He was the first resident of what we know today as Fresno. He made his homestead there even before Anthony Easterby, Leland Stanford and the Central Pacific Railroad came to area. The story of William Helm, today on KVPR's Central Valley Roots.
The Fresno plain was an inhospitable place. Hot, dry and lacking water in the summer, but prone to flooding in the winter. The Yokuts knew this well. They made their villages in the Sierra foothills, though some tribes had settlements along the San Joaquin River bottom in what is today north Fresno. But the Fresno plain was a vast, uninhabited, treeless place.
That didn't stop William Helm. He arrived here in 1865 and established a homestead four miles northeast of what is now downtown Fresno, along the banks of Dry Creek. Helm was a shepherd and drove his sheep to pastures from the valley to the Sierra. Helm was also one of the first to experiment with growing wheat in the area and later grew grapes and almonds. Historian Paul Vandor says for a time, Helm had no neighbor in any direction for up to 12 miles.
But William Helm wasn't a hermit. He became one of the directors of the Fresno Canal & Irrigation Company, the Kings River Lumber Company, the Bank of Central California and a stockholder in the Fresno Republican newspaper. He built a home in the new town of Fresno in 1877 near Fresno and R Streets. It’s now the site of Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno.
Before he died in 1919, he started the Helm Company, and run by his son Frank. The firm was a big player in agribusiness, giving us the town of Helm, and several buildings in downtown Fresno. Today, historic markers in southwest Clovis recognize the site of the historic Helm Ranch.
