Fresno County, California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


GRANVILLE HARTMAN WALLEY.� Among the pioneer contrac- 
tors of Fresno, who, by far-reaching foresight, an unusual spirit of enterprise 
and the employment of only the most up-to-date methods and devices, have 
contributed much to the development of both Fresno and Central California, 
must be rated, in the first rank, George H. Walley. who was born near 
Valley Forge in Chester County, Pa., on January 6, 1850, and when only 
sixteen started to learn the carpenter's trade in Philadelphia. While work- 
ing there, he helped erect the Falmouth Market, long one of the notable 
landmarks in the City of Brotherly Love. In 1870 he removed to La Salle 
County, Ill., and for three years worked in Ottawa at his trade. He also 
owned a ranch of eighty acres in Iroquois County, and farmed the same 
himself. Catching the gold fever in 1876, he started with a party of thirteen 
on saddle horses and pack animals for the Black Hills; but before they 
reached the mines, they were attacked by Indians and several of the com- 
pany were killed. Mr. Walley himself, after a vigorous fight, was shot in 
the leg and so badly wounded that he was laid up for eight months. The 
party kept the Indians at bay and retreated for three days after he was 
wounded, making Deadwood in safety. It was very difficult in those days 
to get medical or surgical attention, and such as could be secured was none 
of the best ; and the result was that the sick and wounded languished and 
suffered in a way that is but faintly realized by those who have come after 
and reaped the benefits of their pioneering. 

In 1877 Mr. Walley went to Colorado and located in Denver, being 
employed at his trade: and in 1878 he went to Leadville, and mined for 
five years. He swung the pick in the Monarch Mine and at Bonanza Creek 
and suffered many hardships; and later he worked at his trade in Maysville, 
Colo., where his cleverness in solving problems of the moment and incidental 
to the raw conditions of the times was much appreciated. 

In the fall of 1879 Mr. Walley arrived in California, and having looked 
over the ground and rapidly sized up the advantages of the several sections, 
he was ready to settle in Fresno by the following spring. It was then but a 
small and not particularly ambitious town, as one may well imagine from 
the fact that lots on Fresno Street sold for sixty dollars, while corner lots 
commanded only $125. This condition of realty attracted Air. Walley, and 
he both bought and sold much unimproved property. He also bought a 
couple of ranches � one of eighty acres on the east of Fowler, and the other 
of twenty acres, three-fourths of a mile east of Selma. Both were raw 
land ; but with his usual enterprise, Mr. Walley set out a peach orchard and' 
planted alfalfa, and when he was ready to make a good showing, at the 
end of three years he sold out. 

During this time, he did contracting and building, and in both Fowler 
and Selma erected a number of brick structures for store purposes. Finding 
that he was better adapted for that line of undertaking, he settled in Fresno 
and followed his trade with vigorous competition. He became both a builder 
and a contractor, and since then he has erected over two hundred buildings. 
This brought him into nearly all the cities and towns of Fresno County, 
and into many places in the San Joaquin Valley. In Fresno he erected the 
Meade, Ball and Fisk blocks, the Tubercular Ward, County Hospital, and 
numerous fine residences. In Coalinga he put up the Akers Block and the 
Skating Pavilion, and the best of the town's store buildings. In Kerman 
he built two hotels and two apartment houses. Each and every one of these 
buildings probably would have done credit to places and periods supposed to 
have been much in advance of these growing California towns. 

Mr. Walley has also built a number of houses of his own in Fresno, and 
at present he is the owner of seven, among which is a fine apartment house 
on Illinois and Second Streets, of from two to five rooms. He owns an 
apartment house in Coalinga, and also four lots at Fifth and D Streets in 
that town. Lately he retired from active work and builds only to serve some 
old friend, who knows the class of work he is accustomed to do and will 
not accept no for an answer. 

While in Colorado Mr. Walley was married to Mary Kraft, a native of 
Illinois, who has proved a most excellent wife and mother. One of their 
daughters is now the wife of George Donohue, the agent of the Southern 
Pacific at Armona, and has three children ; and another daughter, Katie, is 
the wife of John Simpson, an engineer of the same railway company. In 
Colorado, Mr. Walley joined the Knights of Pythias, affiliating with Cava- 
naugh Lodge, at Maysville. 

In the semi-leisure hours of these later years, Mr. Walley entertains his 
friends with many interesting stories of adventure and of his remarkable 
experiences while searching for fortune. Not only did he suffer many hard- 
ships during his mining days in Wyoming and Colorado, but in 1898 he took 
a trip to Alaska, borne along by the rush of gold-seekers to Nome ; and 
while traveling many hundreds of miles in the eighteen months that' he was 
in the frozen North, he endured much that others would not live to tell. So, 
too, he has passed successfully through hair-raising brushes with the Indians, 
and with some of the worst that the pioneers and the American government 
have ever had to contend with, and today he has yarn after yarn about the 
red man well worth the telling anywhere or at any time.