Jeff Benziger - Waterford

No effort to accurately revisit the history of a city as old as Waterford, California, is possible without great people who embrace the preservation of history. I offer my sincere thanks to a number of people for helping make this book a reality.

Donna Dugo was the first to share photographs accumulated by longtime resident Alison Bodes, including the earliest photographs of Community Baptist Church.

The Waterford Historical Society wholeheartedly embraced this project and eagerly opened their archives to supply many of the photographs in this book. Especially helpful were Maryan Brush and Ellie Cupit.

Betty Roen was a champion in loaning some of the rarest glimpses into Waterfords past. Her husband, John Roen, was helpful in supplying information.

Lori Martin of Waterford City Hall assisted in providing photographs of Waterford mayors. Sid Long deserves thanks for providing rare photographs of the construction of the first Don Pedro Dam in 1922. It was the damlocated in the foothills above Waterford on the Tuolumne Riverthat truly transformed the Waterford area into the prosperous farming area that it is today.

Brothers Bob and Bill Crabtree and Jeanne Richards Kampen shared glimpses from family archives to provide a fascinating look at life in Roberts Ferry. Linda and Rowe Barney opened the Ketcham family photograph archive to show early life in Roberts Ferry.

Valerie Turpen, Mildred Dennis, Leo Overstreet, Kim Petroni, Lucille and Roland Whitehead, Meredith Gatzman, and Sharlyn and Joe Casey all shared images of Waterford.

Shirley Schultz, town librarian from 1956 to 1982, was of great help in supplying images and information on the Waterford Library, which also assisted. The cooperation of Terry Appling and sister Sandra Burley allows this work to include images of the Appling family.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to previous history publications, including L.C. Branchs 1881 History of Stanislaus County and a special publication produced in 1957 for the towns 100-year anniversary, Waterford Centennial: 18571957 .

If you would like to experience more Waterford history, be sure to stop by the Waterford Museum inside the former Grange Hall at the corner of Bentley Street and Yosemite Boulevard.

Find more books like this at
www.imagesofamerica.com

Search for your hometown history, your old
stomping grounds, and even your favorite sports team.

One

WATERFORDS BEGINNINGS

A RIVER TOWN SPRINGS FORTH

Benjamin Horr, Josiah Covey, and Elihu Beard were first to set up residence in the Waterford area. But the man who was to establish the town of Bakersville (later Waterford) was William Wilkerson Baker. The Berryville, Arkansas, native took a look at dry-farming opportunities in the Waterford area in the late 1850s and acquired 160 acres south of the river on a gentle slope near Lampley Road. Around 1859, Baker sold his land to John and Rachel Search to move downriver and across to the north bank. Baker established a business around 1866 charging miners and other travelers to ferry them across the river, which could swell with winter flooding. Men named ? James, William Sturtevant, and W.P. Crow operated a different ferry at Sturgeon Island from 1878 to 1879.

Bakers ferry was run by J.A. Hayter after April 12, 1880; it operated until October 1889, when the county opened the wooden bridge it had built for $20,000. Stores, homes, saloons, and other businesses quickly sprang forth. One of the first buildings was a small cement structure dubbed the Old Adobe, built by Adrian Faure, an enterprising French man. The building served also as a store and home at the southeast corner of Yosemite Boulevard and Tim Bell Road.

For mail, Bakersville residents had to travel to Horrs Ranch Post Office, eight miles to the east. Postal officials granted permission in 1871 for a new post office under the name of Waterford. The new town name was ordered because mail for the 40 to 60 residents was often misdirected to other California towns of similar names, including Bakersfield. The name Waterford was logical, due to the practice of fording the slow river in summer, made possible by low-cut banks on which the old town was anchored.

As Waterfords civic and social ties began to grow, Grange No. 57 was one of first organizations to be established. The Grange operated from 1873 to 1881 (later resurrected in 1934), first meeting in a hall adjacent to the Baker and Summers Hotel, with S.M. Gallup as the first Grange master.

When the Stockton-Visalia Railroad came to Waterford in 1891, the entire town location shifted closer to the tracks. The old part of Waterford became known as Old Town.

The Summers and Baker General Mercantile, located on Yosemite Boulevard just east of Tim Bell Road, sold dry goods, groceries, hats, boots, shoes, and clothing. Established in 1862, the store and its stock burned in 1873. In 1868, along came the Summers Hotel (at left). Baker died in 1885; this picture was probably taken in the 1870s or early 1880s. Summers died in 1897. ( Waterford Centennial: 18571957 .)

William and Joanne Summers came to Waterford in 1857 with the Baker party. William was a native of Kentucky, while Joanne, sister of Caroline Baker, was born in Tennessee. She was known to all in Bakersville as Aunt Babe. Together, they ran the store and hotel at Yosemite Boulevard and Tim Bell Road while raising a large family. He died on November 10, 1897, and Joanne died on September 10, 1923. Both outlived their children, Frances and Nancy. ( Waterford Centennial: 18571957 .)

Belle (left) and Alice Baker were twin daughters of Waterford founder William W. Baker. They were born on December 5, 1857, in Nevada during the Bakers covered wagon trek from Arkansas to California. The girls lived in neighboring houses at the southwest corner of Covey Street and Tim Bell Road. Belle married in 1876, and Alice married in 1881. Both were honored as Covered Wagon Babies during the 1937 Stanislaus County Fair. Alice G. Baker Hayter died in 1942, Belle Elder in 1944. ( Waterford Centennial: 18571957 .)

Disease and accidents, abetted by the ineffectiveness of medicine, cut many lives tragically short in the 19th century. Ida Mae Baker, the third child of William and Caroline Baker, died at age 17 from an unrecorded cause on April 24, 1891. She is buried in the Roberts Ferry Cemetery next to her parents. ( Waterford Centennial: 18571957 .)