About Us

The year was 1888. The Southern Pacific Railroad had crossed the Kings River and opened trade routes to all points along the Pacific coast and across the vast midsection of our country to eastern market places.

Like a giant magnet, Reedley, California began a pull for families hungry for a new home. Soon the countryside was teeming with settlers. Some came hunting farmlands, while others had service skills to offer a developing area. However diverse were their backgrounds, they came with one purpose in mind: here they would meld themselves into a new community, and here an enormous agricultural empire would flourish.

These settlers had families to rear, and they looked to both public and private institutions to help them in their quest for proper training. The organization of a school district began as soon as the town was platted, and then the private sector began sowing the seeds for spiritual guidance. Small church buildings were erected on choice corner lots in the little village. At Tenth and F Streets the United Brethren built their church in 1889, and in 1891 the Baptist Church was built at Eleventh and E Streets. Finally, in 1892, the Methodist Episcopal Church erected a 24 by 40-foot building at Thirteenth and F Streets. The religious scene in Reedley was set for more than a decade before other denominations added their buildings to the townsite.