tour the cold war museum in warrenton, virginia. >> area 51 and the atomic bomb. every of 51 is a top secret u.s. government base in the nevada desert. technically, no one is allowed to go over there, it doesn't exist. >> sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on "american artifacts." then at 7:00, a discussion on writer russell kirk. >> i've discovered very early on from reading russell that for him, conservatives and was about far more than politics. politics was really the handmade of a decent society and a decent conservative. >> at 8:00 p.m. eastern, on the presidency. the anniversary of frank and war was about presidential -- franklin delano roosevelt's residential library. the anniversary in 1989. >> fdr renewed the charter of

the founders of our nation. the founders created a government of we the people. where depression and a great war, prices that could have led us in another direction. fdr strengthened the charter. >> this weekend, on "american .istory tv" on c-span3. this central californian city since halfway between stockton and los angeles. the first file soil of the sen. kaine: valley makes it the largest -- of the san joaquin valley makes it the largest agricultural area here. for the next hour we will hear from experts about the history of the city.

>> do you get the feeling that people realize how much comes out of this valley? >> i'm not sure. on the east coast, i expected it would surprise a lot of people that california is the top producing agricultural state in the nation. 39 million people live in this state now. when you think about the juxtaposition there with people, land development, the natural resource base, you think about all of that, and i'm sure a lot of people outside of california -- i'm not sure a lot of people outside of california, for that matter the west, understand it is the agricultural engine of the united states. we are on the chrisman ranch. this is where my father came

out. it was up in el dorado county. his brother came down here after -- after a couple trips in this region. he settled in this area, homesteaded in this area in the 1860's. and overflowedmp land. they filed on a section of land that was 640 acres. each filed on 320 acres. so, they settled. livestockly they were people and over time, their operation group. they were green growers. they had cattle. like a lot of people in this area -- this is -- this part of the central san joaquin valley, tulare county,--

the larry lake basin, at one point it was a huge oak forest. it was a swamp. most of the water was at surface level, maybe a little below. some of the early settlers came and settled back in the foothills. there wasn't a lot of economic activity here. what we are driving through a big producing county, the largest in the nation. we are here because of the deep, very rich alluvial soils. all of these crops we will be talking about today have to be irrigated. to bring in surface water and pump water. to pump water out of the area. war time working in this

industry, really going back to your family operating in this wreckage, what are some of the big it changes over time that can affect tulare county? >> it's not just the production capability. the cropping patterns. there's a lot of corn still grown in this neighborhood. cotton growing area. a lot of corn, a lot of green. the croppingre to patterns. there are changes in the ownership and the technology involved. enables farmers to do more precision planning. the irrigation system has become more efficient. water is always going to be

short. misterare mr. systems -- systems. >> what are some of the biggest changes -- challenges that farmers face out here? >> markets. we export in awful lot of what we grow here. last 30, 40, the 50 years and beyond developing wheat, agriculture in general, developing markets in asia, the ,uropean union, south america maintaining those markets, growing your product. what we do in california better than almost any place is growing a quality product. we are talking citrus, walnuts, pistachios, or whatever we are

talking about. it's the quality of the product we can offer to the consumer in the united states and around the world. and water will always be a challenge. we have just gotten through in california, the sustainable groundwater management act. in the process, we collectively, agriculture in the community put together a sustainable groundwater program pursuant to legislation the state passed, making sure we are not over drafting the water, making sure how we manage the groundwater will lead to sustainable -- sustainable supplies. for years, many, many years, we looked to the east. the mountains, the top of the the sierras top of right now, that's all snowcapped

in the winter. storms blow in from this area. they are from 5000 to 5000 and above. that water runs off. it is what has created the deep alluvial soil here in the valley. richso creates very groundwater. water there issues with shortages -- >> oh, yes. >> or has it been really good here? >> oh, yes. we certainly have. ,uring the most recent drought not onlythese wells, in the agricultural producing areas, but communities to the east of us and the south of us, wellsof the individual

went dry. the water table had dropped. that is something we have had to deal with. , without the us -- topion that we have for theg agriculture, most part, is created -- here in tulare county. >> how have some of the shakeups in trade between the u.s. and other countries around the world, has that affected anyone here? how are the shakeups viewed by farmers here? -- tariff battle did not help is at all. the uncertainty it brought to the market has essentially

