For The Madera Tribune This old-time Madera saloon was the scene of a bloody stabbing between two card partners in 1901. The donnybrook broke out on Saturday night, Dec. 1, 1901, when four men sat down to play a game of Pedro. Robert Tuggle and Sam Monahan were playing against Jim Robertson, the bartender, and his partner, Frank Littlefield. The contest was going along in a friendly manner until Monahan misplayed his hand and lost the game, which upset Tuggle who could not re

Courtesy of the Coate family archives Guest columnist Frank Coate is pictured here, right with his father, John Coate. [Note: Today’s column was written by Frank Coate, Bill Coate’s nephew and author of “The Coate Closet.”] • • • He crouched in the brush and remained as still as humanly possible on that hot summer day. Although his heart was racing, somehow he managed to control his breathing. He had never fired a gun or pulled the trigger on a crossbow, let alone throw a spe

For The Madera Tribune The waters of the Fresno River smash against the D Street bridge in the storm of 1955. Nothing is permanent but change. That is particularly true of the weather. Maderans have always approached the winter season casting worried and frequent looks at the skies. Too often drought conditions have made them wonder if there would ever be enough water.  In 1955, however, it was a different story. They still looked toward the skies, but this time they wondered

For The Madera Tribune Dr. Dow Ransom, shown here, was one of the 5 physicians who attempted to save two Madera families who had been struck down by food poisoning in 1918. It was a proud moment for Grover Mitchell, when he joined the growing number of Maderans who had switched from a horse and buggy to the horseless carriage. He was pleased with his new vehicle, and on Sunday, Jan. 27, 1918, Mitchell loaded his wife and two children into the car for an inaugural spin in his

For The Madera Tribune George Washington Mordecai. Every year in November my mind is filled with memories of the Mordecai family. This is when the descendants of George Washington Mordecai gather at Refuge, the ranch he founded in 1868. It is impossible to think about them without remembering that day almost 40 years ago when I led my sixth grade class down the winding dirt road leading from the highway to the Mordecai Ranch to visit the grave of Mr. Mordecai. There were abou

For The Madera Tribune John Gordon (far right) continued serving as Madera’s mayor in 1948. The year 1948 proved to be a watershed in Madera’s politics. Earlier city elections had been fairly tranquil. Over the previous 40 years, if an incumbent was challenged, the contest didn’t raise anybody’s blood pressure. City elections in 1948, however, revealed that Madera had grown up. All of a sudden city leaders such Mayor John Gordon, Councilmen Arthur D. Cook, J. Wesley Smith, Jo

For The Madera Tribune J.F. Lewis and his wife Adelia, 20 years before he was elected sheriff and had to face, an angry, one-armed painter who was determined to shoot someone. [Editor’s note: We found this story to be worth telling exactly as it appeared in 1918.] • • • “Alonzo Wood, an old painter with one arm was arrested last evening about 8 o’clock by Sheriff J.F. Lewis and Deputies Andy Clark and Clarence Osborn on a charge of threatening the lives of several workmen on

For The Madera Tribune Fire destroyed the Alta Hotel in 1931. As Maderans neared the end of the 1920s, they were full of optimism. Prospects of oil wells on the outskirts of town danced in the heads of some local capitalists, while others dreamed of raising the funds to build a brand new, four-story hotel on Yosemite Avenue. In the end, however, both schemes failed, and the town entered the 1930s rather tentatively as the nation’s economy took a nosedive. One of the first ind