Fresno City is a former settlement in

Fresno County Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populous city in Cali ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It was located at the head of navigation on

Fresno Slough Fresno Slough is a distributary of the Kings River that connects the North Fork Kings River to the San Joaquin River in San Joaquin Valley, Kings County, California. Until 1879 when irrigation diversions prevented it, Fresno Slough was also an ou ...

northwest of

Tranquillity Tranquillity (also spelled tranquility) is the quality or state of being tranquil; that is, calm, serene, and worry-free. The word tranquillity appears in numerous texts ranging from the religious writings of Buddhism, where the term ''passaddhi'' ...

, at an elevation of 164 feet (50 m). The city was named after the Spanish word for the

Oregon Ash ''Fraxinus latifolia'', the Oregon ash, is a member of the ash genus '' Fraxinus'', native to western North America. Description ''Fraxinus latifolia'' is a medium-sized deciduous tree that can grow to heights of in height, with a trunk diame ...

trees that commonly grew along the river banks. The town was started in 1855, at the head of navigation on Fresno Slough. A pier was built to accommodate flatboats and barges that could make it up the shallow slough. Warehouses, houses, and the Casa Blanca Hotel were built. In 1858, it became a station on the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...

. By 1860, the

telegraph line Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...

from San Francisco arrived. Plans for a much larger town were contemplated but the Butterfield line closed in early 1861, the Great Flood of 1862 did great damage and the City was practically abandoned by 1865. A post office operated at Fresno City from 1860 to 1863. Today there are no traces of it left. California Historical Landmark No. 488 was erected with a bronze plaque by the Fresno County Historical Association in 1952: :FRESNO CITY :'Fresno City' gradually arose at the head of navigation of the Fresno Slough, and existed from approximately 1855 to 1875 - today there are no traces of it left. In 1872, the 'City of Fresno,' later the county seat, was established about 30 miles to the northeast, on the newly built Central Pacific Railroad. :Location: On Fresno Slough, 0.8 miles north of James Road, from Tranquillity, then 1.3 miles northwest on Levee Road (dirt), Tranquillity. Vandals removed the plaque and destroyed much of the marker which was located on Whites Bridge Road near Tranquility.Catherine Morison Rehart, The Valley's Legends & Legacies III, Quill Driver Books, Quill Driver Press, Sanger, 2000, p.4
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References

External links

April 8, 1863: Fresno City
from upanddowncalifornia.wordpress.com, Up and Down California, Reliving the Whitney Survey…150 years later {{authority control Former settlements in Fresno County, California Former populated places in California Butterfield Overland Mail in California 1855 establishments in California Stagecoach stops in the United States