Bill Coate

For The Madera TribuneIn time the Madera County Courthouse took on this ivy league look.The mood of the crowd was festive. Hundreds had gathered along West Yosemite Avenue to witness the historic occasion and to enjoy a community barbecue. Women in Victorian era dresses and men in suits clustered around the crane, which was setting the cornerstone. The date was Oct. 29, 1900, and in what seemed the quintessential symbol of modernity, Madera celebrated its entrance into the 20th century with two

For The Madera TribuneThis 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’s how things remained

For The Madera TribuneClarence 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’clock in the morning, an

For The Madera TribuneDuane 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 before it was all over,

For The Madera TribuneStagecoaches like the one shown here in front of the hotel at Hildreth, not far from Coarsegold, carried passengers from the mountain towns of Madera County to the Valley. Most of the trips were safely conducted, but occasionally disaster struck, like that time in 1901.It seems so far in the distant past, and yet it hasn’t really been all that long since the only method of transportation from Madera to the foothills and back was in buggies and stagecoaches or on horseback.

For The Madera TribuneChief Encouragement Officer Carles Beckett.When Carles Beckett graduated from Fresno State in 1967 and began his career in education, he could look back on his first 22 years and recognize that his life had been a series of miracles. Born in Piggott, Arkansas, he spent his first nine years living in a tent in a Buckeye, Arizona cotton camp and in a chicken coop on a chicken ranch in Petaluma, California. In 1954, his father was killed in a car crash, and his mother and thre

For The Madera TribuneEd Gwartney.The late Ed Gwartney was a self-described product of the “Okie” migration who never earned a high school diploma but became a pathfinder of new trails in the teaching of history. He was the founder of the James Monroe Children’s Museum, and he has left it to others to build on his passion that created the unique educational laboratory for teaching California history on the campus of James Monroe Elementary School. Gwartney and his family were part of the great D

For The Madera TribuneFrank Tuck, second from the left, leads a delegation of history lovers in unveiling a plaque honoring the Borden Chinese Cemetery.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 operated

The crowd gathered at the Athletic Hall on Yosemite Avenue for Madera High School’s commencement exercise in June 1903. Folks had to climb the stairs to th

For the first 19 years of its existence as an incorporated city, Madera’s political machinery ran without rancor or hard feelings, for the most part. Most