Kings County
History
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California - History by Eugene L. Menefee and Fred A. Dodge - Historic Record Company - Los Angeles, California, 1913
CHAPTER XX
THE ORGANIZATION OF KINGS COUNTY
By F. A. Dodge
The creation and organization of Kings county as a political division of the state was the accomplishment of the spirit of development and progress which has ever conquered the wilderness and caused the deserts to vanish.
Until the spring of 1893 the territory which we are to consider was a part of Tulare county, and therefore the early history of settlement and development is a part of the history of that county and the reader will find in this volume an interesting and instructive accounting of those early days when men and women of small means but determined will, laid the foundation of what today is one of the most prosperous and enlightened agricultural divisions of beloved California.
People who build an imperishable state have always commenced at the foundation, and all enduring foundations ever yet constructed have been begun by a community bound together by that greatest common tie—necessity. Those who today behold with admiring eye the broad vineyards, prolific orchards and expanding meadows of this central valley of California should have preserved in some historical form the story of the past that they and their children may appreciate the hardy, brave and self-sacrificing ones who grappled with the problems which confronted them in an isolated desert at a time when even Tulare county was no longer a child among the counties of the state; and along with that history it is right and proper that mention of those people, with some of their personal history, should be written, and this volume is intended to accomplish that end. In the department devoted to Tulare county the author has dealt with what now is the county of Kings up to the date of its organization and what is to be chronicled here will therefore relate to events of comparatively recent occurrence, for this county is among the youngest in the state. The efforts of its people, however, to secure their independence date back into the year 1886. At that time the center of population of the western portion of Tulare county was the country in the immediate vicinity of the then small towns of Hanford, Lemoore and Grangeville. This community had been made possible through the application of water to the soil for purposes of irrigation. Long before the stirring times of the Mussel Slough tragedy recounted at length in this work, the life-giving waters of Kings river had been taken out upon the dry plain, and the earliest demonstration of irrigation as practiced in central California was made in the vicinity of Grangeville. From that time development was as rapid as was possible, considering the lack of finances possessed by those who had located on the barren soil. The story of hardship, deprivation and suffering experienced by the early settlers, their struggle with land barons who sought to monopolize the great plains for cattle ranges during the short season when wild feed was abundant; the fight with the railroad corporation, and finally the struggle for and the triumphant victory realized for independent county government are all worthy of record; but the progress of the people during the past nineteen years is to form the basis of this contribution.
ORGANIZING FOR A COUNTY
Successful agriculture, wherever irrigation had been practiced in the "Mussel Slough" country, was proclaimed by the early irrigationists to their friends beyond the Sierras. The letters written "back home" to be read and reread around the old firesides brought from the states of the Mississippi valley and from the Atlantic states many settlers. Californians by adoption who had settled in Yolo, Sacramento, San Joaquin and other counties to the north also were attracted hither by the stories told of the prolific soil and the opportunities offered in the rich country south of Kings river. Grain farming was soon made companion to alfalfa, and stock-raising was undertaken in a more domestic manner than that which prevailed when the herdsman held sway and laid claim to all the plains his vaqueros could survey. Then the planting of the grape and the deciduous fruits followed, each step demonstrating the adaptability of the soil and climate to diversified husbandry. All of this resulted in the western portion of Tulare county acquiring a more rapid settlement than those other districts where irrigation had not been introduced. This condition was the inspiration to the movement to organize a new county government, and in the fall of 1886, Dr. A. B. Butler, who was at that time a practicing physician located at the town of Grangeville, and a very popular gentleman, as well as one of the leading physicians of the district, was put forth as a candidate for member of the assembly from the district comprising Tulare county. Butler was a Republican, and the county was a Democratic stronghold. But Dr. Butler was also an astute politician and that portion of the county in which he lived was the Republican stronghold of the county. That his successful election to the Assembly of California at Sacramento meant the beginning of a plan to form a new county either did not appear on the surface, or if it did it was viewed with complacency by those who considered such a possibility unworthy of the least attention. Butler was elected. and there began the story of how Kings county came to be on the map of California.
During the session of the California legislature in February, 1887, Assemblyman Butler introduced a bill to cut off a portion of western Tulare county and add to it a portion of Fresno county south of the fourth standard parallel line. The movement immediately met with opposition and a strong lobby was set to work by Visalia and Tulare interests, and the county division measure failed. It was, however, the beginning of a long campaign, and the editorial prophecy made by the Hanford Sentinel of February 17, 1887, that "The seed of county division has been planted which will in the course of events sprout a new county," came true.
In the legislative campaign of 1888, W. S. Cunningham, a well-known citizen of Lemoore, and a Democrat, was elected assemblyman. On the strength of a desire for a new county the candidate received much hearty support from Republicans during his campaign. Mr. Cunningham introduced a county division bill at the twenty-ninth session, but, it too, met with strong opposition from the mother county, and failed. The next legislative campaign saw the question of creating a new county thrust to the fore. Population had greatly increased, and the demand for facilities for the transaction of public business nearer the center of that population had received new impetus, and a Hanford citizen was agreed upon for assemblyman. Frank A. Blakeley, a Republican, and a man well known and popular, was the chosen candidate. He won the election, and immediately preparation was begun for the final fight. A strong committee composed of business men of all political faiths was formed in Hanford, and included citizens from Lemoore and Grangeville, and farmers. A bill was drafted by Dixon L. Phillips, an attorney of Hanford, and a committee headed by such men as George N. Wendling, E. E. Bush, Richard Mills, Justin Jacobs, Frank L. Dodge, R. W. Musgrave and others established the committee headquarter in Sacramento, and assisted Assemblyman Blakeley in his fight.
In the early struggles the name proposed for the new county was Lorrain, but that name was abandoned and Kings was adopted in its stead, as being more significant. The name Kings was well received and the county was thus christened after Kings river, the principal source of the irrigation for the district, which stream was discovered in 1805 by an exploring expedition and named Rio de Los Santos Reyes (The River of the Holy Kings).
The Kings county division fight was regarded as the great struggle of the session of 1892-93. William H. Alford, a brilliant young attorney from Tulare county, and a Democrat, was assemblyman from the eastern part of Tulare county, while Stockton Berry, an influential landowner, was senator from the district, and both stood solidly opposed to division. At this session Fresno county had a similar contest on, and the effort to create the county of Madera from Fresno was made simultaneously, and succeeded. Riverside county was another of the new county movements at this identical session. Of course, the leaders who were interested in all of these fights sought to combine their forces, and succeeded in doing so. The contest was long-drawn, and much bitterness was engendered, but all the wounds have been long since healed with the salve of time and the admitted wisdom of permitting communities possessing sufficient wealth and population to enjoy those measures of home rule which by right belongs to them.
The Blakeley bill, after a turbulent, and at times almost hopeless history, finally passed both houses. The vote in the assembly was forty-five ayes to twenty-seven noes, and in the senate it received twenty-four ayes to fifteen noes. The senate's action was taken on March 11, 1893.
As originally created the county had an area of 1257 square miles and when organized in 1893 had an estimated population of 7325. The assessable acreage at that time was 427,281 acres. Ten years after organization the county had a bonded debt of only $32,000, and ten years later, or now, it has no bonded debt. The United States census of 1900 gave the population as 9871, and the thirteenth census, 1910, gave it 16,230, and an assessed valuation of $14,283,622. By the addition of a strip of territory from Fresno county through the operation of the Webber bill passed by the legislature in 1908-9, the county today has a total area of 1375 square miles or 118 square miles more than it originally possessed.
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.