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Title: The Heartland's Heritage : An Illustrated History of Fresno County by Catherine Morison Rehart, Catherine M. Rehart ISBN: 1-886483-32-9 Publisher: Heritage Media Corp Pub. Date: 25 September, 2000 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $39.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Get to know "The Big O"
Comment: Catherine Rehart's illustrated history of Fresno County covers the chronological gamut from the shifting of the subterranean plates, during several phases of the prehistoric era, that would form the state of California and its great Central Valley, to the city of Fresno's early beginnings as a gold-rush town serviced by the Central Pacific Railroad to Fresno's status today as a large city with a small-town "feel", still surrounded by farmland and driven by its agricultural base.

Rehart's treatment is an excellent one overall, though more noteworthy for its breadth than for its depth. Fresno County is comprised of more than just its principal identically-named city, and indeed, it was Millerton and not the city of Fresno that initially served as the county seat. Appreciative of this, Rehart provides her readers with overviews of the other cities and communities in the county.

To the transplanted Angeleno, nothing could be further removed from Los Angeles and the UCLA campus than the sleepy farming town of Kerman, 27 miles west of the "Big O" along Highway 180. And yet, it's named after the two Los Angeles capitalists who initially bought the land upon which it is situated: William Kerckhoff and Jacob Mansar. That is the same William Kerckhoff whose name graces UCLA's Kerckhoff Hall.

It's a wonderful story that demonstrates the Central Valley communities interconnectedness with all points of California. Indeed, one former Fresno mayor, W. Parker Lyon, retired to the Southern California community of Arcadia.

There are certain topics about which I would have liked to have seen more detail. The famed Water Tower is probably Fresno's most well-known landmark and symbolic of how water helped Fresno grow from a small frontier town to the sixth largest city in California.

There are several pictures of The Tower in this volume, as well as mention of how it was used in the CBS miniseries "Fresno". But I would have liked to have read a more in-depth treatment of The Tower, as well as some of the other architectural landmarks in the downtown area, especially the wonderful brick-inlay masterpieces designed by Felchin, Shaw, and Franklin, such as the Pacific Southwest Building, the T.W. Patterson Building, and the Maubridge Building. These were all constructed during or after World War I, a period that marks the heyday of downtown Fresno.

Actually, I'm a little surprised by Rehart's glowing tribute to the City Hall building, which is an architectural monstrosity that clashes with the more sedate buildings in the downtown area that are a part of its history.

Moreover, Fresno's sports history is rich enough to have supplied a Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame since its inception in 1959. It includes at least two entrants in Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame - Frank Chance (of Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance fame) and Tom Seaver. Rehart briefly alludes to Chance and Seaver, as well as some other athletes but she does not delve deeply enough into Fresno's contributions to the world of sports - even neglecting to mention that Seaver's father Charles made the Fresno Hall of Fame as a golfer.

When the book was published in 2000, the downtown stadium on the corner of Tulare and Broadway had only just been conceived as a new home for the Pacific Coast League's Fresno Grizzlies and this is also faintly alluded to. Interestingly enough, Rehart includes some photographs and a brief description of the old Hughes Hotel, a wonderful Victorian architectural structure that graced the same corner from 1887 to 1953 (before it tragically burned down), but she fails to mention that the new Grizzlie Stadium is situated in the same location as the old Hughes Hotel.

This is a shame, as I believe that her readers might find pleasing the concept of the Grizzlie's Todd Linden racing into the right-centerfield gap in pursuit of a fly ball, stepping through a time warp, and finding himself in a Victorian dining room.

Still, Rehart's history is a fascinating one, and even the history of the corporate sponsors in the last section of the book is very readable. And at a time when community leaders debate how to reinvigorate the downtown area, it is instructive to learn that the urban sprawl and over-development that caused the downtown area to decline have been issues for the last 40 years or so.

Rehart tells a story of how the purchase by outside developers of cheap land north of the downtown area helped cause the exodus of business from downtown. But interestingly enough, she suggests that the major blow to downtown was the destruction in 1966 of the old Fresno courthouse with the Roman design and the famous cupola dome. It was replaced by a visually unappealing generic-brand structure on a neighboring plot of land.

Destruction of the old courthouse was staunchly opposed by many Fresnan traditionalists and downtown interests, including the County Bar, but the county board of supervisors was able to accomplish it after the Fifth Appellate District ruled in the board's favor on appeal.

As sad and as morale-devastating as this must have been, it's questionable whether the exchange of one courthouse for another could have so ravaged a local economy.

My own sources tell me that the most devastating blow to downtown Fresno was the relocation of Gottschalk's Department Store to north Fresno from its historic location on Kern and Fulton. But Rehart doesn't place a great deal of emphasis on this event. Does that have anything to do with the fact that Gottschalk's is one of the corporate sponsors whose biography is included in the book's last section?