created a very, very -- very, very year for the price that we got for products this year. i don't know about the other commodities. i do not know what it has done to citrus yet. this is the fort here to the left. -- particularly some of the nut product because we do export, whether it's pistachios or almonds, walnuts -- our industries have spent the last 30 or 40 years and beyond helping those markets and when you interject the uncertainty this whole battle brought to the marketplace, it helped destroy a lot of the work. it's about trust. people have to believe in you as a producer and what you are is of theo them

quality you say it is. what we spent time doing. hopefully it will get better next year. we think it will. we are the eternal optimists. >> what are these right here? >> those are persimmons right here. those are walnuts. how many commodities have come out of this? going to get this wrong. we always said it was between 275 and 300 different commodities we grow. you have the vegetable crops, the treat crops, the field crops, all of that -- >> labor -- >> that's another big issue. when you talk about the issues

we will be facing as an end is the. the whole issue around immigration, the need for a sustainable workforce we can our crops, acess big challenge ahead. frankly, we would like to see a more sustained proper -- program, the more that we recognize the need for foreign agricultural workers on a regular basis. try to cut down the illegal problem, you know, it we shall illegal immigration when it comes in to work. essentially, that is what we are hoping for, a more sustained workforce. people are going to earn more. if we do not have a diversified economy, we are getting more and

more diversified. as agriculture becomes more specialized, the demand for the more specialized workforce has grown. is what we have to deal with here. it is a challenge. if you look at most agricultural economies, particularly in the west here, we depend on a lot of farm labor. we are trying to diversify to bring in industry, industries that will help support the economy of a given area, provide jobs, move up the job chain. that is happening, too. what is the federal government's role out here? we're going to go out,

i'm going to take you out to the frankfurt can now which is the if it a mere. the central valley project was the dream of some of the water engineers hearing california in the 1920's and they helped develop some of the plans for and they-- for it, could not afford it. the federal government stepped in and in the 1940's and 50's .nd helped build the federal central valley project is the largest reclamation project solely within the confines of the state. dam ofersee the terminus the coin river. they manage a lot of the water

that comes into the irrigation districts. that is part of a flood control project. this was essentially owned .efore the dam was built they provide surface water for irrigation. it was groundwater here, but the amount of groundwater was not provide for the kind of production we see here now. you get out of feed trough of the valley, you get into the foothills, you get to shallower and shallower soils. water bringing in surface . so the. love reclamation essentially manages that. they oversee it.

the bureau of reclamation essentially manages that. they oversee it. have taken up the reclamation of the oversight and .he running of the districts see, this is a canal system that -- down the eastern side down through tulare county into kern county. there aredistricts -- cities, cities that take this water. lindsay down south of us in tulare county takes some of their drinking water from the canal. agricultural purposes. that is what has brought the wealth, the way we moved water

around, created the plugging systems. we produce a very high quality itd product, no matter what is we grow here in california and around the united states. water regulations that regulate what we do and how we grow our products, it is required in our beustries that industries involved in that process. it's very proactive hearing california. thate've got to maintain because that is what the consumer demands. cost.as increased the there are things we have to do to make sure we can produce those high-quality products. those of the kinds of challenges we are facing. those challenges have always been around, but they will be

around more and more. >> you talk about regulation -- >> everything we do is regulation. thepesticides we use, timing of the pesticide used on a given party -- given product. it will ultimately lead to some very -- pretty significant regulations dealing with how we manage water here in the united states -- i mean hearing california. >> are we talking about federal regulation? >> both. >> with so much work in an industry like this, do you feel that people who do farm, are they more in tune with what does go on in washington or sacramento?

