Bill Coate

Lumber flume meant work and fun

During the 33-year existence of the flume, which gave birth to Madera, more than one billion feet of lumber, floated down the big trough from the mountains toward the mill near where Millview School now stands.

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Archive by category ''Bill Coate

  • BILL COATE

    Fresno Flats feud went to the dogs

    When S.W. Westfall was elected to the job of sheriff, he knew that the task would not be easy. Madera County had its share of trouble makers, and it took a great deal of patience to ensure domestic tranquility in the face of the criminal element that roam

  • BILL COATE

    Teddy Roosevelt and the gift from Sugar Pine

    When it was reported that the town of Raymond was going to be honored with a visit from President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, everyone wanted a piece of the action, especially the flatlanders around Berenda and Madera. Before it was all over, they got the

  • BILL COATE

    Grieving at Grovers

    When the White House announced that Abraham and Mary Lincoln would be attending the theater on that Good Friday evening, Leonard Grover was sure the President would choose his establishment. He was featuring "Aladdin or His Wonderful Lamp" while

  • BILL COATE

    County split prompts pistol packing

    Not everyone rejoiced at the prospect of creating a new county in 1893. Certainly the sentiment south of the San Joaquin River was decidedly anti-divisionist. Numerous public meetings were held in Fresno to map a strategy for thwarting the move to carve M

  • BILL COATE

    Like father, like sons -- A Roosevelt wartime legacy

    Theodore Roosevelt had fighting blood in his veins, and when World War I came along, it fell to his four sons to put their father's pugnacious patriotism into motion and to pay the price for his devotion to duty.

  • BILL COATE

    San Francisco earthquake sent prostitutes to Madera County

    The lumber room of the Madera County Courthouse Museum is an amazing repository of artifacts, photographs and maps of the industry that gave birth to Madera County. It is comprehensive in its displays and thoroughly enjoyable. There is, however, one thing

  • BILL COATE

    Otis Teaford: King of the Mountains

    Of all of his hunting companions, none knew Otis Teaford better than Lu Bowlin Teaford, his wife. Last time we told how Otis brought his young bride from Pine Ridge, just across the Fresno County line, to his ranch home near Bass Lake in 1914. We also tol

  • BILL COATE

    Lu Teaford: Queen of the Mountains

    I will never forget that day in 1992, when Bill and Doris Seabury took me to North Fork to meet Lu Bowman Teaford. It was 78 years after she had become the bride of Otis Teaford, Madera County's king of the mountains, and did she ever have a story to

  • BILL COATE

    The Army got away with murder in the hills

    It seems that government coverups have become almost commonplace these days. The litany of illegal shenanigans hidden from the public view by crafty minions of entrenched politicians is as long as one's arm and will probably never see the inside of a

  • BILL COATE

    Youngster's Yosemite trip was unforgettable

    Willie Mace awoke excited. It was a beautiful summer morning, and he was finally going to get to see the famed Yosemite Valley. For several years now, hundreds of visitors had caught the stage at his father's hotel in Madera and traveled to the Sierr

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