The acorn was the most common food eaten by most California Native Americans, feeding three fourths of the Native American population. A family would consume between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds a year. The hulled acorns were put in a mortar and broken down into a flour by a pestle. The flour was brushed from the mortar with a soap root brush. A hole was made in the sand by a stream lined with leaves and the acorn flour poured into it. The flour was leached by pouring hot water over it. This was done several times to remove tannic acid.

These baskets were very important in the every-day life of Native Americans. Mothers of small children were depended upon to gather food and other items just as other women were. The design of the basket allowed a woman to have both hands free to carry out her crucial job.
Basket makers used different designs on cradle boards for girls and boys. The designs are executed in the dark winter redbud plant on the back board and on the hood. For boys there is the diagonal line and the arrow design; for girls, a vertical zigzag and a crossing pattern.

The start of World War II in 1939 prompted the United States to begin a program of military preparedness. In mid 1941 this led  Tulare County to purchase a 640 acre section of land from Frank Blair and Edna Hartley. Sequoia Field is located in the south west corner of this 640 acre section. The 176 acres on which the field was built were leased to a brand new civilian flying school called Visalia-Dinuba School of Aeronautics. The school had received a War Department contract to train Army pilots in June 1941, six months before the Pearl Harbor attack. Tulare County and the cities of Visalia and Dinuba provided construction start-up funding for Sequoia Field.
On the field’s original 176 acre site 2 runways and an apron for parking 125 training aircraft were built. The buildings constructed on the air field itself included 2 hangers, a control tower, and a flight line administration building. In the south west corner of the 176 acre site, grounds and buildings for the school of aeronautics were constructed. In these, Aviation Cadets were housed, trained and educated.
At the peak of the WWII program more than 700 Aviation Cadets flew 6 days a week from Sequoia Field and its nearby auxiliaries. Included in the ranks of the graduates were pilots that fought in all the major battles of the war. Many became decorated heroes, including one that was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Large numbers of these pilots fought later in Korea and some in Vietnam. At least half a dozen became United States Air Force generals before retiring.

In 1903, John Hays Hammond, engineering consultant for the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads, lunched with his boss, E.T. Harrison, the nation’s leading railroad builder, and proposed that an electric railroad be built to serve the rapidly developing citrus district on the east side of Tulare County.
Hammond, an internationally famous engineer and confidant of several U.S. presidents, had a brother, Billy. In 1898, Billy had interested his brother John, then living in London, in constructing the first power project on the Kaweah River. An electric railroad would be a good customer for the Mt. Whitney Power Company, which by that time was almost solely owned by John.
Billy was finally convinced and told John Hammond to proceed with the railroad. In 1905 construction to Lemon Cove and beyond was accomplished, the first trains being steam operated until overhead electric lines were installed.
It was the first 15-cycle alternating current rail line in North America and it provided both freight and passenger service, the passenger cars being discontinued in 1924. Lines were eventually extended south of Lindsay, to Terminus Beach, to Woodlake and to the northwest of that community. Suffice it to say that the VE provided service to many citrus shipping operations, but it also hauled grapes and other produce as well. It also served aggregate plants and even the lime kiln near Lemon Cove.

Old, but just as graceful as she appeared on the dome of the Tulare County Courthouse (once located on the corner of Oak and Bridge Streets in Visalia), this redwood statue of Minerva is the only remaining part of the early building. An earthquake during the summer of 1952 brought about the condemnation of the courthouse, seventy-six years and two days after the laying of its cornerstone on October 18, 1876.

The phonograph is a device for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound. In its later forms it is also called a gramophone or since the 1940s a record player. the sound vibration wave forms are recorded as a spiral groove that is etched into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a record. To recreate the sound, the surface is rotated while a playback stylus (the arm on top) traces the groove that creates the vibration. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison's phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound.