>> we hope so. i always was. most of my neighbors were. we have various cooperatives and general organizations to band together to put together to put together various regulations have the issue of food safety and how do we regulate that. but were not overdoing it. we are producing a safe food product. it becomes non-economic for the grower to grow that product and to really -- in some cases, over regulating what we do. that is the challenge. what that speaks to is a need to

engaged in the regulatory process, both in sacramento and washington, d c -- washington, d.c. it has empowered our industries, individuals and industries involved in that process. here inactive california. >> the effects of the american civil war were far-reaching. the town of visalia was far away from the conflict, but tensions were high. terry ommen shares a piece of visalia's history. terry: this town was so hostile, that it was almost like we fought the civil war on the streets of visalia. when visalia was founded in 1852, the town was attracting a lot of settlers. many of the settlers came from southern states.

they brought their belief system with them in most cases. early on in visalia's history, a number of the settlers were supportive of states rights and slavery because of where they came from. there was obviously a conflict. california was a free state. visalia had split loyalties. some were union supporters, some were southern sympathizers. in the middle of basically nowhere. we are about 200 miles north of los angeles. 200 miles south of sacramento. we were in the middle of what i would consider the frontier of california. that became important.

a number of people used our area as hideouts, southern sympathizing gangs, and groups used the swamps east of town and mountains east of town as hideouts in their travels. we were pretty wide open for some problems with conflict dealing with especially the civil war. at the same time, we had some native american issues. we were occupying lands that the native americans occupied. as a result, there were some hard feelings and some problems. now, let's jump forward to 1860. what we have here is we have high emotions on both sides. we have the southern

sympathizers being terribly emotional about their side. and of course, the union folks believe strongly in what president lincoln was doing. but for the most part, we had a terribly divided town. and in those days, the newspapers, and we had two newspapers in 1860. one was the delta newspaper, one was the son. often times, newspapers picked political sides in those early years. and the delta tended to support the southern cause. and the sun supported the

northern cause. and so, the problem was that both sides, editorially, attacked each other on a regular basis. john shannon ran the delta newspaper. william governor morris was a contributor to the sun newspaper. and those two had a standing feud going on editorially. in fact, a humorous story, the sun had a motto. "it shines for all," that was the newspaper motto. shannon wrote in his newspaper a criticism of that, "shines for all, yes, in like mannered as decayed fish in a dark night. it shines and stinks and shines to stink again." in november of 1860, the 2 men

confronted each other. both of them were armed. both of them were very upset with each other. and john shannon was killed by william governor morris right on the streets of visalia. so i think that was probably in my mind the first battle in visalia in the civil war. later the same year, another newspaper came to be. the delta was there, the sun was there. now we have the equal rights expositors. another newspaper supporting the south. and that they were so critical of the north, abraham lincoln and his administration banned the equal rights expositors from the u.s. mail. which basically meant the paper could only be distributed within the town of visalia and could

not leave on the stage delivering u.s. mail. they wanted to isolate the problem, so they banned the paper. but it continued to lambaste the union side. one year later in 1863, it was destroyed by an angry mob of visalians. they went to the newspaper, threw the equipment in the streets, and that was the end of equal rights expositors. just prior to that, the town had received such bad press and publicity that loyal union folk decided to tell the u.s. government, "you have to do something about this town. our town is going over to the other side.

you better deal with it before it gets even more out of hand." and so in 1862, a couple dozen union troopers from camp independence crossed the sierra and marched into visalia. the union folks supporters celebrated. the southern sympathetic folks were angry at that move. eventually, the soldiers created camp babbitt, one of the few civil war posts created in california. it was set up right here in visalia. at one point, there were several hundred troopers stationed here. in a sense it was martial law, because they were right on the

edge of town but when they were off-duty they would come into town in their uniforms, which would antagonize the southern sympathetic folks. they called them lincoln's pups. they would antagonize them to no end, they would yell at them, be very angry toward them. and they would intentionally hoorah for geoff davis, who happened to be the president of the confederacy. that would antagonize the soldiers. they had these people openly supportive of the enemy. they would arrest the citizens that made those comments and take them to the camp at the

guardhouse. they would now put them into the guardhouse. and before they would be allowed to leave, they would have to recite the oath of allegiance for the union. well, the southern sympathizers realized early on that it was a ticket out of the guardhouse. so without any real strong emotion behind it, it would go through the motions of reciting that both of allegiance and off they would go. as they would leave, they would hoorah for geoff davis again. it became almost a game. but a serious game with weapons involved often times. one incident that really became nationally covered, and became

