Back before the railroad and our modern dams and bridges, crossing the valley’s rivers with a major undertaking. Privately-operated ferries were some of the earliest western settlements in the region, offering travelers a passage across these waterways. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, the story of one of the most important early ferries: Firebaugh.
Andrew Firebaugh was born in Virgina and went to Texas, fighting in the Mexican America War. He came to California in 1849 during the Gold Rush. Firebaugh served under Major James Savage in the Mariposa Battalion, and was among the first European-Americans to enter Yosemite Valley. In 1854, Firebaugh settled in the Central Valley, and established a trading post and ferry on the San Joaquin River in what is today western Fresno County. Within a few years Firebaugh’s Ferry became a stagecoach stop on the route of the Butterfield Overland Mail, which connected St. Louis and San Francisco.
But Firebaugh wasn’t done. He turned the old trail over Pacheco Pass into a toll road from Rancho San Luis Gonzaga to Bell Station. Firebaugh eventually left California for Missouri, only to return a few years later. This time he made his homestead in the foothills east of Fresno. In 1870, he helped found The Academy, Fresno’s first secondary school, before he died in 1875.
