How did a Mexican-era land grant propel Fresno’s raisin industry and the city’s growth to this day? The story of the Rancho Laguna de Tache, and its water rights, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
Central Pacific Railroad boss Leland Stanford chose site for Fresno Station to be close to the irrigated wheatfields of Anthony Easterby. But it was Moses Church who made Easterby’s farm possible, by building an irrigation canal from the Kings River to the site.
Church’s Fresno Canal and Irrigation Company eventually built over 1,000 miles of canals channeling the waters of the Kings for irrigation and helping Fresno bloom. But even in the 1880s, water in California was the domain of lawyers, and numerous legal battles unfolded in the courts. A big case involving the Kern River set an important legal precedent.
When the California Supreme Court sided with downstream riparian rights-holders Miller and Lux, instead of upstream water appropriators like Haggin and Tevis, it set off a legal earthquake across the state. Riparian rights holders downstream now had the upper hand, and canal operators like Church were on shaky legal ground. In 1887 Moses Church sold his Fresno Canal Company to former Confederate doctor Edward B. Perrin.
But thanks to the court ruling, Perrin’s new canals were largely dry. So in 1891, with British and Canadian backers, he bought the 48,000-acre Laguna de Tache ranch for $1 million, including its riparian water rights.
Perrin eventually lost his business, and in 1894 his British backer Llewelyn Arthur Nares took over. By 1897 he united with the other major rights holders on the Kings. Soon the Fresno Irrigation District and the Kings River Water Association were formed, all built on the legal foundation of the Laguna de Tache grant. And L.A. Nares’ name lives on today, in the Fresno County town of Lanare.
