People at the bus stop on M Street at Courthouse Park might be surprised to know that just over their shoulders stood the gallows where, nearly 120 years ago, Fresno County carried out its only legal hanging.

People at the bus stop on M Street at Courthouse Park might be surprised to know that just over their shoulders stood the gallows where, nearly 120 years ago, Fresno County carried out its only legal hanging.

For one of Fresno's visionaries, opportunity knocked during a chance encounter in a barbershop in 1904.

Thought by many to be the grandest building in the central San Joaquin Valley, the old Fresno County Courthouse might also have been the most controversial.

As the nation sank into the Great Depression, Fresnans got a needed lift in 1931 when the legendary George Herman "Babe" Ruth came to town.

Built on the birthplace of Fresno, the Southern Pacific Railroad depot represents the city's transition from a dusty plains outpost to the West's leading agribusiness center. The 1889 depot is the city's oldest commercial building.