Selma

 

Selma is a city in Fresno County, California. The population was 23,319 at the 2010 census. Selma owes its beginnings to farming and to the Southern Pacific Railroad, which began in the 1870s as a branch line of the Central Pacific Railroad. The route of the Southern Pacific through California's Central Valley gave rise to a string of small towns between Sacramento and Bakersfield. Selma was among them.

 

In 1880, residents of the rural community that would become Selma established the Valley View School District. The first post office opened in 1880. A decade later, four farmers - Jacob E. Whitson, Egbert H. Tucker, George Otis and Monroe Snyder - formed a partnership and developed a townsite along the railroad. They began auctioning lots and just three years later the city of Selma was formally incorporated. A persistent local legend is that Selma was named after Selma Gruenberg Lewis (ca. 1867–1944) by Governor Leland Stanford, who was shown her picture by her father. As Lewis first told the story in 1925, Stanford, also a Director of the Central Pacific Railroad, was so taken that he ordered that the next town on the line be named for her. Lewis often repeated the story with further romantic embellishments, and it came to be accepted as fact despite a lack of documentary evidence. Lewis is buried in Floral Memorial Park in Selma, and her marker repeats the story. Subsequent investigation indicates instead that the town was in fact named for Selma Michelsen (1853–1910), wife of a railroad employee who had submitted her name for inclusion on a list of candidate names prepared by his supervisor.

 

George Otis selected the name from this list, in consultation with other local businessmen. Along with Fowler to its immediate north and Kingsburg to its south, Selma was a railroad stop where agricultural goods could be loaded for shipping. As in the rest of the United States, the railroad played a lesser role as the 20th century progressed.