No eerie tales for Edison High

Published online on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009

Q: I've heard stories that the land Edison High School is built on was an old cemetery or housed a mental hospital. I tend not to believe either story, but are they true?

-- Jeannette Forbes, Fresno

A: Edison High School was built on its current location at 540 E. California Ave. around 1927.

The 1913-26 Polk city directory for Fresno lists a home owned by Peter Engelman at 545 E. California Ave. in 1915, but it was vacant in 1916, said Bill Secrest Jr., author and librarian in the California Genealogy and History Room in the Fresno County Library's downtown branch.

"There was nothing at that location," Secrest said -- no graveyard or asylum -- when the high school was built.

The school that would eventually become Edison High was originally a seventh- and eighth-grade school at B and Mono streets, according to the Fresno Schools Directory.

In about 1923, the school was moved -- apparently to a parcel between Jones Avenue and California Street, across from the current campus -- and was renamed Edison Technical School. The school wasn't officially called Edison High School until 1945.

Q: What is the purpose of the purple and green metal cylinders I've seen in some median islands in Clovis?

-- Sue Love, Clovis

A: The cylindrical metal objects are covers that enclose air-release valves on underground water lines, said Rob Rush, utilities manager for the city of Clovis.

The valves are needed to release pockets of air that build up inside the water lines, Rush said.

Some of the covers are green "because that's the color they come in," Rush said. But valve covers on the city's recycled water lines are painted purple as a warning that the recycled water is not safe for drinking, he said. Recycled water is used to irrigate landscaping in the medians.