Burrough Valley

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Coordinates: 36°58′31″N 119°22′01″W / 36.97523°N 119.36707°W / 36.97523; -119.36707
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Burrough Valley, California (once also called Burr Valley) is located in the

Sierra Nevada foothills of eastern Fresno County, approximately thirty miles northeast of Fresno, California
, at an elevation of about 1,600 feet (490 m) above sea level. The small valley covers approximately 4,000 acres (16 km2).

Natural history

Burrough Valley’s geology includes both igneous and sedimentary formations and a great deal of metamorphosis resulting from a history of frequent seismic activity. The area includes fragments of an ancient

igneous intrusions. It also contains ancient sea floor and mantle[2] hundreds of millions of years old. These are almost always metamorphosed due to the complicated and dynamic tectonic and volcanic activity. Rocks include light colored leucogranites as well as darker gabbro and peridotite. Quartzite and feldspar are also found, mostly remobilized from hydrologic activity. California's state rock, serpentine
, metamorphosed mantle, is common; but not as much as in the Gold Country north of the San Joaquin River. Serpentine is the gold bearing rock of the Gold Country, and some gold was mined in the Burrough Valley area, especially Watts Valley and Copper King Mountain. But these were not rich strikes.

The climate is relatively dry with an average annual rainfall of about 20-25 inches but varying greatly within a range of less than 10 inches (250 mm) to more than 40 inches (1,000 mm). The area is

lupin and brodiaea.[4]

Burrough Valley is habitat to many animals and birds, including

red-shafted flicker, Lewis's woodpecker and downy woodpecker. California valley quail
are also common, with their call “chi-ca-GO! chi-chi-ca-GO!” heard frequently.

Human prehistory and history

Clovis point used by paleo-Indians

Human habitation of the Burrough Valley area goes back perhaps fifteen thousand years when tribes of

Mono tribes of Native Americans lived here. Local Monos still live on the Cold Springs Rancheria in neighboring Sycamore Valley. Others live off the reservation in Burrough Valley itself. During the period of white settlement, many white men took Native American women as wives, and many people of mixed blood now live in Burrough Valley and surrounding areas. The Mono began to inhabit the area perhaps five hundred years ago, when their Piute ancestors first began to cross through the passes in the Sierra Nevada to trade with the Yokuts, who lived in the San Joaquin Valley and the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. Among the staple foodstuffs of the Native Americans was the acorn. Bedrock mortars once used for grinding acorns can be observed in exposed rock slabs.[11]

The first nonnatives arrived and settled in the area in the 1850s during the

Sycamore Creek in Watts Valley
, a few miles south in the early 1860s.

In any case, the footloose Burrough and Rivercombe were gone by 1870. Not much is known about Burrough Valley during the 1870s, but its story is surely linked to the history of nearby Tollhouse, California, which sprang up in the late 1860s in connection with a toll road built up the steep slopes of Sarver Peak to Pine Ridge.

The 1870s began a transition from mining to timber cutting. It is a somewhat complicated story which owes a great deal to the financial vision of

Santa Fe Railroads
. When Stanford located a station at Fresno in 1872 because of the great agricultural potential of the area, he changed the history of the Sierra Nevada and of Tollhouse and Burrough Valley.

Fresno began to grow very rapidly, and the wood to build it came from Pine Ridge. Until 1894, when the Fresno Flume was completed, all the lumber from the saw mills on Pine Ridge came through Tollhouse.[12][13][14] Since Pine Ridge was snowed in during the winter, mill workers often acquired property in the foothills, and many lived in Burrough Valley when not working on Pine Ridge.

Many settlers also came to Burrough Valley because of the Seventh-day Adventist church. During the 1870s SDA visionary Ellen G. White advised adherents to leave cities and move to rural areas to prepare for the second-coming, or advent, of Jesus Christ. Many Adventists came to Burrough Valley. Indeed, White herself bought property in the valley in 1888 so that her consumptive daughter could live there. White lived in Burrough Valley for a short time and, after seeing it for the first time on July 3, 1888, said the following : "We found Burrough Valley to be a delightful place, with a good climate. The scenery is beautiful and the valley is encompassed with hills, as was Jerusalem with mountains."[15]

In the early period, when every hamlet boasted a general store and post office, Burrough Valley had two general store-post office combinations, with the post mark “Burrough, CA.” The first of these was owned by Chester C. Burnett. The Burnett store-post office was in business perhaps as early as the 1870s. The Burnetts went out of business in the 1890s, and Harry E. Spence and his wife Lutie set up a store-post office in 1899.[16] The Spence store went out of business in the early teens, and the post office continued until 1917.[17]: 2024  With the coming of automobiles, postal carriers could travel longer distances and residents could travel farther to buy groceries and supplies.

During the 2000s, many began to leave Burrough Valley to participate in the agricultural boom in the San Joaquin Valley around Fresno; and the area began another transition to cattle ranching.[17]: 2073–2074  Cattle ranching was the mainstay of the local economy until the 1970s, when increasing costs coupled with low prices for beef made continuing cattle operations untenable for the ranchers, including the descendants of the early families, who began to sell off their holdings to developers.[18]

Burrough Valley has now become a retirement community and a bedroom community for workers with jobs in Fresno or other cities in the San Joaquin Valley. The population is now about 1,000.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Subduction
  2. ^ Mantle (geology)
  3. ^ "A description of the California central oak woodland or Foothill woodland plant community".
  4. ^ "CalPhotos". University of California, Berkeley. 2006. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
  5. ^ "Crotalus oreganus oreganus - Northern Pacific Rattlesnake". CalHerps.com. 2000. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
  6. ^ "Foothill Yellow-legged Frog - Rana boylii".
  7. ^ "Merlin Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology".
  8. ^ "Steller's Jay | National Geographic". 4 May 2010. Archived from the original on April 13, 2010.
  9. ^ "The Great Backyard Bird Count". BirdSource.org. 2000. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
  10. ^ Peter LaTourrette (2002). "Pacific-slope Flycatcher". Retrieved 2010-09-06.
  11. ^ http://www.scahome.org/publications/proceedings/Proceedings.17Stevens.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  12. ISBN 0-914330-29-2
    .
  13. ^ "Historical Perspectives - The old Shaver dam". The Fresno Bee. 15 February 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  14. ^ "Flumes Penetrating the Primeval Forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains". The Daily Republican. 1 January 1896. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  15. ^ "From Selma to Burrough Valley and Fresno". The Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings. 1888-07-01. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
  16. ISBN 9780914330707
    . Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  17. ^ a b Paul E. Vandor (1919). History of Fresno County, California. Historic Record Company. p. 2024. Retrieved 29 October 2015. spence family burrough valley california.
  18. ^ "Marian Ruth Warner (A Genealogy)". 2005. Archived from the original on 15 January 2015. Retrieved 8 January 2017.

External links

36°58′31″N 119°22′01″W / 36.97523°N 119.36707°W / 36.97523; -119.36707

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