very well known here and elsewhere, was the incident involving a sergeant with the union troopers and a businessman named james wells. james wells had been one of the original founders of the town. he was well-established, well-respected. he was a strong southern sympathizer. keep in mind, the loyalties and the emotion was so high. friends would turn into enemies over the issue. james wells and charles strobel,

a sergeant, one day met each other on the streets of visalia, the main street. and they exchanged words. hostile words. and so the soldiers then confronted james wells. james wells says "i am unarmed, i didn't mean anything by it, i was critical of you. but, you know, emotions are high." the soldiers began to walk away. wells pulled out a hidden revolver and shot charles strobel after the soldiers were walking away. that incident was covered nationally. and it played into the the violent reputation the town had. by this time, the town was known as the charleston of the west. it was because of its strong southern sympathies. and so that was an incident, an incident that they said it was so bad -- they pointed to the visalia incident as the incident that was going to drive californians to the slavery

side. people that were friends became enemies. i mean, we hear about on the east coast brothers fighting against brothers. we almost had the same thing here with the citizens of visalia. so it was pretty nasty times. and there were some pretty dark years for visalia. i always find it interesting how when abraham lincoln was shot in 1865, assassinated, you would

have thought there would been a divided town. some would have cheered, some would have been saddened. the town actually came together. visalia had a little bit of class, in the sense that they said assassination is not the way to go. we had a ceremonial procession for abraham lincoln with a symbolic coffin and wagon. and both the north and south joined in the procession. it was a high point for a rather low time in visalia history. that was a positive step. because it had become so hostile that i really doubted whether our town, that had only been a town for a decade, i couldn't see how it could survive what they were going through in that 1861-1865 period.

it told me that we had capable leadership on both sides of the issue. that said, "we have to do something to save our town." they did it. announcer: the cities tour staff recently traveled to visalia, to learn more about its history. suzanne: we are headed today in downtown visalia. shopping malls were starting to spring up and people were moving outside of the town center. visalia made a very conscious effort to make sure that their downtown stayed very vital. so merchants on the downtown area in main street, you will tend to see locally-owned shops,

restaurants, and entertainment venues. we have the fox theater. fox theater is one of the anchors of our downtown, an icon for downtown. we have the united states post office, which is an art deco building built in the wp a -- -- wpa era. we have a sapling from a grove of trees. this is a federal building. a federal employee, the superintendent would spend his winters down here working out of an office in the basement. and we had a bit of a roll in getting sequoia designated -- a bit of a role in getting sequoia designated as a national park.

a local newspaper man started the movement to protect the trees from logging. this building that is catty corner to us to the left, the second floor was always a hotel on the ground floor was always retail. i mentioned a little bit about visalia's historic connection to the national park. in 1915, the vice president came to visalia. the second floor had not been changed. the point of the journey was to emphasize how the national parks had been designated, were falling into disrepair because they were not under one umbrella. mather was pushing for the creation of what would become the national park service, all

these properties under one management directive, and the preserved for the american people throughout time. that is a great historic building their, and really just solidified our connection to our national park neighbors. >> i came to tulare county because it's youthful here. i love the town of visalia. it was a town when i came here and it became a big city of 150,000. i watched it grow up. it still has a hometown, small town feel. around this book "a walk visalia."

it is about 10 different walks we can take. this town town area is especially appealing. it's full of independent restaurants. independent stores. all doing a dig business here. we fixed up the fox theater right down the way there, have shows there all the time. we are standing in front of the present-day office. we are standing in front of the visalia office, present-day office. was founded in 1852 when there were 548 people living here. the history is interesting. there were several papers at that time. one paper took it to the south and the other paper took it to

the north. the conflict was severe enough here. downforce by celia, and they actually enforce it in auto ways. in one time at the 1860's, the southern sympathizing paper put out an editorial that was very much against lincoln. the union soldiers came in to town and tour the presses out and threw them on the street. that was up and running again. it was still a lot of conflict. essentially the two papers, the southern paper in the northern paper emerged and that's how we get the the visalia times delta. a newspaper men.

