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Mark Twain Birthday Walking Tour of Fulton Street

Friday May 8, 1998

Mark Twain's Fulton Street Walking Tour

A Mark Twain Birthday Walking Tour
of Fulton Street Landmarks in Fresno:
Saturday, May 9, 1998

Conducted by Howard Hobbs

Samuel Langhorne Clemens made himself a universal figure through the writings he signed "Mark Twain." But he also had a very special and long-lasting relationship with California. In fact, the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn ended up spending considerably more of his early life in Calaveras County Angel's Camp and near San Joaquin River mining claims outside Fresno.

The oldest surviving scrap of writing from Clemens' hand, for instance, is a letter home which some scholars think was written from Fresno. ("I have taken a liking to the abominable place," he confessed).

In the 1860s, Twain's California connections helped him rise from a promising reporter and humorist to a national literary figure. In later years he owned a publishing house near Union Square in New York. He had homes on Fifth Avenue, on West Tenth Street, and in Riverdale.

In old age he was adored as the New York City's sage and commentator and quoted on every public issue. His funeral, in 1910, blocked traffic for miles. Indeed, many of Mark Twain's comments on the Fresno of his time would seem very noteworthy even today:

  • On the California's economy: "They have made 5,000 men wealthy, and for a good round million of her citizens they have made it a matter of the closest kind of scratching to get along."

  • On Wall Street's influence: "The people had desired money before his day, but they taught them to fall down and worship it."

  • On Fresno manners: "The overcrowding Fresno streetcars has impelled men to adopt the rule of hanging on to a seat when they get it. Occasionally I have seen a man give his place to a lady, but the act betrayed that he was from out of town."

To renew the friendship and celebrate the humorist's birthday, Howard Hobbs, a newspaper publisher, author and Twain's nephew, will lead a two-hour walking tour of Fulton Street's landmarks in Fresno, California on Saturday, May 9, 1998.

Traveling to California Twain found employment as a reporter and then as a miner. It was at Angel's Camp. North of Fresno where he heard the folk tale about a jumping frog and he soon wrote his famous short story, first titled "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog."

The tour, liberally sprinkled with Twainian anecdotes and epigrams, starts from Broadway and Divisidero at one P.M., and lasts approximately 1 1/2 hours (longer if the weather is fine). It ends with a birthday toast to Twain at the Veraz Samuelian Art Studio. Fifteen dollars. Rain date: Sunday, May 10, same time and place.

Any questions? Please feel free to use our convenient Tourmaster to get additional details.

Copyright © 1998 The Fresno Daily Republican Newspaper. All Rights Reserved.

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