For The Madera Tribune Duane Furman, shown here, was MUSD superintendent during the racial unrest of 1974. In the summer of 1974, racial trouble erupted in Madera. A 16 year-old male student at the high school threw a young coed, fully clothed, into the school swimming pool. Two female high school teachers, Rose Harper and Sharon Weldon, tried unsuccessfully to question the perpetrator. Madera High Vice Principal Perry Harper and Learning Director Barry Crow intervened, and b

For The Madera Tribune Coarsegold, home of the Magnet mine. William McNaughton was foreman of the Magnet gold mines near O’Neals at the turn of the 20th century. Apparently the community did not hold him in very high repute, especially when it came to paying his debts. Such was McNaughton’s reputation that when one of his prospective miners learned the kind of fellow for whom he was going to work, he quit before he started. Strangely enough, when the man didn’t show up for wo

For The Madera Tribune Tung Lin Leong, a young resident of Madera’s Chinatown is shown here in this 1903 photograph taken in Madera. The Chinese were among the first settlers in Madera. Most of them came here from the little town of Borden, four miles to the south. By the late 19th century a bustling Chinatown thrived in the area that had been set aside for them by the founding fathers, who fought to keep the Chinese on the west side of the railroad tracks. There they operate

For The Madera Tribune “Captain” Russell Perry Mace, Madera’s first resident. The United States was celebrating its one hundredth birthday. Custer had just made his last stand, and Ulysses S. Grant was in the last year of his presidency. The year was 1876 — a watershed not only in the history of America but in that of the San Joaquin Valley as well, for that was the year Madera, California, was founded. The appearance of civilization between the Chowchilla and Kings Rivers ha

For The Madera Tribune Clarence Pickett, shown here, was the second Madera lawman to fall in the line of duty. It has become an embedded piece of Madera’s past that Clarence Pickett was Madera’s first lawman to fall in the line of duty. The young officer was gunned down on Nov. 10, 1923 while attempting to arrest a drunk driver. A second look at the record, however, casts doubt on the claim that Pickett was the first to fall, as the following story illustrates. It was one o’c

For The Madera Tribune Matilda Gilmore Brown, shown here on the left in this 1957 photograph, was the daughter of John Gilmore and Jennie Cunningham Gilmore Mace. Madera pioneers Craig Cunningham and Mrs. George Goucher are shown with her celebrating Old Timer’s Day. Elizabeth Evans held the hand of her 4-year-old son, Charles, as she watched her husband march off to war with his friend Russel Perry Mace. John Evans had joined company A of the 11th Regiment of Louisiana Volun

For The Madera Tribune Alfredo and Caterina Farnesi. The woman left her little Italian village in the province of Lucca and walked along the dusty road with a cart full of flowers to sell. Suddenly she stopped and thought, “I don’t want to live this kind of life anymore; I want to go to America.” The year was 1921, and the young women was 22 year-old Caterina Tocchini. Caterina’s decision to go to America was perhaps made easier by the fact that her sister, Costanza, had immi

For The Madera Tribune This historic courthouse was torn down and replaced with a modern facility in 1953. Before that year was out, there had been three major breakouts at Madera’s new jail. In 1898, Madera did away with its old, wooden jail and replaced it with a brick and granite building. For years this stately structure, with its imposing tower, stood on 6th Street in all of its aesthetic glory. Then in 1937, a granite addition was added to the rear of the jail, and that