The Visalia Saddle was originally created by Juan Martarell, however, a number of people contributed to its development and success.  Martarell came to California from Mexico during the Gold Rush in the 1850’s.  He initially opened his saddle shop in Hornitos, CA and it was there that Martarell, with the help of his assistants Alsalio Herrera and Ricardo Mattley, created the Visalia Saddle.
In 1869, Martarell relocated to Visalia, CA and opened his own saddle shop.  Martarell’s saddle was designed to be stronger, lighter and more comfortable for both the rider and the horse.  The saddle was originally advertised in 1869 as the Vaquero Saddle; however, the customers ordering the saddle called it the Visalia Saddle which ultimately became its name as well as the name of the saddle shop.  Much of the material used for each saddle was gathered locally.
For 20 years, Mattley hand made every saddle tree (frame) for both Martarell and Walker.  Herrera added a personal touch by designing ornaments, bits, and spurs to each saddle.  In 1870, Juan Martarell sold his shop to David E. Walker.  It was Walker who, through an inventive advertising campaign, made the Visalia Saddle the most famous of all western working saddles.

Livestock branding dates back to 2700 BC, evidenced by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Ancient Romans are said to have used hot iron brands as an element of magic. But brands are most famously associated with the cowboys and cattle drives of the Old West, when brands were used to identify a cow’s owner, protect cattle from rustlers (cattle thieves), and to separate them when it came time to drive to market (or rail yards or stock yards).

At its most basic, a cattle brand is composed of a few simple letters and numbers, possibly in combination with a basic shape or symbols like a line, circle, heart, arc, or diamond. But these characters can also be embellished with serif-like flourishes to create myriad “pyroglyphics.” For example, such serifs might include extraneous “wings” or “feet” added to a letter or number. Each character can also be rotated or reversed.

Reconstructed log cabin built from oak logs, with a shake roof and crude mud caulking by Isaac Harman in 1854 about 4 miles west of Visalia. This was one of the oldest homes in Tulare County when it was moved to the museum in 1959. Some of the logs had to be replaced and the chinking is of modern material instead of the clay that was used when the cabin was built.

The Southern Pacific Company gave the Tulare County Museum the caboose that is displayed on the grounds. This caboose is a type used on the Southern Pacific Railroad from about 1910 to 1960. Although it has the SP 187 number, this caboose dates back to the Visalia Electric Railroad days. This railroad operated between Exeter, Lemon Cove and Woodlake with a 1920 extension to Strathmore. It was quite unique in that it used 15 cycle alternating current instead of the more common direct current for electricity. The original purpose of the Visalia Electric Railroad was for passenger service primarily, but this was discontinued in 1946 and in 1965 a much shorter length of track was used for freight service.

Until the development of the steam powered tractors, agricultural implements either used human or animal strength to propel them. Shortages of labor and high grain prices during the American Civil War (1860-1864) accelerated the development of steam powered agricultural equipment.
Gaar-Scott & Co. was founded by Agram Gaar in 1836 in Richmond, Indiana. The company started out as a threshing machine enterprise and later developed into a steam tractor engine business. This tractor is an 18 horse power model and was manufactured between 1906 and 1911.

In 1909, brothers Leslie S. and William L. Hackney, along with their partners W.A. and A.L Law formed the Hackney Manufacturing Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the beginning the company manufactured hay tools, farm gates, harrows, and other farming tools.
By the early 1900s a few farmers were looking for a plow that could be run by gasoline, rather than by horse power. Even though Hackney was not the only company to produce gasoline powered tractors, the Auto-Plow had many advantages that appealed to the farmer with small to average land holdings. The Hackney Auto-Plow required only one person to run the machine.

This 1930 Chevrolet truck was driven by its owner, Martin A. Romero, from the Midwest to California as he sought a new life for himself. Dust Bowl migrants - with all of their belongings packed in trucks, cars and trailers - set out for California on what was then referred to as the "Mother Road" - Route 66. Between 1935 and 1940, over one million people left their homes in Oklahoma, Texas, Akansas and Missouri and moved west due to the Great Depression and the severe regional drought known as the Dust Bowl. Life on the road was hard, as many left their farms and homes with little more than what they could pack in their vehicles.

George Stockton Berry (1847-1917), a native to Lindsay, designed, built and in 1866 operated the first self-propelled combine. He was granted a U.S. patent in1887, giving him the license for his invention. The Berry design embodied several “firsts”: self-propelled combine, combine powered by a straw-burning steam boiler that was “fueled from the land” (using straw), and a tractor that traveled forward for plowing and in the reverse direction for harvesting. In 1888, equipped with a 40-foot header, and using nighttime lighting, Berry combines harvested more than 100 acres per day!