LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER I

      California is a land of never ending wonders and surprises, a land that can only be described in superlatives.

      Literally and figuratively, Fresno County is to the state an empire within an empire — imperium in imperio as the Latin phrase has it. This statement is not put forth as the declaration of a newly discovered fact, but to emphasize that an old one is incontrovertible as the result of a remarkable twin development of state and county.

      California, thirty-first state of the union, is about 780 miles long, has a breadth varying from 148 to 235 miles, a sea-coast line 1,200 miles long through ten degrees of latitude, a total area of 158,297 square miles of which 2,645 comprise water surface, and an estimated 101,310,080 acres, in great part rough, mountainous country, or desert. The term desert is a relative one. The land now comprised within Fresno County's area was long considered desert, fit only for pasturage and worthless for agriculture. Much of it is yet regarded in that category, lacking the water to make it productive. Imperial Valley in the county of the same name, the southeasternmost in the state located between San Diego County and the Colorado river as the state boundary line is another notable desert wonder in the agricultural line. Other instances might be quoted to emphasize the declaration that California is a land of never ending wonders and surprises.

      Approximately one-half of the land surface is under federal control, including the nineteen and one-half millions or more acres in the national forests. As to area, California is second among the states of the union. Texas alone exceeds it. It is larger than the nine combined states of New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Ohio. It is one of the richest among the states, with a startling record of material achievements and with potentialities so varied and great as to stagger the mind in the contemplation of them.

      Fresno, forty-first of the counties in the order of creation, has a land area of 5,950 square miles, or 3,808.000 acres. When organized, it was much larger, but in March, 1893, a slice of 2,121 square miles was taken off from the northern part to form Madera County, and in 1909 were transferred to Kings County 120 square miles of the southeastern portion. Even with these 2,241 square miles lopped off from the original 8,214 before partition, Fresno ranks sixth of the fifty-eight counties in the state as to area. Only five exceed it, namely, Inyo, Kern, Riverside and Siskyou, San Bernardino leading. As to population, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alameda and Santa Clara lead it in the order named. The 1910 census returned a county population of 75,657, and for the county seat, 24,892. An estimate of 29,809 for the city was made in July, 1914, and one of 45,000 in June, 1914. The latter is according to the 1916 report of the state controller, but manifestly too liberal for various reasons. Estimates made on the figured basis of school attendance, directory publishers and chamber of commerce advertising literature all give greater returns but must be accepted with allowances. It is not to be denied that there have been large annual accessions in the rural and urban populations, but a census enumeration and not theoretical surmises will be required to give reliable figures.

      The county is fourth, with Sacramento a very close fifth, for total value of assessed property. Fresno is one of the very few counties in the state that had no public indebtedness. An estimate of the value of the county's public property is the following: