This is an opportunity to benefit from Mrs. Christensen’s third grade class’ historic documentation of their town. It is a delight!
“From China Peak high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the low San Joaquin Valley. Clovis is “Gateway to the Sierras”. Clovis is a peaceful place located next to Fresno, nestled in the valley between San Francisco to the north and Los Angeles to the south, a short drive from the natural beauty of Yosemite National Park, a charter bus ride away from the Pacific Ocean and Monterey where Clovis third graders visit the famous aquarium.
Clovis is home to coyotes, raccoons, opossums, gophers, hawks, vultures, doves, ravens, blue jays, blue belly lizards, toads, and garter snakes. Spring days are filled with blossoms as nature comes out of hibernation leading to dry summer days with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees. Fall brings relief from the heat and leaves changing colors, which transforms to foggy winter morning and overcast days.
Clovis is the perfect place to be a kid outdoors throughout the seasons.
Clovis is a small city of many cultures from Italians to Chinese to Mexicans, Armenians, and Japanese. All have added special items from their culture to our community. The Chinese helped build the railroad, Mexicans helped work on the
farms, and Italians started small businesses. All these cultures make up Clovis: past, present, and future.
We are friends that stay on one another’s side.
Many people came to Clovis around 1849, looking for gold, but found fields of thick grass and some copper instead. Miners became farmers, loggers, cattle ranchers, and small business owners.
Clovis is a town of hard-working people.
Clovis is the land of the peaceful Yokuts and the nearby Miwoks. People who picked berries in tule reed baskets, smashed acorns with rock pestles, made long journeys to the ocean, but returned to their kawes to live among the tule elk, the grizzly bear, the coyote, and the rattlesnake.
Clovis names we remember beyond Clovis M. Cole like Marcus Pollasky, the railroad developer; May Case, the town’s first woman newspaper reporter; Dr. Pendergrass, the town’s only physician; Morris Vernon, the man who sold draft horses to caring people; Lucretia McMurtry & Bessie Merriman, the women who started the Clovis Rodeo.
Clovis is people of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Clovis is Old Town, full of historical buildings still standing and home of millions of old stories, some never yet told. Stories of the First State Bank (and its robbery), the Hoblitt Hotel, the L. W. Gibson General Store, the people gathering every Saturday night on dirt roads and wooden sidewalks.
When you walk into Old Town, it gets better and better as you get to know its stories.
Clovis is the Tarpey Depot, one stop on the 26-mile-long railroad. The “Iron Horse” brought prosperity to Clovis.
Clovis is the white-water tower. Built in the summer of 1913 on 5th Street near the railroad tracks, holding 60,000 gallons of clear dependable water. A place for high school boys to climb until authorities stopped them. Still standing tall above our town today, almost 100 years later, a symbol of our history.
Clovis is filled with memories of the 42-mile-long flume. Once bringing logs (lumber) from Shaver Lake to the Clovis Lumber Mill. Reaching speeds of 50 to 60 mph as it passed the flume tenders. Today a small portion awaits visitors at the Clovis-Big Dry Creek Museum.
Clovis is an honorable town that has kept the treasure of the railroad, made by Marcus Pollasky, alive by transforming it into a trail. Joggers, bicyclists, skateboarders, roller skaters, marathon runners, and people walking their pets all travel where the Iron Horse once chugged along on the Clovis Old Town Trail.
Clovis is the rodeo, and the rodeo is Clovis. No matter what, everyone has a blast in Old Town Clovis.
Clovis is a way of life! Peaceful, friendly, filled with respect, people helping people, cultures coming together. It is a special place to many people. A town filled with history. The city where we live, learn, play, follow our dreams, and imagine our future!”
Mrs. Christensen and her 25 third grade students are a part of our rich heritage.