Want to know where one of the first stagecoaches rumbled into Visalia in 1858? Where vigilantes met to strategize how to hunt down the famed local robbers, Evans and Sontag? Where the first schoolhouse was located?
Downtown Visalia is loaded with these hidden spots. Visalia Heritage is working to show people the city's rich history and hopes to get people interested in creating a museum to showcase that history.
The group’s next event is a Historical Scavenger Hunt starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 18. Participants can create teams of up to six people and head out into a designated area of downtown to find the items listed above and many others.
Downtown eateries have donated prizes.
Evans and Sontag
With a background in law enforcement, famed local historian Terry Ommen enjoys researching the lawless 1800s in the Central Valley. Ommen, who came up with the list of places to find on the scavenger hunt, chose one site dealing with the famed local train robbers Evans and Sontag.
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The two friends lived much of the time in Visalia in the 1880s. Both had had trouble with the railroad monopoly, as did many California residents. Evans had gone broke from it, and Sontag was severely injured while working for the railroad.
Seven train robberies occurred in the San Joaquin Valley between 1889 and 1898. Evans and Sontag were eventually identified as the robbers and hid in the foothills and Sierra Nevada.
On Sept. 6, 1892, Wells Fargo & Company and the Southern Pacific Railroad posted a bounty of $10,000 (a huge amount back then) for the arrest and delivery of Chris Evans and John Sontag to Fresno or Tulare Counties.
Soon afterward, lawmen from Tulare and Fresno Counties, Pinkerton agents, U.S. marshals, railroad detectives, bounty hunters, hired Indian scouts, and additional lawmen employed by the S.P. railroad flooded Visalia.
They met in one of Visalia’s most famous buildings of the time. That building still stands and is on the scavenger hunt.
Lynchings
“You know Visalia was a wild and crazy place back in the 1800s, with lynchings and holdups,” Ommen said.
One lynching Ommen talks about, which is not on the scavenger hunt because there is no marker of its location, happened in 1872 when James McCrory murdered one of the owners of El Dorado Saloon on Main Street.
On the way to the jailhouse, a crowd, tired of lawlessness in their town, shouted, “Hang him,” and dragged him with a rope around his neck to what was then the Mill Creek Bridge on Court Street. There, they tied the rope to the railing and tossed him over.
The next day, they took up a collection to give him a decent burial so the county would not be out of pocket for the cost. Many years after that, it was said bad men gave Visalia a wide berth.
Early life in Visalia
Most of the things to find on the scavenger hunt are not quite so dramatic but give you an insight into early life. For instance:
- Visalia was pretty isolated in the mid-1800s. Most mail was carried by ship and Pony Express. In 1857, John Butterfield was awarded the U.S. mail contract, and he established a 2,800-mile mail delivery route from St. Louis to San Francisco by stagecoach. Where did it stop in Visalia?
- Securing animals in town was a concern in horse-drawn days. Eventually, the city installed wooden hitching posts, rails, and racks. But they were frequently knocked down or just rotted away. Stronger iron horse rings were installed, and some still exist on Visalia streets.
- Where were the first schoolhouse, the first fire station, the first Farm Bureau?
Join the hunt
These are just some of the places you will discover on the scavenger hunt. So come Downtown Saturday morning (there’s also a car show on Main Street), bring the family and create a scouting team. You’ll need a phone to take a picture of each item you find.
Visalia Heritage was created to preserve the many historical homes in Visalia, the oldest town between Stockton and Los Angeles. Its current goal is to create a museum and heritage center, sometime Visalia doesn’t have although most towns in Tulare County do.
Information
What: Downtown Historical Scavenger Hunt
When: 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18
Where: At Visit Visalia, 112 E. Main
Information and rules: www.visaliaheritage.org
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