If you live in Southeast Fresno, you’re probably familiar with Fancher Creek. This natural waterway, later turned into a canal, runs through Sunnyside and southeast neighborhoods, and even the new Fancher Creek Town Center development. But these waters also have a history dating back to Fresno’s earliest days. The story of the creek that gave birth to Fresno and the man it’s named for, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
Back in 1871 early irrigation pioneer Moses Church diverted Kings River water into the nearby channel of the normal dry Fancher Creek. It’s this water that fed the wheat fields of the Fresno area rancher Anthony Easterby – you know, the ones that got Leland Stanford’s eye, and made him pick the site for the new Fresno Station on the Central Pacific Railroad.
Over the years the natural course of Fancher Creek was augmented with new levees, and was maintained by the Fresno Irrigation District…