By Sal Maccarone The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences was the idea of Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957), head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM.) Mr. Mayer felt that the organization would lend respectability and status to the movie industry, the reputation of which had been tarnished during the Roaring Twenties. So on May 4, 1927, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts ...

By Connie Popelish, North Fork History Group Some of the special features of North Fork architecture include the unique buildings made of blocks of pumice and cement, known as pumitile. Pumitile concrete bricks were manufactured by the Jourdan Concrete Pipe Company of Fresno, beginning around 1931. Initially, the company made concrete pipes for sewage systems, but eventually branched out, designing open-interior ...

By Karen Morris, CHS President COARSEGOLD — The Coarsegold Historical Society has three pieces of mining machinery on display at the Coarsegold Historic Museum. They were donated quite a few years ago and we need help with the names and how they were used. We think the middle one was possibly some kind of rock crusher. If you can help ...

Submitted by Debby Carter, SHSA Librarian (Fresno Flats) MOUNTAIN AREA — An article on the front page of the October 29, 1970, Sierra Star reads: “Bass Lake Receives 200 Bed Hospital: On Tuesday, Oct. 27, a full 200-bed hospital will be delivered to Bass Lake. According to Supervisor Lonnie Cornwell and Chairman of the Board Herman Neufeld of Madera County, ...

Long before YARTS existed, daily automobile shuttles ran from Madera to Wawona on the road we call Miami Mountain Road today. Before that, it was an old stage route and I had been walking up parts of it the past few months. This time I visited the locations where some of the people that I had written about died and ...

Walking up historic wagon roads near my house on a cool day after a rain was a party for my senses, full of fresh smells of the forest and flowers. Dogwoods were blooming like crazy and those animal tracks were easy to spot while the gnats and skeeters slept in. Distance: 10.62 Miles (but you can go shorter or longer)Difficulty: ...

By Christina McDonald, Sierra Mono Museum The Sierra Mono Museum is asking for a little help in identifying the individual riding this North Fork School bus, and the approximate decade. As the museum begins to move back, we would like more information on our photograph collections.  If anyone can identify this individual on the bus, maybe it’s the bus driver ...

Adventuring close to home, I walked the same dirt roads, followed different spur roads, giving me a looped walk along a historic stage route that carried Yosemite tourists to Wawona starting in the 1880s. Distance: About 11 Miles (but you can go shorter or longer)Difficulty: Easy to ModerateElevation Range: 3,418′ to 4,994′Date: May 13, 2020Maps: Ben Hur and Daulton Topographic ...

Same dirt road close to home but a different spur road off of it gave me a looped adventure back to O’Neals Meadow, searching for flowers and history. Men weren’t the only homesteaders in this neck of the wood. Cora Ives lived here, ranched here and was quite the adventurer. She also wrote articles for Fresno newspapers about wildflowers, Native ...

A little more mileage on my adventure took me up to the Lone Sequoia and it is called that for a reason. But it wasn’t alone. It was accompanied by snowplants, wildflowers and dogwoods getting ready to bloom. . . and gnats. Distance: 12.37 Miles (but you can go shorter or longer)Difficulty: Easy to ModerateElevation Range: 3,418′ to 4,619′Date: April ...