Hanford Insider: Carnegie Museum's Building Kings County Pt. II Preview

On this week's Hanford Insider, curators from the Carnegie Museum give us an inside look into their latest exhibition, Building Kings County. Rob has your community news, and I'll be back with your sports report. This is the Hanford Insider for September 21st.

Welcome And Community Calendar

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Hanford Insider Podcast. I'm Rob Bentley, bringing you the people, places, stories, and events that make Hanford and Kings County such a great place to call home. So sit back, turn it up, and let's get to know what's happening right here in our community. This weekend was a busy one for a lot of people. I hope you took advantage of some of the great activities that were taking place. Now let's take a look at this week's community calendar. On Tuesday, September 22nd, the World of Outlaws Valley Clash will be held at the King Speedway. On Wednesday, September 23rd, there'll be a beginner's Dungeons and Dragons class at the Hanford Library Temporary Branch on 11th Avenue, beginning at 3:30 p.m. At the Thursday Marketplace this week, the band Motel Drive will be performing.

Queen Nation Comes To Hanford

The Queen Nation concert is coming up on October 17th, and I had the chance to talk with co-promoter for Handy House Productions, Travis Pfeiffer, about this exciting tribute band concert at the Hanford Fox Theater.

As you mentioned, I'm co-promoting the show with uh the Hanford Fox Theater, Danny and Libby over there. We're super excited to be bringing Queen Nation to the Fox Theater. They're on a nationwide tour, and uh I think we're really lucky to have them coming through Hanford. So really excited by it. The front several rows have already booked up. The balcony is booked up as well for the most part. So I think we're gonna see quite a few folks out there, and uh it's gonna be a great time. We have support from the Hanford Hotel and uh All Valley Print. So anybody coming from out of town, feel free to take a look at the Hanford uh hotel's website to book a room. Tickets start at $29 plus fees, and they go up to $59 plus fees, and they can get them online at www.foxhanford.com or in person on Monday or Wednesday at the Hanford Fox Theaters box office.

How To Share Local Events

If you've got an event coming up, large or small, and you'd like some help getting the word out, let's work together. Send your information to HanfordInsider at gmail.com. The Hanford Insider has the most comprehensive community calendar available at HanfordInsider.com.

Building Kings County Exhibit Preview

This last weekend, the Carnegie Museum of Kings County opened up its next installment of Building Kings County. The first exhibition covered topics such as the origins of Kings County, the creation of cities, schools, and China Alley. Part two is taking it a step further to dig into local stories, such as the courthouse in Bastille, local banks, churches, freeways, entertainment, and my personal favorite local iconic restaurants. Before the exhibit opened, the museum docents received training from the curators that lasted well over an hour and a half. I've taken highlights from the training and trimmed it down to just about 20 minutes, so you can hear for yourself some of the incredible stories that are being told in this exhibition. After listening, you can make your plans to visit the Carnegie Museum to see it. The museum is open Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 per adult, $2 per child with a family maximum of just $10. The museum is located at 109 East 8th Street in downtown Hanford. And while you're there, you can learn about how to make this Hanford treasure accessible to all by installing a handicapped lift.

The Old Courthouse And Its Comeback

We begin this portion with Jack Schwartz sharing the history of the old Kings County Courthouse.

The first display here is the Kings County Courthouse. Now the courthouse was built right after the county became a separate county from Tulary County. And trying to find artifacts and historical information about was impossible. Things have just left. It was owned by the county until around 1976 when uh the county opened their new facilities. Okay, because the um all of the operating systems were obsolete. And um so in the early 80s, the city council, city staff, and some historic preservationists went around the state of California and looked at how cities then were redeveloping and rehabbing the historic buildings. And one of the places they went was the Cooper House, which was the old courthouse in Santa Cruz. And they met Max Walden. And Max Walden came to town and took over not only the courthouse, but the Bastille, and also created uh out of Holkloss the what was then the Victorian Inn, it's now the Irwin Street Inn. And so in the early 80s, that courthouse was a very vibrant place. Um, but between some financial issues, the expenses of operating the building and not being able to rehab it and restore it fully, um, it it soon fell by the wayside. And the city uh you know did nothing uh while the cost of rehabbing it went up. And finally last year uh they sold it to uh the esteem land company, LLC, which is really operated by Barrelhouse Brewing Principles. And they are now in the midst of rehabbing it and restoring it.

