Tollhouse (formerly, Toll House) is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

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 U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It lies at an elevation of . Tollhouse is located in the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

, southwest of

Shaver Lake Shaver Lake is an artificial lake on Stevenson Creek, in the Sierra National Forest of Fresno County, California. At elevation , several smaller streams also flow into the lake, and it receives water from the tunnels of Southern California Edis ...

and 18 miles southwest of

Huntington Lake Huntington Lake is a reservoir in Fresno County, California on Big Creek, located in the Sierra Nevada at an elevation of 7000 ft. The lake receives water from Southern California Edison's Big Creek Hydroelectric Project, as well as the ...

. It is home to 2,089 people. The town was created in the 1860s around the Yancy

lumber mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

. The name "tollhouse" comes from the fact that the community was also built up in connection to a now-defunct

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...

running up the steep slopes of Sarver Peak to Pineridge and housed a

toll house A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th and ...

. The ZIP Code is 93667, and the community is inside

area code 559 Area code 559 is a California telephone area code that was split from area code 209 on November 14, 1998. It covers the central San Joaquin Valley in central California, serving the counties of Fresno, Madera, Kings, and Tulare—an area large ...

. The first post office opened in Tollhouse in 1876, closed in 1884, re-opened in 1885. The last toll on the toll road was collected in 1878. Nearby small towns include Auberry, Prather, and Shaver. Tollhouse is the tribal headquarters for the

Cold Springs Rancheria of Mono Indians of California The Cold Springs Rancheria of Mono Indians of California is a federally recognized tribe of Mono Native Americans. Cold Springs Rancheria is the tribe's reservation, which is located in Fresno County, California.Pritzker, 137 As of the 2010 Ce ...

Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of Tollhouse include: * George Ballis (1925-2010), photographer and activist whose photos documented the efforts of

César Chávez Cesar Chavez (born Cesario Estrada Chavez ; ; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged ...

and the formation of the

United Farm Workers The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing ...

.Brown, Emma
"George 'Elfie' Ballis, 85, who photographed struggle of Cesar Chávez and migrant farmworkers, dies"
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', September 27, 2010. Accessed September 29, 2010.

References

External links

* Unincorporated communities in California Unincorporated communities in Fresno County, California {{FresnoCountyCA-geo-stub

Notable residents

See also

References

External links