The Main Room

Artifacts relating to local native tribes, Yokut, Mono and others. Featuring a collection of cradleboards and baskets. Obsidian stone, which were used to make spear and arrowheads. There are real arrowheads, moccasins and more.

Read about the last Dumna, Yokut Chief, Pahmet.

Native's Exhibit

Founding Fathers

Marcus Pollasky, Clovis Cole and other Pioneer Families

A successful lawyer and railroad promoter from Michigan, Marcus Pollasky was more than your average fresh-faced boy. At the age of 29 he had already achieved more than the average man will in their lifetime.

He was the youngest man to be admitted into the bar in the State of Michigan as well as Federally. He founded the first hook-and-ladder company in Alma, Michigan. He founded the Gratiot County Savings Bank and was the treasurer and attorney for the Lansing, Alma, Mt. Pleasant Railroad. In 1890, at the behest of local Fresno businessmen and investors from Michigan, Marcus Pollasky came to Fresno to secure the right-of-way and build a railroad into the mountains to gain access to the rich timber and mineral resources of the Sierra Mountains.

July 4th, 1891 after a grand parade, a groundbreaking ceremony was held to commemorate the start of construction for the San Joaquin Valley Railroad. The railroad was to head east out of Fresno then north up to the San Joaquin River at Hamptonville, where it would cross the river heading west then north and northeast to an area near North Fork.

November 25, 1891 the railroad reached the San Joaquin river and there was a great celebration, bands, speeches and a good old fashioned clam bake.

With an estimated 50,000 acres of wheat, Clovis Cole’s farming empire spread from Centerville to Madera County. His ambition started early when at the age of 16 his father gave him four horses. He used those horses to haul timber from the mountains. He quickly realized that the grazing lands of the valley would make good land in which to grow wheat.

He was the first to use steam-powered machinery to harvest his crops.

He started the Enterprise Colony, northeast of Fresno City, a portion of which he would sell to Marcus Pollasky, which eventually became part of the townsite of Clovis, California. Another man, George Washington Owen sold an adjacent lot to the railroad. That land is today's Old Town Clovis.

It is said that the railroad station built on his land used his first name because to call the station, Cole, could be confused with a “Coal” stop, which were used for refueling locomotives with coal. So, the station was named Clovis and so, too,

the town beside it.

The Bank Robbery of 1924

The "Owl" and "Loan Wolf " strike in Clovis.

February 5, 1924, the First State Bank of Clovis at 401 Pollasky Avenue was robbed at gunpoint for a total of $31, 800 in currency, gold certificates and bonds.

Thomas "The Owl" Griffin, and his a accomplice, Felix "The Lone Wolf" Sloper, parked their stolen Chandler automobile outside of the bank and entered the building around 1PM.

Assistant cashier Tommy Howison was the only one inside. Griffin approached Howison at the enclosed cashier window and asked him to break a $20 bill. Sloper meanwhile snuck to the back door and into the area.

"The next thing I knew, I was looking down the wrong end of a gun," Howison recalled.

Howison was tied up and locked in the walk-in vault. The robbers stole the contents of the safe and tills and were about to leave when bank vice-president Emery Reyburn arrive. The robbers pushed him against the far wall and fled to the car still running outside.

As they drove away, they threw handfuls of nails onto the street to prevent anyone from following. They tossed the gun in a muddy field near Tarpey.

They were both eventually captured. Both served time at Folsom Prison. "The Owl" escaped and in doing so broke his ankle and died of exposure. "The Lone Wolf" was executed by hanging for shooting and killing a Deputy Sheriff during his capture.

Inside the Vault

Family Histories and Clovis High Yearbooks

This is the original bank vault, the same one that was robbed in 1924. Today it houses another kind of treasure, a collection of Clovis family histories provided by the families themselves and assembled by our team of docents over the decades.

You will also find a large selection of Yearbooks from Clovis High School.

May Case

Born in Comanche County, Texas in 1873, at age 16 Lucy May Morris married Oklahoma newspaper editor, Spurgeon Case. She began working alongside her husband as a reporter and helped with printing.

During her time in Oklahoma, May Case cultivated relationships with the local Native Americans, even interviewing Apache- leader Goyahkla, better known by his Spanish nickname, Geronimo. The famed warrior presented her with an arrowhead and headband, which are on display in the museum today. She also witnessed and reported on major national events, such as the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush.

In 1890, May and her husband moved to

California and began starting newspapers across the state. In 1919, they founded the Clovis Independent and continued to own it into the 1930s. Spurgeon passed away in 1949, but May continued to write for the Clovis Independent until 1967, passing shortly after at the age of 93. At the time of her retirement, May was considered the oldest and longest tenured reporter in the country. She stands today as a pioneer for women in the news industry, and was inducted posthumously into the Clovis Hall of Fame in 1991.