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When Local Banks Printed Money

lot of people don't know, but before the Federal Reserve came into effect, banks could print their own money. And so if you see here, you're gonna see relative you're gonna see familiar 1020 and a $50 bill. It looks just like what you own in your hands today. The only difference is that $10 bill there says the first national bank of Hardwick. And that $10 bill says the first national bank of Corcoran. And there's the first national bank of Lamore, and we have the First National Bank of Hanford, and the Farmers and Merchants National Bank of Hanford. And so we have an explanation of how that happened, how the banks were able to do that legally, and you'll read through that. And then I have other examples here just for people to look at, like we have the First National Bank of Riverdale and the First National Bank of Leighton. And so all those little banks were able to generate cash by following the rules through the National Bank Acts of 1863 and 1864. So what we got here is a picture of the bank, a picture of the money, and then discussing what's going on. Just something that most people didn't know.

Churches And Civic Life Stories

So what we have is a cross-section of the churches. We're not here to talk about denominations or philosophies. We're focusing on the history of the churches. So what you'll see a lot of times pictures of the historic church and the current church. And so each little each church has their own story. I mean, we have one church to raise money to build their church. A bunch of parishioners went up to Alaska and uh hunted for gold in the Klondike. Okay. Um, so each it it it turned out to be a really fun display, and you'll have a chance to it.

This uh lovely picture down here in the corner um shows uh early Limore and some of our uh celebrations. And Limore was uh concerned that the downtown just was uh composed of bars, and so the ladies got together and they uh organized and then eventually um got the right to vote in 1920, and they brought some culture to Lemore, and so they organized parades. Limore actually had an opera house at one point, and uh, we can thank all the good ladies for the culture that that was brought.

Highway 198 And The Fox Theater

The one that I really wanted to highlight is uh Highway 198. Most people know that Lacey Boulevard was pretty much Highway 198, but it didn't go straight through. You had to go through downtown Hanford in order to get to the other side. So these are pictures here. One of the Garner curve where the cow and the Hanford uh tractors and all those are. This is the curve that would take eastbound traffic over to 7th Street so that they could go 7th Street all the way out to Lacey Boulevard. But before that curve was put in, you used to have to come through town, turn on Irwin Street, and then turn by the Fox Theater onto Lacey. So pretty crazy things to think about.

Right there, you can see the groundbreaking of the Fox Theater. The mayor, some of the chamber of commerce, uh county supervisors, and then um the Fox Corporation itself. They brought a representative down uh up from uh uh LA to uh watch the groundbreaking ceremony. But the construction took, which is relatively quick, took six months to build they went from from that little dirt pile to this giant theater in six months. They started in April and they were finished in December, which nowadays building anything in six months is you you you're you're crazy. One of the interesting things that I found out was the as you can see, there's a Montgomery ward connected to the Fox Theater, which is now Lush. But before then it was Montgomery Ward. The original opening date for the Fox Theater was supposed to be October, but the Great Depression hit in October, as we all know. And they wanted to rush the Montgomery Ward and get it open quicker because they would rather have a department store so they can at least sell things to people than have a theater where nobody would probably be able to afford to watch a movie.

Restaurant History And WWII Internment

We did do a little shout out to Star Restaurant because it's still one of the oldest restaurants in town that's still in existence. And so Steve and Ariane just we had a sign that uh Mike Zen has procured for us and a little picture of the Fukushima family who owned the restaurant. But what we were, you know, wanting to remind people of the uh is a newspaper ad that the family put when they were um ex giving their sincerest thanks for the people who had patronized their restaurant, but they were closing because it's World War II and they were going to internment camps. And I think the line on this that just gets me every time is when they say, you know, to our customers and pat for thanking them for their past patronage. And it says, we look forward to a happier day when we can again greet you. So thinking as what they're going into something, they really don't know the outcome. Or, you know, we know historically in our town, some families looked after businesses or looked after properties for their friends who were interned. So when they came back, they were able to do that. But I just thought that was really a touching kind of sentiment to the whole uh experience.

