Moore was first black rancher in Valley

Question: Who was Gabriel Bibbard Moore, who is buried in the Akers Cemetery north of Centerville?

– Scott Haugland, Sanger

Answer: Gabriel Bibbard Moore was born a slave in Alabama in 1812, but nothing is known about his early life.

In 1852, Moore and his owners, brothers Richard and William Glenn, left Austin, Texas, with a wagon train led by Henry and Delilah Akers and settled near Centerville.

Moore apparently gained his freedom after arriving in the Valley: he is listed on the 1857 Fresno County tax roll as a property owner.

He is listed as a farmer on the 1860 U.S. Census and was the first black cattle rancher in the Valley. He hired his neigh- bors to herd cattle from the Valley to the mountains in the summers.

Moore built the first rock dam over the Kings River to divert water into a small canal to irrigate 20 acres of potatoes and corn. He planted the first apple and fig orchards in the area.

Moore and his wife, Mary, had a son, Ephraim, and adopted four orphaned siblings with the last name of Baker.

In 1880, Moore drowned as he drove a herd of cattle across the rain-swollen Kings River. The book “Fresno County in the Pioneer Years,” published in 1984, says Moore’s body “was found drowned in the river, still clutching a bush.”

Moore owned a home, a wagon, farm equipment and 180 head of livestock when he died. His estate was worth $15,000.

Mary Moore had a 3-foot-tall memorial to her husband installed in the Akers Cemetery on Trimmer Springs Road near Centerville — where Henry and Delilah Akers and Richard Glenn also are buried.

Moore’s headstone was inscribed, “In memory of Gabriel Moore, died May 25, 1880, 67 years, 10 months and 23 days of age.” The marker was broken by vandals in 1965.

In 2008, students at Valley Preparatory Academy in Fresno organized a new memorial to Moore that reads: “Beneath this broken tombstone lies Gabriel Bibbard Moore, born a slave in Alabama July 2, 1812, drowned in the Kings River May 25, 1880, a free man.”

Q: I don’t think I’m related, but for whom was Quigley Park named?

– Pat Quigley Roberts, Fresno

A: In 1955, Quigley Park at Dakota and Teilman avenues was named for Raymond L. Quigley, Fresno’s playground superintendent for 39 years.

Quigley was born in Princeton, Ill., in 1885. In high school, he was captain of the football, baseball, basketball and track teams. He played on the football, track and wrestling teams at the University of Chicago.

He coached college sports in Michigan, Arizona and South Dakota before accepting the parks job in Fresno in 1914.

By the time Quigley retired in 1953, he had developed 21 city playgrounds and organized thousands of baseball, softball, basketball and tennis teams for youths and adults.

Playgrounds and sports made for a harmonious community, Quigley told a Fresno Bee reporter upon his retirement: “We have boys and girls and adults from every race who mingle on our playgrounds and learn to get along together. If they didn’t learn to play together, there would be quarrels.”

Quigley and his wife, Lou, had five children. A long-time member of the Camellia Society, Quigley died in 1958 at 72 as he was leaving a camellia show at the Fresno Fairground.

Lou Quigley paid for a memorial grove of trees and a plaque at Quigley Park in 1966.

Today Quigley Neighborhood Center hosts a senior nutrition program, has a computer lab and holds recreation programs for youths and adults. The park has playfields and courts, barbecues and a small pool.

Q: My late mother had a 1930s cookbook that carried an advertisement by the Routt Lumber Co. for “factory built homes.” What is the history of the lumber company and the houses?

– Joan Estrada, Parlier

A: Hiram Routt came to Fresno from Dallas Center, Iowa, in 1912 and four years later set up a sawmill on 1,000 acres of timber at Jose Basin northeast of Fresno.

There was an apple orchard on Routt’s timberland, and for many years the family crushed the apples for cider, which they gave to their customers, producing 5,000 gallons one year.

By 1920, the Routt Lumber Co. had five mills in the Sierra and a large lumber yard in Fresno. In 1924, the company moved to a 280-acre parcel at Pine Ridge.

Routt’s company employed more than 100 people. One of his salesmen and draftsmen, Orville Taylor, left the company in 1927 to form a company with Dennis Wheeler, building Taylor-Wheeler homes known for attention to detail and craftsmanship.

Hiram Routt’s son, Leonard Washington Routt, joined the business in 1920 and took over the company when his father died in 1944.

Leonard W. Routt of Clovis, great grandson of Hiram Routt, said the family business built homes between Clinton, Shields, Blackstone and Maroa avenues. A planing mill was built at Peralta Way and Blackstone to supply finished lumber for the houses.

But Routt said he is not familiar with the 500 small factory-built homes the company sold. A 1930s advertisement said the houses were targeted “to those who are not able to pay cash for the material to build their home.”

By Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee