California’s San Joaquin Valley has a distinct historic and cultural landscape, a vestige of the Central Pacific railroad, agricultural colonies, the lacework of canals,and tree-lined boulevards of the late 19th century. Beginning in the 1870s a diversity of ethnic and religious groups immigrated to this area seeking a “place in the sun.” The image of “The Garden of the Sun” in fact continued to serve as a promotional slogan through the 1930s to advertise the area to prospective farmers.

The region’s vernacular building record from both the 19th and early 20th century reflects styles and types common throughout the United States with some definite adaptations due to climate, ethnicity and location and includes American foursquares, rural and urban tankhouses, the “Rooshian” backhaus, courtyard housing (bungalow courts) and the indigenous use of adobe and hardpan.

The 2008 conference will be held in Fresno and is sponsored by the City of Fresno’s Planning and Development Department in cooperation with the Fresno City and County Historical Society. Fresno, the market center for the richest agricultural county in the United States, has a population of 500,000 and is located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The area is served by the Fresno-Yosemite International airport and Amtrak, which stops at the newly restored 1899 Santa Fe depot. The conference hotel is the Radisson.

All-day and half day bus tours as well as self-guided walking tours will incorporate the following themes:

• Canals, colonies and tree-lined boulevards: the development of a San Joaquin Valley landscape.
• Building in adobe and hardpan-- vernacular as well as architect designed residential and commercial buildings.
• Farm, labor, crops and capital: cycles of investment in the Central Valley.
• Ethnic heritage, the architecture and settlement history of Chinese, Armenian, Germans from Russia, Mexican, Scandinavians, Native Americans etc.
• Yosemite, the arts and crafts movement and the development of a National Park Service vernacular.
• Preservation and spheres of influence: regional planning for the next 50 years.
• The New Deal turns 75.

A full schedule of activities will be posted on the conference website later this year. Paper sessions will also be announced at a later time. For more information please contact the local arrangements chair, Karana Hattersley-Drayton, (559) 621-8520, karana.hattersley-drayton@fresno.gov.