Of the major cities in our part of the Central Valley, one is older than the rest. The story of the founding of Visalia, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
The Yokuts have called Tulare County home for millennia. But the area where the Kaweah River exits the mountains and spreads out into different channels on the valley floor attracted some of the first Europeans to settle in the region. In 1850, a group set up the small settlement of Woodsville (not to be confused with present-day Woodville which is located near Porterville) seven miles east of present day Visalia in the area known as Four Creeks. Most of the settlers were killed later that year in a clash with the Kaweah tribe. When the state created Tulare County, it briefly made Woodsville the county seat.
Meanwhile, seven miles to the west, in 1851 Nathaniel Vise built a cabin near Mill Creek amid a great forest of ancient oaks. When a wagon train of settlers from Iowa arrived the following year, Vise encouraged them to make the area their home. In 1852 they built a stockade of oak logs at what is today at the corner of Oak and Bridge Streets, known as Fort Visalia. This makes Visalia the oldest of the major cities of the San Joaquin Valley south of the delta…