Irigaray, Martin

Born in Lecunberry, Basses-Pyrénées, France, in 1881, Martin Irigaray emigrated to Fresno in September 1900. After working thirty-two months for sheepman Peter Arostigny in Reedley, he invested his savings into purchasing 600 head of sheep and established a ten-year headquarters on a leased ranch in Huron. While visiting his native France in 1914, Irigaray was drafted into the French Army during World War I, serving in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Infantry near Rheims until being mustered out following a severe bout of typhoid pneumonia, after which he returned to Fresno in late 1915.

Upon returning, Irigaray resumed his sheep-raising operations at Huron before acquiring an eighty-acre ranch on Whites Bridge Road in 1918, which he developed into a productive alfalfa and livestock farm. Married in 1910 to Marie Yraceburu, a native of Navarra, Spain, with whom he had three daughters—Jennie, Laura, and Genevieve—Irigaray also became a stockholder in the Growers National Bank of Fresno and a respected figure among the county’s Basque agricultural community.