Monday, June 2, 2014

Travels With Brewer: Fresno City

Fresno City 02 I cannot conceive of a much worse place to live, unless it be the next place where we stopped; yet here a city was laid out in early speculative times, streets and public squares figure on paper and on the map, imaginary bridges cross the stinking sloughs, and pure water gushes from artesian wells that have never been sunk.
--William H. Brewer, June 2, 1864

(Fresno City was about thirty miles west and a little south of present-day Fresno. Nothing remains of the town.)

2 comments:

Generik said...

Oy. I've been to Fresno a number of times; never been to (or even heard of) Fresno City. No matter, I can think of about 200 places I'd choose to live ahead of either place.

OTOH, nice shot.

Tom Hilton said...

Thanks!

I kind of love Brewer's treks through the Central Valley. For him, as for most of us today, it's just a big obstacle between here and the Sierra...and all of his letters describe at length the miserable heat and dust and bad water and the soul-crushing boredom of the landscape.