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About a year or so ago, an HH reader contacted me asking for information about the Star Laundry fire. I thought at the time I had some material on it, but I couldn’t find it and I have been on the hunt ever since. Well guess what? I think I’ve found it, but it was not a fire, but instead a devastating explosion. This information came to me quite by accident when I was talking to Erin Hayden who happened to have an article about the explosion. It happened in 1926 and several people were burned very badly. For the life of me, I can’t remember now who asked, but let me know who you are and I’ll get more information to you. In the last HH, the Shorty Check homicide was mentioned and several of you looked at the Traveler’s Hotel photograph that accompanied the posting. You noticed the Main Cigar Store was on the ground floor of the Traveler’s building on the northwest corner of Main and Garden streets. Frank Pineda remembers as a boy going to that Store and getting the coldest root beer in town, all for just a nickel. Earlier that cigar store was called Wood Cigar Store owned by W. H. Wood. Any good Wood Cigar Store stories? By the way, Art Browning believes that Lee Mitchell, historian Annie Mitchell’s brother, once owned the Main Cigar Store. Where’s the wooden Indian? Surely, Visalia had one! There is a man in Visalia history who has not been fully recognized for his contribution to the collection and preservation of local history. His name is John Brackett. John Brackett came to Visalia in 1948 and assumed the position of managing editor of the Visalia Times Delta. In 1966 he not only was the managing editor, but he became the publisher as well. He was very active in the com munity and reportedly, “he almost won a seat on the Visalia City Council as a write-in candidate,” according to his obituary. While working with the Delta in 1956/57 he wrote a local column called Driftwood, a sort of “who’s who” of prominent local citizens of Visalia. He wrote about people such as Jack Chrisman, Charles Hammer, Jack Iseman, Tom Crow, the Huffakers, and many others. John’s children, Jan Andrews and her sisters, compiled all of his columns onto a cd. I can tell you after reading a sampling of them, they are a fascinating read. What a great collection of mid 1950s Visalia history. I remember some time back talking about John with his granddaughter Kate Gibson-Cates (Jan Andrews’ daughter). The family is proud of John and they have a right to be. Local historians owe so much to people like John Bracket. Thanks to them we learn so much about our Visalia history. If you would like a copy of the cd, please let me know and I’ll make you a copy (after I get the family’s permission.) I’m thinking someone, somewhere out there should consider creating a booklet of these old Driftwood columns. By the way John Bracket retired from the Visalia Times Delta in 1974 and died in 2002. Thanks Jan for sharing an important part of his life. Sherrill Clark has been very generous in sharing family history. Her in-laws, Gerald Isaac Clark and his wife Roberta McSwain Clark both had interesting families. The Clark side, I plan on sharing with you in a future HH, but the McSwain side is briefly included here. Roberta, Sherrill’s mother-in-law, was the daughter of Dr. Thomas Omar McSwain. He was born in Wisconsin in 1862 and came to California about 1884. He studied medicine in San Francisco and graduated from medical school there about 1897. It was shortly after that he came to Visalia to practice. He married Mabel Wasson and lived in the “mansion” on the southwest corner of Court and Tulare streets. The house is still there, a real beauty, and is now being used as a dentist’s office. The house always looked like it belonged in the deep south to me.

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