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Articles written by terry ommen


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  • Making Tracks into Tulare County

    Terry Ommen, Dusting Off History|Updated Aug 21, 2014

    Long before the golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah in 1869, the people of Tulare County had their eyes on railroad transportation. Compared to buggies, iron horses offered easy travel, and compared to wagons, trains made hauling crops to market much quicker and more efficient. Trains meant travel convenience and economic prosperity to communities. The first serious effort in Tulare County to get railroad transportation seems to have been in 1861. A meeting of prominen...

  • The Emergence of Kings County

    Terry Ommen, Dusting Off History|Updated Jun 17, 2014

    In 1852, nearly 25,000 square miles of land on the south end of Mariposa County was carved off creating Tulare County. The new county's boundaries stretched from the Los Angeles County line on the south, to the Mariposa line on the north. Its western edge was the coast range and on the east, the county line extended to what we now know as the Nevada state line. But the huge new county, about the size of West Virginia, was not destined to remain so for long. In 1856, the northe...

  • Stagecoach Days and Ways

    Terry Ommen|Updated Feb 20, 2014

    In 1850, when California became the 31st state in the union, it was isolated and far from the population centers to the east. Mail service was slow, and the steamships delivering precious cargo weren't always reliable. California was important to the country, so Washington was anxious to solve the problem. The federal government contracted with John Butterfield, the well-known entrepreneur and transportation pioneer, to operate what became the longest stagecoach mail line in...