The ball and chain was used at our the honor farm. And in town, the honor farm is was located where our courthouse, sheriff's office, and jail are currently. So in that area. A couple people I talked to said that the sheriff's house was out that way and that's where they would stay. But that would be put on them when they would go out into the fields so that way they wouldn't just walk off. Because that thing weighs easily 25 to 30 pounds with and then the chain, it's heavy.

Drive-In Memories And Local Radio

Anybody been to King's Driving Theater? They remember the lights underneath the screen you used to go on while you were playing in the playground, they would flash the lights when it was time to go back to your car. So everybody knew that it was time to go find your mom and dad and hang out with them. Now there's one of the original window speakers from 1949. Of course, in 1979, when the theater changed ownership with the Tom Graff, he changed over to the projector and he also went to a radio, cinema radio, which would broadcast directly to your car radios. It worked out great, but there was a problem. If you didn't hit use your accessory switch, a lot of times it would have people would have dead batteries if they did run for two and a half, three hours. So sometimes the projectionists would you give it a no, just say go start your cars maybe a little bit, warm them up, uh, recharge your battery before the next movie starts.

So we talk about the different radio stations in Kings County, KLAN, KNGS, KOAD. There were several radio stations, and this is where people went to find what was happening in town, and then uh took a dive into the K and GS radio station, which is now Kiggs, out on 198. And Mary Lou and I and Terry went out and we did a pick at the radio station, and they were willing to loan us some of their items for display. So we have a real tape deck, we have a turntable, and it's kind of funny. You look at it and you go, why is it not like a home grade one? It wasn't because it sat in a desk. And the people that are really into electronics, they can tell you exactly what kind of motor that is and why this one is a really good turntable for radio stations. So that's why it's kind of in there tilted. We have some advertisement carts that they would pop in uh when they had a commercial with Time to Roll, they just pop it in and and uh play it over the radio waves. Uh this little clip here is from when uh Gus Zernel, who was a sports broadcaster along with Ken Hill, who was a teacher at the high school, and he would uh also uh broadcast the football games. They would take equipment and plug in and uh tap into the phone lines and send the signal back to the station, and they would broadcast Hanford High Football.

And so that's how the Kettleman Hills actually got its name was after David Kettleman, who is not spelled, his name was not spelled like it is for Kettleman City, but you know, that's another story. But he was a sheep cattle rancher, and so the hills were named after him, uh as and ultimately Kettleman City as

Oil Boom And Kings County Industry

well. The city of Avenel is actually Laniva spelled backwards, which I realized I didn't throw that in there, um, that that was for the wheat that grew out in the area all around Avenel. But somewhere along the way, oil had been discovered in um Taft and they were working there. And so in uh 1927 in March, a company came up to try and see if they could find oil in the Kettleman Hills, and they drilled for a really long time, 19 months, I think it is, and drilled over 7,000 feet into the ground. And in October of 1928, they hit the gusher. And the noise from that gusher, when it erupted, could be heard 30 miles away.

And then Armstrong Tire Company that was brought in. There's actually an article Rob's mom found about thanking Hanford and how they found Hanford. They actually closed plants in Connecticut and Iowa and shipped their management here to open the Armstrong tire plant. And they made lots of different products. Um we were able to get a video of uh ABC, I think it was. This man had it in between all his home movies, so Rob was able to splice it out. But it's actually footage and not just men, men and women worked in the in the tire plant and in the office. The other company I have is uh Safeway. It started out as the Lucerne Cream and Butter Company. Lucerne, Steve Bannister tells me, is a type of alfalfa that was grown here. So Safeway bought this company and they developed dairy products under a brand name of Lucerne, which comes right here from Kings County. So the Lucerne brand that is the dairy brand of Safeway comes from Hanford.

So we'll start with Swift and Company. So Swift and Company in 1917, Swift decided to construct a $100,000, yes, 1917, $100,000 creamery in Hanford. They originally had started a creamery in Hardwick. When you were able to come up, that's picture number five is their little creamery in Hardwick. But eventually they transitioned to a creamery, which is still the building is still in existence. If you're going west on Lacey, just past the railroad tracks, there's that brick building, and then there's a Starbucks right across from that. So that was the Swift and Company creamery. The main one we were uh looking at is the pancake house. So out on Lacey Boulevard, which at one time, I believe, from our Marchbanks exhibit we learned was a major thoroughfare through town, which is why you had those hotels. You had a 24-hour pancake house, which was purchased by the Van Beren family and they opened it in 1967. 24 hours. It was really a lot of play of groups, civic organizations, the police, toastmasters, Christian business committees, youth sports organizations would gather at the pancake house and hold their meetings.

