You\u2019ve all heard the old saying there\u2019s nothing new under the sun, right? Well here in the Central Valley, that\u2019s certainly the case. Today on KVPR\u2019s Central Valley Roots, we go back to look at Fresno\u2019s earliest days\u2026and the issue of crime and violence.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve seen the Hollywood stereotype of the lawless frontier town of the old west. While that image is largely fiction, Fresno in the 1870s came very close. Early Fresno resident George Bernhard wrote that when trains would arrive at Sycamore, today known as Herndon, the conductor would give passengers a warning.<\/a> \u201cFresno is the next town\u2026you had better get your guns ready.\u201d<\/p>\n Violence was a fact of life in early Fresno. The Fresno Weekly Expositor newspaper said in the 1870s, it was common to see men going to religious and social gatherings with guns in their holsters. Bernhard wrote that in the early days, a shooting before breakfast and another before dinner was not uncommon.<\/p>\n Famed train robbers Sontag and Evans<\/a> and the Dalton Gang<\/a> were regulars in Fresno. Evans famously escaped from the Fresno County Jail, while the Daltons hid out in the foothills east of Fresno,<\/a> on what today is known as Dalton Mountain. <\/p>\n