he owned the visalia times delta. he ran it for a long time. so famous we have a street named after him. this house is now occupied by owners, it was a bed-and-breakfast for a while. we are standing in front of the county library built in 1936. this was part of the wpa funded building program. it's a beautiful building. it turned into the children's wing of the newer library that was added to it in 1976. the original library was down on main street and built in 1902.

in 1936 and moved here. behind me is the annexed to the courthouse. the courthouse itself was destroyed in a small earthquake. they are rare but they do happen. the courthouse where they had jailed a man named corey. he was not a good guy. when he was in his cups he took it out on other people. he went into a bar in shot a man three times and laughed about it.

this made the citizens of visalia mad. they put them in the courthouse here, and the citizens wanted to take their own justice. they overpowered the guards, dragged him out and hung him over a bridge right at this corner here. they dropped him and broke his neck. nice to bring them down here, people can't get to the mountains. the visalia post office was built in the 1930's as part of the wpa. you can see it's a beautiful building. a lot of work goes into it.

the cement work, the brick work. they really did a lot of work. it's still an active post office. it is not the main post office anymore. on each side of the post office, they planted two trees. behind it is a sequoia. they are the largest trees in the world. the general sherman tree is -- this is a smaller specimen that has been here for about 8090

years. we are standing in the lobby of the fox theater built in 1926, built as one of many fox theaters throughout california. it has been abused and badly used for years when a nonprofit group took over and remodeled it and refurbished it. we have elephants. all kinds of special wooden carving. let's take a look inside. exotic themes and mythological elements, injection architecture. palm trees and giants above the stage.

just an amazing conglomeration of fun things. it has acoustics and the symphony. as well as many other groups. there are many beautiful places to see this town. when i moved here there were 30,000. a lots of independent people doing independent restaurants. and we have hereby sequoia and

kings canyon national parks, yosemite is not far away. it's only a couple of hours in the direction. it is a great place to be and a wonderful place to live. >> san joaquin valley, of course, is a breadbasket of the world, we like to say. tulare county is the second largest producer of agriculture. we have walnuts, pistachios, pecans. those are what we are going to first see as we leave town. then we start to get into the citrus area. we will have orange, lemons, limes. as we are driving along we are , starting to see some young crops here. we are walnuts, pistachios, growing throughout here.

although it feels flat, we will go up a little bit and get into the citrus fruit. we are seeing some citrus. they citrus 12 months a year. we are the number one navel orange producer. many people are surprised at that. they think florida. but in fact -- the oranges are very strong here. the problem, this is the challenge, water is an issue. many people in the big cities don't want our water to be wasted by our farmers, as they say. there is a discussion about the best use of the water and whether we are able to store as much water as we need for our farms to grow. not only does it look beautiful,

definitely today, i would much rather feed our locally grown fruits and vegetables and other crops than import from somewhere else. >> this is the oldest state park in california. is home to the farm g museum. ad here, we learn about some of the people who have contributed to the agricultural industry. >> my folks were farmers with no money. so, he took his family, as well -- she had two children at that time -- and they headed west. >> my father and my grandmother from japan.ry early that made my father a natural born citizen.

>> this is a little bit unique from other agricultural museums and that we focus on people and their contributions. we want to highlight the diversity here into larry county. there are six different groups that will be highlighted series.ut this rotating the groups that were selected to be highlighted, they are groupsely not the only that have contributed to agriculture. they are the groups where we have been able to go out into the italian committee -- community or the croatian community and get history from them. although this is a wide range of cultures, it's definitely not limited to these cultural groups. the very first group or the native americans.

when they did not really do farming and things like that, they were hunter gatherers and had their own techniques. since they were not able to farm at that time, they were able to use the laminate. our korean exhibit, creating a fruitful legacy. this focuses on the korean cultural group, leading up to the history of the migration here to to larry county through the present day. people, when -- hereto tulare present day.h the people, when they enter, they through 2003.up it addresses when korean immigrants were first leaving korea, some of the reasons that may have happened.