Superior dairy. People are really excited about this exhibit. So we have a lot of uh artifacts here, of course, the booth, milk bottles, milk jugs, different cans. We have one from the Bowdoin when it was uh here with the Bowden, and then uh some other superior branded items here. Gotta give uh Naomi Togawa some love. Uh, she and Carol Hackett and a number of her best friends would always go to Superior Dairy like every day. She had her own stool. Everybody knew stay away. That's Naomi's bent. So we have a stool with Naomi's jacket that she was given, um uh given to wear.

Superior Dairy Pedon’s And Macano’s Recipes

James and Lois Peaton, between the 1920s and the 1990s, had a series of restaurants that they opened. They both started as employees at Bernstein's Bakery, get married in 1922. And so they opened their first cafe in the King's Hotel building, but it was destroyed by fire. So after the fire, they moved into the old Bernstein's Bakery building and they remodeled it. And in 1928, that's the original Pedon's Cafe. In the 1930s, they buy the Liberty Candy Store and they rename it Peter Pan. It becomes the Peter Pan. And that was sh uh short order, it was a soda shop. So you got candy, you got sodas there. Um, later in the late 40s, they enlarged it to a coffee shop, and their son Bob Pedon purchased that. And I believe at that point it becomes Pedon's. But James and Lois went through and they purchased the Coop Coffee Shop, which was in the Food King building. So again, if you're new to Hanford and um you know where the McDonald's and the Walgreens are, sort of near where Save Mart is. Yeah, that used to be a grocery store. Food King, it had a lot of things in there in addition to just being a grocery store. It had a Pedon's Cafe. Um, I just remember that's where Rob's dad would go with his golfing buddies, right? So they opened the coupe, but then they remodel it and name it Pedon's Cafe again. Their son, who had uh operated his Pedon's Cafe, had passed away. And so they took back the name of Pedon's Cafe. It stayed there until the 1990s. And so in the 1990s, they moved Pedon's Cafe one more time, and that's at on West Lacey Boulevard. So it's sort of behind the Fox Theater near the Presbyterian Church. I believe now it's at Venice Health. So they use it for that, and they operated that until the late 90s.

Eventually uh it became Macano's Bakery, and they were known for their cakes and pies, and you name it. So we have all of these wonderful, wonderful pieces. Uh we have in the back, um, we have the menu board. Uh, we have baking boards, we have a giant whisk. Then we have uh the tools that were used on the heavy equipment to mix those. Look how big that is. Yeah, uh they're just amazing there. Um in the back, um, there's some tools that were used to measure the refrigerant levels in the air in the uh refrigerators to make sure everything was just the right temperature because part of making a good product was having the right temperature, either hot or cold. So the tools here were used to measure uh measure uh amps and voltage in the in the the ovens and the refrigerant levels, uh that kind of stuff. And then the big thing that everybody's gonna want to know about Macanos is the recipes. And yes, we have the Macanos recipes. Uh I've been mentioning this to people, and I would not be surprised to see quite a few people can I just can I just you know pull or whatever because they want that rum cake recipe or they want that you know they were in the business of baking, not necessarily in the business of selling cookbooks, okay? And so we have probably five times this many recipes available. We've put the best ones that were handwritten on display, but um, we have uh recipes and it at some point we'll do something with that, but that's down the line. So you can see McConaughey's that they would write them on the backs of any little piece of paper that they had. And most people, to be honest with you, they will probably ask you, do you have the rum cake recipe? Do you have the rum cake recipe? And the answer is yes, we have the rum cake recipe. We took the uh we took the uh handwriting from the original recipe that was that we had and combined it with several others that are floating out there and put together a recipe which we think is pretty darn close. And the person um who uh helped us with this is a baker, and so we have this flyer of the rum cake or the rum cream cake recipe inspired by McGonas. So it's come pretty close, and um, she's done this for years trying to get as close as she can. And her friends say, This is it, you know, this is so this is available for download, and this um is a QR code that they can scan with their smartphone, and this will be in the binder next to a green divider so that they can take a look at it and they can take a picture of it if they want to, or they can scan it and download the PDF uh from our website doing that. But most people, um, you know, some people might be interested in that, and they'll say, Oh, if you ever release a cookbook or whatever, just stay tuned. And that's probably a good plug to follow the museum on social media, that kind of thing. That, my friends, is our display. Can you like I say, can you see why this is going to spark so much conversation and memories and stuff like that? That was a very short recap of the exhibition. To learn more, visit Carnegie Museum of Kingscounty.org.

