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Charles P. Converse
Charles Porter Converse was a mid-19th century Californian businessman who was the director of the Kings River Lumber Company and the namesake of Converse Basin Grove. He was involved in various controversies and legal issues during his lifetime and died by drowning in San Francisco Bay. Early life Charles P. Converse was born in Michigan in 1816. He migrated to California in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. He worked in a variety of occupations, including running a general store in Coarsegold, running a ferry at Friant, and logging in Crane Valley. He was also accused of murder, stuffing ballot boxes, and engaging in illegal gambling. Despite his reputation, he was awarded a contract to build a courthouse in Millerton, which included an "escape-proof" jail. On the day of a sheriff's election, Converse was attacked. He shot at one of his assailants, killing him. He was charged with murder. Ironically, he became the first prisoner to be incarcerated in his own escape-pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Converse Basin Grove
Converse Basin Grove is a grove of giant sequoia (''Sequoiadendron giganteum'') trees in the Giant Sequoia National Monument in the Sierra Nevada, in Fresno County, California, 5 miles (8 km) north of General Grant Grove, just outside Kings Canyon National Park. Once home to the second-largest population of giant sequoias in the world, covering acres, the grove was extensively logged by the Sanger Lumber Company at the turn of the 20th century. The clearcutting of 8,000 giant sequoias, many of which were over 2,000 years old, resulted in the destruction of the old-growth forest ecosystem. The Converse Basin Grove has not recovered despite attempts at restoration in the 20th century. The planting of single-species conifer plantations and the practice of fire exclusion has resulted in two high intensity wildfires since the end of the logging era, further degrading the giant sequoia habitat. Despite these challenges, the grove offers opportunities for studying for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hume-Bennett Lumber Company
The Hume-Bennett Lumber Company was a logging operation in the Sequoia National Forest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company and its predecessors were known for building the world's longest log flume and the John_Samuel_Eastwood#Multiple_arch_dams, first multiple-arch hydroelectric dam. However, the company also engaged in destructive clearcutting, clearcutting logging practices, cutting down 8,000 giant sequoias in Converse_Basin_Grove, Converse Basin in a decade-long event that has been described as "the greatest orgy of destructive lumbering in the history of the world." Public opposition of the company’s actions helped mobilize support for the early Conservation_in_the_United_States, conservation movement, leading to the creation of Yosemite_National_Park, Yosemite, Sequoia_National_Park, Sequoia, and General_Grant_Grove, General Grant National Parks in the early 1880s. By the 1950s, almost all surviving sequoia groves were under public protection. Despit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1867 Millerton Courthouse (circa 1919)
Events January–March * January 1 – The Covington–Cincinnati Suspension Bridge opens between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, in the United States, becoming the longest single-span bridge in the world. It was renamed after its designer, John A. Roebling, in 1983. * January 8 – African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia. * January 11 – Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again. * January 30 – Emperor Kōmei of Japan dies suddenly, age 36, leaving his 14-year-old son to succeed as Emperor Meiji. * January 31 – Maronite nationalist leader Youssef Bey Karam leaves Lebanon aboard a French ship for Algeria. * February 3 – ''Shōgun'' Tokugawa Yoshinobu abdicates, and the late Emperor Kōmei's son, Prince Mutsuhito, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan in a brief ceremony in Kyoto, ending the Late Tokugawa shogunate. * February 7 – West Virginia University is established in Morgantown, West Virginia. * February 13 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood, in the Compromise of 1850. The Gold Rush had severe effects on Native Californians and accelerated the Native American population's decline from disease, starvation and the California genocide. The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial. Whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called "forty-niners" (referring to 1849, the peak year for Gold Rush immigration). Outside of California, the first to arrive were from Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and Latin America in late 1848. Of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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