Historical Perspectives

Out of the Past…I’ve always been intrigued with steamboat travel deep in the San Joaquin Valley, which was in its heyday in the late 1850s to 1860s (before rail traffic took over in conveying freight).
An interesting find was reported in the Fresno Bee, December 31, 1958: the skeleton of a large barge, 140 by 22 feet, which was used to haul up to 10,000 sacks of grain to the Bay Area, towed by steamboats. On return trips the steamers with barges in tow would return to landings to deliver merchandise, lumber, etc. to the growing area.
Workers installing a drainage siphon under the a bend in the San Joaquin River near Los Banos, made the discovery. Ralph Milliken, a local historian, said in the story that it may have been a barge owned by the ranching firm of Miller & Lux, which had river warehouses in the region.