Local High School Sports Roundup

Now let's check in with Eric for this sports wrap-up.

And now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley.

Only two football teams in action last week as Hanford West had a bye, so we'll start with a Hanford High football team who improved to a perfect 4-0 after taking down Centennial last Friday. The Bullpups dug themselves a 21-0 hole in the first half, but thanks to a Jaron Mao to Braylon Thomas touchdown late in the second quarter, the Bullpups were able to put points on the board 21 to 7 at half. Early in the second half, the tide started to turn with a Rashawn Newton 12-yard rushing touchdown, then an El Zar Nuno fumble recovery deep in Golden Eagle territory, which led to a Sebastian Cartiel rushing touchdown to not things at 21 through 3. Early in the fourth, Cartier would find the end zone a second time, giving the Bullpups their first lead of the game 28-21. Centennial would answer with a 55-yard touchdown to tie things at 28, but after that it was all Sebastian Cartiel as the sophomore found the end zone two more times to finish with four rushing touchdowns on the game and secure the 42-28 victory for Hanford High. The Bullpups will be at home for the fourth Friday in a row this week, hosting two and two Golden West to open EYL play. The Sierra Pacific football team fell to two and three on the year after losing in a close one at Sanger West, 28-27 last Friday. The Golden Bears will get a bye to regroup this week before opening league play at Carruthers next Friday. And the one and three Hanford West football team will hit the field this week, refreshed after their bye, searching for their first win since their season opener as they host Orange Cove on Thursday. Out to the pool now, where both Sierra Pacific water polo teams found success. The boys were able to handle Hanford High with ease in their only game of the week to improve to the 7-2 overall on the season, while the girls went 5-0, including a perfect 4-0 in their Golden Bear Invitational. The girls got the week started with a 22-5 blowout of Hanford High in the Bullpups only game of the week. Then in tournament play, defense was the star of the show as the Golden Bears beat El Diamante 10-1, Bakersfield Christian 10-4, Exeter 11-6, and avenged one of their two losses on the year, taking down Lamore 6-3. In that championship versus Lamore, Mia De LaTore accounted for half of the Sierra Pacific offense, scoring three goals with Bea Cavillo, Oakland Dickey, and Caitlin Bean each scoring one. Zoe DeLore continues to provide rock solid defense in goal as opposing offenses are averaging less than five goals per game. Both Sierra Pacific water polo teams will be in action again this week, hosting Menache on Wednesday. The Hanford High Boys water polo team were able to pick up their first two wins of the season last week, taking down Dainuba 9-6 and Central East 22-1, falling to Lamore, Bakersfield Christian, and Sierra Pacific as the Bullpups sit 2 7 on the year. And both Hanford West water polo teams fell to Lamore in their only action in the pool last week. In girls volleyball, it was a busy week for Hanford West with some midweek games and a four-game set at the Sunnyside Tournament on Saturday. The week got off to a rough start, falling in straight sets to Sierra Pacific, but a bounce back five set win over Lamore gave the Huskies some confidence heading into tournament play. A victory over Minarets got things started on Saturday, then a loss to Fraser Mountain in game two. A victory over Tularie Western gave the Huskies a spot in the championship game where they fell to Menachee and earned a second place finish. Kalani Yang was named to the all-tournament team as Hanford West volleyball improves to six and eight overall on the year. The Sierra Pacific volleyball team continued their solid season, picking up a pair of victories last week. A straight set win over Hanford West, then taking down Roosevelt in four sets to improve to eleven and seven overall with league play starting this week. And we don't have any scores reported for Hanford High's loan matchup with Lamore last week. As always, if you have a score report or a team update for any team in any sport at any level, you can let us know by emailing HanfordInsider at gmail.com. I'm Eric Bentley, and this has been your Hanford Insider Sports Report.

Support The Show And Stay Connected

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