Sagniere, Joseph

Joseph Sagniere, born in Gap in the Hautes Alpes, France, in 1856, was a highly skilled French-American viticulturist who became one of the best-posted vineyardists in Fresno County, California. He learned the rudiments of viticulture from his father, Fidele Sagniere, and inherited amiable qualities from his mother, Marie Sagniere, who passed away when he was ten years old. Before immigrating to America, he attended public schools, practiced vine pruning and grafting, and completed a year of military service in the French army with the Sixth Artillery. In 1887, he arrived in the United States, working briefly in Los Angeles and spending three years logging around Lake Tahoe in Carson City, Nevada. He moved to Fresno in 1891, where he engaged in the wholesale liquor trade by forming Boudreau and Company with partner Jean Trout, working for Mr. Bronge, and eventually starting the Fresno Family Liquor Store.

After operating his liquor business for eight years, Mr. Sagniere sold his interests to focus entirely on agriculture and move into a neat house he erected on his property. Through years of personal experimentation, he mastered vine propagation and became capable of grafting any vine onto wild stock. He expanded his original twenty-acre ranch by purchasing an additional thirty-two and a quarter acres in the Garfield district, managing a total of fifty-two and a quarter acres dedicated to muscats, malagas, and peaches. His properties utilized the Enterprise Ditch for irrigation, and he served the local farming community as a director for the Colonial Helm Ditch and as an active member of the California Associated Raisin Company. He managed these successful ranching operations with the assistance of his son, Joseph Sagniere, Jr., whom he raised with his wife, Rosalie Trenquier, while also participating locally as a Republican and a member of the Fresno Lodge, B. P. O. Elks.