Cleaning up in Madera in the 1940s
Pictured in 1940, this barbershop was located on the north side of Yosemite Avenue, near the site of Y.V. Preciado’s pioneer barbershop. Unlike this shop, one could get a haircut, shave, and bath at Preciado’s. Madera’s premier barber closed his shop after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. (Madera Images; Bill Coate)
They shot Medgar Evers
On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers pulled into his driveway at Decatur, Mississippi, after returning from an integration meeting where he had conferred with NAACP lawyers. Emerging from his car and carrying NAACP T-shirts that stated, “Jim Crow Must Go,” Evers was struck in the back with a bullet that ricocheted into his home. He […]
The Crappa brothers’ corner store
Located on the corner of Gateway and Fourth Street was the Crappa Brothers American and Italian grocery. The Italian influence in Madera was and remains very significant. After coming to America on a shoestring, they often found work on the cattle ranches of Miller and Lux or in the Sugar Pine Lumber Mill. Then with […]
Crappa Brothers had a busy place
Joe and Frank Crappa owned the Crappa Brothers Grocery, which stood on the northeast corner of 4th Street and Gateway Drive in the 1920s. It was a prosperous little Italian market until Frank Crappa got himself in trouble during prohibition. There is no evidence that the law ever had its eyes on Joe Crappa. He […]
MSHS preparing book on Sunny Nishimoto
One of Madera’s most respected and compassionate community leaders will soon be the subject of a Madera Method project conducted at Madera South High School. Led by teacher Valerie Shelton, students in the school’s historical literacy class are researching the life of the late Sunny Isao Nishimoto and will publish their findings in a book. […]
Madera’s Civil War Soldiers
Over 100 8th graders are on a mission to tell the story of the War Between the States, but they want to do it through the eyes of some of the soldiers who fought in those battles. That’s why they were in Arbor Vitae Cemetery on August 23. They were visiting the graves of some […]
Madera matches lit the sky
The month of May held a high and a low for Madera’s self-esteem. A visit by President Theodore Roosevelt represented the zenith of community pride, but then came the nadir. Just eleven days after Roosevelt’s departure, Madera‘s Pacific Coast Match Factory went up in flames. At 1:30 in the afternoon of May 29, 1903, C.M. […]
Students hunt for soldiers in graveyard
Over 100 8th graders are on a mission to tell the story of the War Between the States, but they want to do it through the eyes of some of the soldiers who fought in those battles. That’s why they were in Arbor Vitae Cemetery on August 23. They were visiting the graves of some […]
8th graders digging into sheriffs’ pasts
New Madera Method project launched More than 150 8th graders joined Sheriff Jay Varney Monday at the grave of Madera County’s first sheriff, William H. Thurman, to take the wraps off a special history project they have been working on. The students and their teachers from Dixieland, Eastin-Arcola, Howard, and La Vina Schools gave the […]
Students find a historic gold mine in Madera
Two Madera South High School alumna came back home Wednesday to take advantage of some of the resources of the new Madera Method Archive and Special Collections being built by MUSD in the library of their alma mater. Jennifer Martinez and Silvia Navarro Hernandez, who graduated from MSHS in 2015, are now seniors at UC […]
