The Celebrate Spring Issue
The 1955 flood was devastating, especially for Visalia. This view is looking east on Main near Garden Street. Note the Visalia Theater on the right.
Taming A Mighty River
T
Story & Photos provided by Terry Ommen
he Kaweah River of old was like the wild mustang that once
The lake began with the river by the same name. For hundreds,
roamed our valley—uncontrolled, free spirited, and dangerous,
possibly thousands of years, indigenous people fished its waters and
often running at breakneck speed on the Valley floor. And just like
lived on its banks. It wasn’t always called Kaweah River. According
the early bronco buster who tamed the wild steed, in 1962,
to some sources, the native people called it Pi-piyunna. When the
engineers harnessed this wild river by building Terminus Dam and
Spanish explorers came, they called it Rio San Francisco, and still
creating Lake Kaweah—an act that, for the most part, put an end to
other Spaniards named it Rio San Gabriel. When U.S. Army
the destructive force of the river. Its reign of terror was finally over,
Lieutenant George Derby surveyed the area in 1850, he referred to it
and there was a collective sigh of relief. And for the last 60 years,
as the River Francis (or Frances). As American settlers arrived, the
this much-anticipated man-made body of water has been on the
name changed again, this time to Kaweah, named in honor of the
map of Tulare County.
tribe of Yokuts Indians called Kaweah, or Gawea, who lived nearby. 35