be a huget could contributor factor. 1904, 1903 was the first migration, which initially was then toi, and california. wherewas a large group they worked with citrus and had house and they created a new hybrid fruit. at the time, that was a very large community in the 1900s. family -- yous a can see they had quite a few children. wasthing that was important all of their children graduated from high school, which was not something common at that time. it was something they were really proud of and really

prominent in their community. there were several churches dedicated to the korean culture where they could get together, feel a sense of within their community there. this is the information about the other town where many of the korean immigrants settled in these photos are from the 1950's. the kimw -- you can see brothers packing house. that was a pretty major operation there during the early 1900s. brothersee the kim here. , we workhe exhibits with the tulare county office of education.

do that soortant we we capture the oral histories so we can have those for the future to really see and how these immigrant groups came to tulare county and the impact that they had here. so about 2000 decided to hawaii for the mainland. --ut 500 or so [indiscernible] the early korean immigrants, several there. the videos is available for viewing in our theater. anyone can request them. we are happy to show them. i feel like one of the groups that had a really hard time were

the dust bowl migrants. i think that is because the people we interviewed, it wasn't their grandparents or their parents who came here and experienced all that. who went through that. talk about hard to those things and share uncomfortable history they were part of. they feel like they were groups that have a lot to overcome to get to a place where they could be proud of their history. i feel like these exhibits are really important because they give the museum a really close connection with our community. there are several families that may come in that maybe weren't involved, but they will see a shared experience that they had in their family, coming to

tulare county. they really do reflect to the community and give us that connection with the community here. this was created to dam some of the waters that flow in the springtime, to capture some of that water for use in the valley. be used forto recreation, but it's also important to us in the valley. one of the most important nationales was here in -- and the national park. it did flood some of the native american areas. they hold up some bedrock mortar . take acorns and

things like that. there are lots of locations where you see evidence of these native american cultures including hospital rock. they call it hospital rock because they assume the native americans used that as a measuredwhere you were as you are walking along. it's not common to find evidence of their life there in the mountains. recentcities tour staff travel to visalia, to learn more about its rich history. learn more about visalia and other stuffs on arch were at www.c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv. all weekend every weekend on c-span3.

>> this weekend on "american the cold," a visit to war museum and warned, virginia. here's a preview. >> as a result of my father being who he was, lieutenant gary powers, we have this -- we the fae booster stage of two. the actual missile is 80 feet long. this booster is all we can fit in the museum at this time. it gives you an idea with this model, the booster section is on the end. it gives you an idea of what this component was for. my father was able to survive being shot down because it was not a direct hit. if it had been a direct hit he

would have been in little pieces. it damaged retail section. the nose pitches forward. the wings break off. dad falls from 75,000 feet to about 35,000 people for ailing out. he did not use the ejection seat your if he did, that would have severed his legs on the way out. that opens up the canopy, i'm does his harness. caught up by his air hose. struggling to get free. breaks free, all through the opens.e, parachute he's very lucky to have lived through the chute down. program at 6entire p.m. and 10 p.m. eastern on "american artifacts" -- only on c-span3. ♪

>> i am always enthralled iv senate chamber -- the why the chamber -- senate chamber itself. >> c-span's new was book "the senate," takes you through the senate wing of the capitol, it's rich details, meeting rooms. this book is full of keepsake photos of the art and architecture that pervade of the senate space. to order your high-quality copy of "the senate," visit www.c-span.org/senatebook. ," the caseon "q&a that brought him vice president spiro agnew in 1973. we believed we could indict

the vice president. we believe he was not immune from prosecution, and in fact, his lawyers, among the defense decisions they took was that he could not be prosecuted, he was cloaked with immunity. agnew did not want to go to jail and he had this get out of jail free card. what was that? this is watergate. richard nixon was a walking dead man, politically speaking. it was only a matter of time. most everybody understood, before he would be forced out of office. that would makes bureau agnew, his vice president, who we have under investigation, president. can you imagine how the country president nixon, a crook leaves office, vice president agnew, a quick, becomes president? >> tomorrow

>> next on american history tv, a panel composed of two indian tribal chiefs, a historian, a curator, and an anthropologist present their views in a discussion entitled, "pocahontas: cross-cultural ambassador." co-hosted by american evolution and marking the 400th anniversary of key events in virginia.