Traver, CA

Traver is a Tulare County community in the middle of California's San Joaquin Valley, surrounded by orchards, vineyards, field crops, and the long irrigation lines that make the valley productive. The town began in 1884 when the 76 Land and Water Company completed its main canal beside the Southern Pacific Railroad. Charles Traver, one of the company's directors, supplied the name. Within a year, the new settlement had a commercial district and hundreds of residents, but an 1887 fire and the appearance of alkali in nearby soils complicated the first boom.

Traver kept going as a shipping and warehousing point along the railroad, even as nearby Reedley and Dinuba drew farmers toward newer rail towns and trucking replaced much agricultural freight. Today State Route 99 and the Southern Pacific line still give Traver a transportation spine, while the surrounding fields remain the central fact of local life. The community's highway frontage includes roadside stops, a specialty cheese-maker, and agri-tourism businesses. Traver is a San Joaquin Valley place built from water and rail, tested by fire and soil, and still working the agricultural landscape around it.