Fresno Flats Historical Park: A Town's Memory in Wood
Near Oakhurst, California
Just off the main road through Oakhurst, the Fresno Flats Historical Park preserves a collection of historic buildings from the foothill era, a small village of wooden structures that tell the story of the community before it became a Yosemite gateway. The park holds a one-room schoolhouse, a log cabin that served as an early homestead, a settler's home from the late eighteen hundreds, and a historic jail, among other structures. The buildings were gathered from the surrounding area and relocated to the park site in a preservation effort.
The goal was to rescue structures that were deteriorating in private ownership and assemble them where they could be maintained and interpreted for the public. The Sierra Historic Sites Association supports the park, which offers tours of its buildings. For a small community, Oakhurst has taken its history seriously.
The park provides context for the waves of change that swept through these foothills: the indigenous people who lived here for millennia, the miners who disrupted everything in the eighteen fifties, the lumber and ranching families who built what followed, and the tourism industry that has defined the town ever since.
