The earliest known document labeling the settlement as "Hanford" is an 1876 map of Tulare County which once included the territory of present-day Kings County. Hanford's namesake was James Madison Hanford, an executive for the company. As the settlement grew, Tulare Lake's feeding rivers were diverted for agricultural irrigation, causing it to gradually shrink and, over the 19th and 20th centuries, effectively become extinct.įrom the mid-to-late 1870s, the Southern Pacific Railroad planned to lay tracks towards the developing farmland west of Visalia, spurring a growth in labor and population. The earliest dated grave in the area was that of a young Alice Spangler who was initially buried in the Kings River Cemetery just north of her family's farm in 1860. Since the annexation of California after the Mexican-American War, the locality was settled by Americans and immigrants as farmland, broadly referred to as "Mussel Slough". Historic Spanish Colonial Revival style homes in Hanford. They occupied locations along watercourses such as creeks, springs and seep areas (such as sloughs), along perennial and seasonal drainages, as well as flat ridges and terraces. The area was inhabited by the Tachi Yokuts Indians for several thousand years prior to Euro-American contact. Today's Hanford was once north of Tulare Lake, historically the largest body of fresh water west of the Mississippi River. The population was 53,967 at the 2010 census. Hanford is the most populous city and the county seat of Kings County, California, located in the San Joaquin Valley region of the greater Central Valley.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |