Miles, Virgil S.

Virgil S. Miles was born in Missouri in 1877 to parents J. C. Miles and Almira Dome, later traveling as a youth to Kansas, Oklahoma, and British Columbia before trying his hand at the cattle business in Wyoming. Seeking a milder climate, he relocated to Fresno County, California, where he learned the dairy industry working for local farmers before buying and developing his first twenty-acre property near Riverdale in 1910. He expanded his agricultural pursuits into apiculture around 1907, overcoming severe early losses to foulbrood disease to build a thriving apiary business alongside developing a second twenty-acre alfalfa tract near Lanare.

In the spring of 1919, Miles established his family at the Riverdale Parsonage property, moving a custom bungalow he built himself onto the site to create dual-family housing while supplementing his income with a local motor-truck freighting service. In 1910, he married Louise Perkins, a Carroll College graduate and certified California schoolteacher whose father had served as postmaster in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Together, the couple raised three children—Virgil Perkins, Gloria Louise, and Seward Corrington—while actively contributing to the civic and industrial life of Fresno County.