Walley, Granville Hartman

Granville Hartman Walley, born near Valley Forge in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on January 6, 1850, was a pioneer contractor and builder who helped shape the early infrastructure of Fresno County. He learned the carpenter’s trade in Philadelphia at age sixteen before moving to La Salle County, Illinois, in 1870 to work in Ottawa and farm eighty acres in Iroquois County. Driven by gold rushes and venture, he survived an Indian attack on his way to the Black Hills in 1876, worked in Leadville and Maysville, Colorado, and ultimately arrived in California in the fall of 1879 before settling in Fresno by the spring of 1880.

In Fresno County, Granville engaged in real estate, farm improvement, and extensive contracting, erecting over two hundred buildings across the San Joaquin Valley. His notable construction work included the Meade, Ball, and Fisk blocks, the Tubercular Ward at the County Hospital, and major brick commercial buildings in Fowler, Selma, Coalinga, and Kerman. Married in Colorado to Mary Kraft, with whom he had daughters including Katie and Mrs. George Donohue, he also ventured to Alaska during the 1898 Nome gold rush before retiring to manage his property holdings in Fresno and Coalinga.