Type: Touring
Description:Today I will be going on an OSHER LifeLine Institute tour out of CSU, Fresno’s Continuing and Global Education department. The tour’s title is It's Monumental History: A Tour of the Madera Foothills and the Raymond Museum. The presenter for the tour is Dan Carrion. Finally the description is:
There’s history in them thar Madera County foothills. Around Hensley Lake, Raymond, Road 600, and Highway 49 are interesting historic sites that mark lumber flumes, stage-coach robberies, gold mining, Indian reservations, and a ceremonial roundhouse. Our guide on this daylong close-to-home adventure is Fresno State Professor Dan Carrion, whose presentations about local history resonate with OLLI members. Dan’s the historian for the Jim Savage Mariposa Battalion Chapter of the statewide historical group E. Clampus Vitus. He’ll guide us to sites marked by the Clampers and the Raymond Museum. We’ll stop for a no-host lunch at the Hitching Post in Ahwahnee. Best of all – it’s a bus tour, so leave the driving to us
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| Inside the caboose |
I get up at 5:30 and find that it is foggy. But there is enough visibility that I do not mind driving. I leave the house at 7:15, driving my Ranger. The bus leaves from Fresno State at 8. The check in starts at 7:30 and I get there right at that time. There are several people on the bus which I know: Nancy, Don, Kaaron and Janet for starters. I grab a seat next to Janet whom I have hiked with before.
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| Raymond Museum |
I have had four classes with the presenter ranging from the Emperor Of San Francisco to Teddy Roosevelt. Each has been enlightening and entertaining. That was one of the reasons why I signed up for this tour, even though bus touring is not really my thing, at least I do not think it will be as this is my first.
We leave Fresno State a few minutes after 8 and head up highway 41 to the Four Corners where we make a left turn onto Madera Road 145. We travel for a ways till we get to the sign saying turn right to go to Hensley Lake. This is Road 33. We took this for a short way with Dan commenting that people mistake this road for the County dump. At the end of the road, we turn right onto Road 400. This is where Dan notes that the Adobe Ranch is located with 45,000 acres of land. To the north of Road 400 is the adobe home, behind a ridge.
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| Where Roosevelt spoke in Raymond |
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| Raymond's General Stoe |
As we travel up 400, Dan talks about how the flume ran from Raymond and was originally planned to terminate in Belinda. But there was a slight rise making that hard, so it ended in Madera, changing the dynamics of the area’s population. He noted that along the flume was a series of tender houses. We passed the site of one of them, the 12 Mile Flume House. Also that when Madera County broke away from Fresno County, there was a site just beyond some hills which was to be the County Seat called Minarets, down Road 406. The name was changed to Media and eventually disappeared.
We take a few more turns down Road 604 past Hensley Dam to Road 600 and then to the Raymond Museum. The Museum is the first stop we have. It is the house of Charles Miller, the first resident of Raymond. The house was bought by Lynn who works in Los Angeles, but loves this community. The Museum is small, but has every nook and cranny field with period pieces stretching from pictures to kitchenware to old furniture. Outside, there is an old granite saw and a hydraulic mining nozzle. My favorite is the old caboose-Raymond used to be the terminus of the railroad, how most people of the era got into Yosemite.
Just a hundred feet away to the north is a flat spot where when Teddy Roosevelt was President started his time in Yosemite with a speech to an unexpected crowd of Raymonites. Dan had done a class on this trip earlier in the semester.
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| Site of Shay's Blacksmith |
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| Fresno River |
Then we are off again-a brief stop two hundred yards up the 600 at the Raymond marker. Dan notes that across the street at the store has the best hamburgers. We then continue on up the road to a series of E Clampus Vitus markers for: The Summit House, The Black Kid, The Yosemite Stage Route, Grub Stake, Shay’s Blacksmith, and Poison Switch, with a nod as we drove by to the old Gertrude School site.
It is now a little after 12:30 and it looks like everybody is getting a bit hungry. Dan has arranged for us to stop at the Hitching Post in Ahwahnee. Now there are about 50-60 people on this trip. Dan has warned the restaurant to expect a large crowd for lunch. There is a single cash register being operated and it looks like a single cook. with someone moving the food to people. You can only guess how long it took us to get served. I was at the end of the line, except for Dan and Rikki. I got my food at 1:45. This definitely threw Dan’s time table off. On the other hand, the food was pretty good-I had a Philly Steak sandwich with lots of fries.
Then it is time to go back to Fresno. By the time we reach the Fresno State campus it is about 6, an hour after the estimated time. I enjoyed the tour of the foothills, seeing areas which I had not visited and hearing some of the background which I had not heard before. Would I go on another tour? Yes, with the caveat that I would need to be satisfied with not being able to stroll around at leisure, taking in all which an area has, instead of being content to be on someone else’s schedule.
Just a last note. I mentioned that I sat with Janet on this trip. Sherri, Janet and I have hiked together-I think once her husband was along as well. Anyway, when you are with somebody for close to ten hours, you do talk some. And it was enjoyable finding out a bit more about her. Such as both of our families tend to use public transportation when we are in other cities. Or her husband works at Fresno State. Just tidbits like that. Also I got to share a couple of the hikes I had been on which she was interest in. It was pleasant sitting next to her.
Trail Lesson: Even well planned trips will have an element of randomness to it. Just enjoy the journey.
Extra Photo's
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| Fresno River in its Autumn Colors |
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| Raymond Museum Caboose |
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| Raymond marker |
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| View from Grub Gulch |
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| Clamper Cemetery at Poison Switch |
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| Canary House |
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| Knowles Quary |
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