a sample of one entry. As you can see, the links at the end of the description take you to the digitized newspaper article. Page 1 is highlighted and is shown below the listing.

1. We always lived well here on the ranch Emma D. Welch 1906-1997 Page 1 Page 2

As you browse through the inventory sheet, if you see something that looks interesting to you, simply message me on Facebook or through this blog. As the requests come in and I have time, I will digitize the clipping and add it to the inventory list so that you can access it.

This inventory is a research tool for writers, researchers or individuals interested in Woodlake history. If you have articles you want to share with me, please feel free to contact me. I will inventory them at no charge in a separate Google Doc by the contributor. If you want the articles digitized, I will charge a fee for that as it is very time-consuming.

This year a group of teachers along with Lauri Polly, our illustrator, and graphic artist have been working on a Junior Docent Guide for the Museum. Our deadline to finish is January 31. This Guide includes many old photographs, including some that were not found in the book, Images of America Woodlake. 

Next year a group of teachers and want to start on another project of writing series of children's biographies about various influencers in Woodlake. If you have unpublished information about someone in Woodlake's past who made a positive contribution to the community and you want to share pictures or documents, please contact me. Also, let me know if you are interested in doing some of the writing for our next project.

How Walt Disney Might Have Tamed Mineral King and Changed the Demographics of the Kaweah Valley

A few months ago Virginia McKee gave me a stack of newspapers that her mother Lenora Graves had organized. This morning I just finished browsing the 53rd year 35th issue of the Woodlake Echo printed Thursday, Sept. 2, 1965.

Interestingly the article, “Excitement Soars on Mineral King Development” took only about ⅓ or a page in length ⅓ of the width. So if my math is correct, the editors determined that a story of this magnitude only needed about 1/9 of the front page coverage. The picture took up a little less than 1/4 of the page.

Did they take the idea seriously? Were they against the idea? How many of the 500 attendees at the Grand Opening were Woodlakers?

Do you know what took more room on the page?

The headline picture shows Disney’s idea of a theme park in Mineral King. Walt Disney presented a multi-million dollar project along with projects from six other bidders.

Approximately 500 persons came to the grand opening to listen to the six bidders, the most famous of whom was Walt Disney. He made his presentation with this large drawing and distributed a folio containing pictures and plans. His project included 14 ski lifts, parking for 2,500 cars, two large hotels, 10 restaurants and cafeterias, an ice rink, shops and a conference center, all while retaining the need to preserve Mineral King’s natural beauty.

The other interesting plan had a total cost of about $55 million. Robert Brandt, the husband of actress Janet Leigh, planned an entire mountain community. This miniature city included a hotel, numerous family apartments, dormitories, a shopping center, theater, several restaurants, a chapel, and a village hospital, a ski lift complex with a capacity of 7,7500 passengers per hour. They also included a ski jump, Olympic sized swimming pond, year-round tram and an ice rink.

Disney did acquire the property, but the park, which some Woodlakers hoped would fulfill Gilbert Steven's dreams of becoming a resort town, never became a reality According to Linda Hengst, an avalanche in 1969 put an end to all the plans. The Sequoia National Park site explained.

“Mineral King is a subalpine glacial valley located in the southern part of Sequoia National Park. The valley, at an elevation of 7,500 to 8,000 feet, lies at the headwaters of the East Fork of the Kaweah River. The granite peaks rising above the valley reach heights of 11,000 feet or more. Mineral King is 25 miles (and 90 minutes) from Three Rivers, California, and State Highway 198 via a winding, narrow road.

…

In the 1960s, a proposal by the Walt Disney Company to build a ski resort in the valley was halted by preservationists and Mother Nature herself. In the winter of 1969, a massive avalanche wiped out the Mineral King store and post office, all of which were by then on Disney property. In 1978, the valley became forever preserved as part of Sequoia National Park.”

https://www.sierranevadageotourism.org/content/mineral-king-sequoia-national-park/sied52f3a1c0b4c7d64c

I can’t imagine that this would have been a success considering Disney's idea of preserving the pristine quality of the site coupled with the long windy road that goes up to Mineral King.