Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #809694 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Catherine Morison Rehart has served as first vice-chairwoman for the Historic Preservation Commission for the City of Fresno; as a member of the board of directors of the Fresno City and County Historical Society; as chair of the Preservation Committee of the FCCHS; and a president of the La Paloma Guild, the FCCH’s auxiliary. From 1986 to 1994, she held the position of education/information director for the FCCHS.
Her work as a freelance writer includes writing the KMJ Radio scripts for “The Valley’s Legends and Legacies” —from which this book is derived—and other writing projects on local history.

Customer Reviews

Tra-la-la-lally here down in the valley!
Published in 1996, this is the first of the "Legends & Legacies" series authored by premier Fresno/Central Valley historian Catherine Rehart.

A series of short clips on the history of the Central Valley, centered on (but not exclusively of) the city of Fresno, each story is apparently taken from a presentation that Rehart delivered on KMJ radio. It is therefore not difficult to guess which radio station received its own kudos on the air and in this book for being Fresno's "first" radio station (featuring, on its opening night in 1925, such acts as "Spike Henessey and his Rainbow Ballroom Band, the Crockett Mountaineers of Fowler and a song called *Radio Love* written by two Fresno women").

This particular format has given the author more leisure to explore nooks and crannies of Fresno history than did the format of her illustrated history of Fresno County ("The Heartland's Heritage").

In evaluating "Heartland's Heritage", I had bemoaned the lack of detail given to the history of famous architectural landmarks such as the Water Tower and the Pacific-Southwest Building, but each of these buildings and many more is given its own separate treatment in this book.

Actually, architects and designers will find a wealth of information about the famous residences in Fresno such as the Meux Home, the Collins Home, the Swift Home, and many more. The amount of detail lovingly furnished about these residences suggests that these aspects of Fresno history are the author's personal favorites.

I had expressed dismay that "Heartland's Heritage" did not delve deeply enough into the world of sports, but this volume has several sketches with a sports theme.

Rehart mentions that Fresno's first baseball park was at the Southern Pacific Railroad reservation at Ventura Avenue, and she exults that with the proposed site for the new baseball stadium being adjacent to this location, "baseball in Fresno has come full circle".

Is she talking about Grizzlie Stadium's current location on Tulare and H Streets or was a different location being considered in 1996? Grizzlie Stadium is close enough to the railroad tracks that the engine's whistle can often be heard on game nights or game days, but I'm not 100% certain that the stadium is actually "adjacent" to this location. Still, the notion is a very appealing historical abstraction.

The passage of time has overtaken at least one or two of Rehart's other observations. She mentions that the Pacific-Southwest Building was the largest structure between San Francisco and Los Angeles until the Del Webb Building (now the County Building) was erected in the 1960's. But the nearly-completed Federal Courthouse (ground was broken after this book was published) will edge out the Del Webb Building by a few feet.

However, I'm delighted to have confirmed my supposition that the courthouse, Del Webb Building, and Pacific Southwest Building will respectively rank 1-2-3 and I am equally delighted with the revelation that the three giants are all within 10-20 minutes walking distance of each other and can all be viewed at the same time if one stands at the proper angle on Tulare Street. Downtown Fresno is truly the hub of the Central Valley, and having just driven twice through Merced County on my way to and from the San Francisco Bay Area, I am convinced that Los Banos poses no threat to this.

The author's sketches range from descriptions of genuine historical interest to those that are genuinely humorous or entertaining (Mayor W. Parker Lyon's "gift" to Los Angeles in 1906) to those that are awash in minutiae.

When she tells us breathlessly that the idea for the world's first all-inclusive liability insurance policy was drafted on a cocktail napkin in 1936 in the bar of the Hotel Fresno "thus adding one more important chapter to the history of Fresno", she seems serious (so whatever became of that cocktail napkin?). But it reads like a MAD Magazine parody of a Catherine Rehart book. It's funny for the wrong reasons. But I understand that it does take a number of sketches to fill a book and to fulfill a commitment to KMJ.

All in all though, this is a very entertaining and informative book, which provides several illustrations that the heart and soul of Fresno continues to reside in the downtown area, however many businesses and residences have seeped their way to the north side. As Ms. Rehart's series progresses toward the close of one century and the beginning of another, I anticipate her continuing emphasis of this theme.