Big New Year’s celebrations rare in Fresno

Question: Was there ever an organized New Year’s Eve celebration in Fresno, like that at Times Square in New York City?

– Dennis Hart, Clovis

Answer: From old Fresno Bee clip files, it appears Fresno has not had an organized New Year’s Eve celebration similar to that in Times Square.

But on New Year’s Eve 1936, residents celebrated the completion of the new Memorial Auditorium at Fresno and N streets with a parade — led by the Fresno State College band in its new red-and-blue uniforms — and a party.

About 5,000 people attended the party, at which 125 people who had lived in Fresno for 50 years or more were honored guests. A 200-member band played “Stars and Stripes Forever” and performed for those wanting to dance.

In the 1930s, Fresno cars and pedestrians jammed Fulton Street and Broadway downtown to ring in the New Year. On Dec. 31, 1938, “hundreds of fenders and running boards were dented, but only three pedestrians were injured.”

New Year’s Eve 1941 was subdued, coming just weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and amid fears of attacks on the West Coast. World War II ended in 1945, and that New Year’s Eve, “huge throngs of revelers” filled downtown streets and crowded theaters, restaurants and taverns from 10 p.m. until the wee hours of the morning, according to The Bee.

The last big New Year’s celebration downtown was on Dec. 31, 1999, when 10,000 people gathered to ring in the millennium with a fireworks show.

Q: Who was Moses Church? Was he involved in early irrigation in the Valley?

– Vicki Bixler, Fresno

A: In 1868, grower A.Y. Easterby brought blacksmith and canal builder Moses Joshua Church to the Fresno area from Napa County to build a canal system to irrigate Easterby’s wheat fields in what is now the Sunnyside area.

Easterby and Church formed the Fresno Canal and Irrigation Co. The irrigation system Church built helped Easterby’s ranch produce 4 million pounds of wheat that year.

Seeing Church’s successful irrigation of the Valley desert, Central Pacific Railroad officials decided in 1869 to locate a station at what would become the city of Fresno.

In 1880, Church built the Champion Flour Mill at Fresno and N streets. An open ditch down Fresno Street carried water from Fancher Creek to help power the mill. In 1886, Church sold the mill to the Fresno Milling Co.

In 1885, Church donated 80 acres to the city on what is now Belmont Avenue for Mountain View Cemetery.

After Church died in 1900, Fulton Berry — for whom Fulton Street is named — erected a large granite monument to him beside Church’s simple headstone.

More on “Fresno” the miniseries: After the answer to a question about “Fresno” the miniseries ran on Dec. 13, stuntman Michael Jordan of Hollywood Hills sent an e-mail about his work on the series.

“I believe the show shot just two days in Fresno, and I worked on the show both days,” Jordan wrote. “The first day filming was downtown under the water tower. I played a passerby, walking under the tower as a couple of stuntmen ran around the walk platform at the top. They also filmed a news conference across the street in front of the Memorial Auditorium.”

Jordan was hired as a body-double for Charles Grodin and spent the second day tied up in the back seat of the “henchmen’s” car in rural Fresno.

A mock-up of the top of the water tower was built on a Los Angeles sound stage, Jordan said, to get closeups of the actors.

By Paula Lloyd / The Fresno Bee