Indian Lakes Estates is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Madera County Madera County (), officially the County of Madera, is a county located at the geographic center of the U.S. state of California. It features a varied landscape, encompassing the eastern San Joaquin Valley and the central Sierra Nevada, with Ma ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. It borders the Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino to the east, and is south of

Coarsegold Coarsegold, California, is a census-designated place in Madera County, situated in the central part of the state. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 4,144. Coarsegold holds historical significance as Madera County's last surviving "go ...

. As of 2000, it was a wooded enclave of 485 homes to working families and retirees, using the two-lane Road 417 as their main residential road. It lies at an elevation of 2247 feet (685 m).

History

The area around Indian Lakes Estates was once known as

Picayune A picayune was a Spanish coin, worth half a real or one sixteenth of a dollar. Its name derives from the French ''picaillon'', which is itself from the Provençal ''picaioun'', the name of an unrelated small copper coin from Savoy. By extensio ...

, where the mining town of Narbo was located between 1883 and 1887. In 1966, developer Jeff Dennis promoted Indian Lakes Estates, along with Valley Lake Ranchos, marketing them as "18 miles of shoreline". Two years later, the ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and has been published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst and the flagship of the He ...

'' reported that construction had not yet begun and that "No lake is visible." In 1986, Indian Lakes residents moved to acquire the water distribution system for the subdivision from Hillview Water Co., contending that the existing water source might pose a health hazard. The Madera County Board of Supervisors approved the request, which was opposed by Hillview.

Relations with Chukchansi

In 2003, ''

The Fresno Bee ''The Fresno Bee'' is a three-times a week newspaper serving Fresno, California Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the larges ...

'' reported that local residents struggled in public meetings to influence planning of the nearby Chukchansi Gold Resort and Casino near

, which they worried would compete for scarce

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

. Some Indian Lakes residents said they thought the casino should be required to pay county property taxes, despite the fact that Indian lands are generally exempt. In 2014, the Indian Lakes Estates Property Owners Association applied for a $135,643 community grant from the Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians for fire safety and playground improvements, but consideration of the request was delayed following the closure of the casino, which subsequently re-opened in 2015. In 2018, the association received a $25,000 community grant from the Chukchansi, which it used to build a new playground structure in Park Pavilion at Indian Lakes.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in California Unincorporated communities in Madera County, California