The History of Kaweah Oaks Preserve
A Nature Conservancy banner filters
the sunshine at the KOP dedication
The 322-acre Kaweah Oaks Preserve is the only part of a 256,000-acre natural habitat that once spanned the area from Three Rivers to the Tulare Lake basin.
California Indians of the Yokut nation were the first to use the land that is now Kaweah Oaks Preserve. Because the Kaweah River’s biannual flooding made the land unsuitable for permanent village sites, the Yokuts used the land for hunting, foraging, and some farming.
European settlers took over the land—referred to as “The Swamp” due to frequent flooding that created damp conditions—in the mid-1800’s. It was owned by three different families before it fell into the hands of the Davis family, who used the land primarily for cattle grazing, hunting, and woodcutting.
Three generations later, Myrtle Davis Franklin consulted with Alan George, the local farm advisor in Tulare County, about turning the land she inherited from her family into a walnut farm. The Terminus Dam was constructed in 1962, so flooding was no longer a problem, but when George surveyed the land, he discovered that the underground water table was too high for walnut farming. George, a native Visalian with an interest in history and conservation, recognized the unique valley oak riparian forest on the land and saw the potential for a nature preserve. He encouraged Mrs. Franklin to forgo the idea of farming and, instead, sell the land to The Nature Conservancy. Serendipitously, The Nature Conservancy’s California branch was very interested in valley oak riparian forests at the time. Through the combined efforts of Alan George, The Nature Conservancy and other community volunteers, Mrs. Franklin sold her land to The Nature Conservancy in February 1983.
A crowd of more than 2,000 gather
for the Preserve dedication
The acquisition of Kaweah Oaks Preserve as a nature preserve aroused widespread and diverse support from throughout the community.
“The community was very supportive,” said Ginger Bryant, the first Arborist for the City of Visalia. “Community members recognized Visalia’s natural assets, the City Council was very oriented toward protecting the land, and there was a strong conservation ethic among local growers.”
Tulare and Kings Counties raised approximately $100,000 through community donations to help The Nature Conservancy pay for the land. More than 2,000 community members came to the Preserve’s dedication, including future Secretary of State Bill Jones and a well respected Senator, Rose Ann Vuich. Sequoia Riverlands Trust board member Robert Hansen remarked that the event was “multidimensional” because it touched almost every local family in a different way.
Mrs. Franklin was perhaps the most delighted community member at the dedication. Although she knew nothing of conservation until her interactions with George, Mrs. Franklin told George at the dedication that protecting the land and wildlife was “one of the most exciting things I’ve done in my life.”
A group of local volunteers, including George, Hansen, Bryant and Dick Dooley, assumed care of the land and fourteen years later, TNC transferred the title of the nature preserve to a local conservation organization they created. Bryant credits this group and their efforts, saying, “There is a reason that those big trees are there and that is because of those guys.”
Eleven years and more than 7,000 additional protected acres later, the local conservation organization is now Sequoia Riverlands Trust.