Old photographs of Tulare County's schools:



 Porterville Grammar School.   Circa 1906.

Back then, the northern end of Main St.  was here at the Morton Street School.

(Added 5/24/14)  This is what the Morton Street School (see previous photo) looked like after 1907.   They didn't tear down the old school building;  they removed the bell tower, added east & west wings, and also added columns and a balcony.        

 Photo postcard by the Western Card Company,  George Besaw photographer.  Circa 1910.





 Post-marked 1910.

Image of the Washington Grammar School, Visalia.     Circa 1911.    Photo by Howard Clinton Tibbitts.     This is a scan from the glass negative.

 Dinuba High School,  circa 1908.

 Orosi Grammar School, circa 1912.

Porterville High School, circa 1909 (which stood on the present site of  Belleview Elementary School).
 This Mission Revival styled building was known as El Granito, because it was constructed of granite from a local quarry.

 (Added 3/20/15)  Another view of El Granito circa 1909.

(Added 2/15/14)  Visalia High School in 1921.  This is the present site of Redwood High School.

(Added 3/5/14)  Tulare High School.  Circa 1912.

(Added 5/25/14)  Woodlake School,  circa 1914.



 (Added 11/5/16)  An image of Webster Grammar School, Visalia. Circa 1919.
Wikipedia has this to say about the school (the listed source is Terry Ommen), "Webster Grammar School was located in the West Village on Northwest Third Avenue near Pearl Street.  It opened in 1917.  In 1950, the building was declared unsafe as a school and was later converted into a maintenance shop and storage building.  In 1961, fire damaged the structure beyond repair.  The Visalia Police Department Substation now sits on the site."

(Added 11/5/16)   Photo postcard, circa 1912.   This Exeter grammar school was at the present site of Lincoln Elementary School. 

 

 (Added 11/5/16)  Dinuba Grammar School, circa 1916.    Photo by James Henry Parfitt.
Parfitt's home base was Tigerton and Eagle River, Wisconsin.  His wife had family in the Dinuba area.

 (Added 11/5/16)    Photo postcard circa 1912.    In Sarah Troop's book about Lindsay, CA;   she refers to this as the Little Red Schoolhouse.

Photo from Lindsay, circa 1903.    This appears to be an earlier photograph of  Lindsay's Little Red Schoolhouse, with a different bell-tower (see the previous image).

 

(Added 11/5/16)  Photo postcard of Lindsay's  Washington Grammar School, circa 1920.

(Added 11/5/16)   Lindsay's High School, circa 1912.    According to Sarah Troop,  this high school was built in 1909 and was located on the NE corner of Harvard Ave. and East Hermosa St.      Note that the postcard's caption refers to this as Lincoln High School.  The name on the school itself  is  Lindsay High School   (see the next image).

 (Added 11/5/16)  Same Lindsay school as in the previous image, apparently from around the same time period.    But in this photo the name on the school is  Lincoln Grammar School.

(Added 1/21/18)  Another photo postcard image of Lincoln Grammar School, circa 1912.   Lindley Eddy is the photographer.

 

(Added 11/5/16)  Old photo postcard, circa 1915.   Most likely it's the grammar school at Strathmore, CA.

(Added 11/5/16)   Postcard image, circa 1909.    According to Derryl A. Dumermuth's book  A Town Called Tulare (2002),  this school was built around 1885 as a elementary school.   High school classes began there in 1890.   One of the unique features of this building was the four-faced clock above the belfry.

(Added 2/12/17) An image of the Tipton Lindsay School, circa 1912.   The school was located on the  NW corner of  Oak Ave. and Locust Street in Visalia, where the county library is now.     Photo by Howard Clinton Tibbitts.     This is a scan from the glass negative.      Built in 1890, this beautiful 3 story schoolhouse was unfortunately constructed poorly.   By 1916,  the building was considered too unsafe for school children.  It was torn-down in 1919.

(Added 2/4/18)  Photo postcard of the Tipton Lindsay school, in Visalia.  Circa 1909.    Photo by Ramsey.

(Added 2/12/17) Photo postcard circa 1906.    This Dinuba school was built in 1890.    It was torn-down after suffering damage from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,

(Added 1/21/18) Photograph by the Visalia studio of S.W. Watrous, circa 1890.
 I believe this is the old Vandalia Schoolhouse in Porterville.
(Update 11/6/19) After recently looking at some more  images of old schools in Tulare Co.,  I now suspect that this is an image of the school at Traver, circa 1890.    I think that the  image I was previously comparing it to is actually an old photo of the Traver school, that has been mislabeled as the Vandalia school.

(Added 4/5/20)  Lemon Cove's school, circa 1910.    Lindley Eddy was the photographer.

(Added 4/5/20)  Yettem's school, circa 1912.      Early in the 1900s,  Yettem was a settlement of predominately Armenian immigrants.    Yettem is the Armenian word for Eden.

 214 East Oak Ave. Visalia, California (Circa 1912). This is the present site of Arts Visalia, same building and all.  This image is a scan made from the glass negative.

The photo is by Howard Clinton Tibbitts (1863-1937). Tibbitts was a San Francisco based photographer who worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad documenting landscapes, towns, agriculture, parks, and other local scenes to help promote passenger travel on the railroad. His work was used in the railroad’s magazine SUNSET starting with the first publication in 1898.


Here are some close-ups from the above photo:   



This building was used by the Visalia Co-operative Creamery.   They made butter and cheese at this site.

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 On the back of this photo someone has written: "Visalia Citrus Fair, Dec 4th-13th. 13" (1913).    This probably refers to the Tulare County Citrus Fair, which  opened on December 4 of that year (in Visalia).

I bought this picture from someone in France. 

I'm not sure if this is Visalia's municipal band in the image.

Two of the background buildings appear to be the Visalia House and The Bell Theater; that would mean this photograph was taken looking east on Main St., near the intersection of Main and Church St.

Close-up from the above photo:

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 This is a photo postcard (circa 1916).
The corner inscription reads: "Parlier Construction Co. camp, Cross Creek, Tulare Co. Cal., Photo by Parfitt".
From the style of script on this photo, it appears to have been taken by  James Henry Parfitt (1873-1965).  Parfitt's home base was Tigerton and Eagle River, Wisconsin.   Perhaps his biggest contribution to photography was the numerous photos he took documenting Wisconsin's logging industry.

Close-up:

I'm amazed at how much detail can be scanned from this old 3 x 5 inch postcard.