Allensworth. To many, the name conjures images of a dusty town in the southern reaches of the county.

To those with a modest understanding of Tulare County history, the name evokes images of the struggle of black Americans to find a place for themselves after the Civil War — a quest to find a home.

For Steven M. Ptomey, Allensworth represents both an avocation and a vocation. And for a room full of people gathered today in the Porterville College Theater, it represented a lesson in local history during this, Black History Month.

The program, titled “Allensworth: A Community Founded on a Dream,” was presented by Ptomey, a state park interpreter with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

Ptomey, a former archaeologist and now the chief state official at the Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park in southwest Tulare County, presented an amended history of the town complete with personal anecdotes and a modest dose of intrigue.

The town was founded by a retired black Army colonel, Allen Allensworth, in August 1908. It was the first planned community in the nation started solely by blacks, and when founded was the first black community west of the Mississippi River.

Ptomey spoke of Allensworth’s partners in the town’s founding, presented a brief history of the community and added a personal touch throughout. He offered personal insights from both his time excavating the town and from his conversations over the years with the last original surviving Allensworth residents and their descendents.

The intrigue centered in the death of the town’s founder in 1914: He was hit by a motorcycle in Monrovia. Ptomey said it’s not clear if it was really an accident, or an effort to scare Allensworth as he went about the state, championing the cause of black Americans.

“That’s one of those things that history will never be able to prove or disprove,” Ptomey said.

Either way, Allensworth’s death was one of a number of critical incidents between 1912 and 1914 that ultimately undermined the viability of the community. Those incidents included a a drop in the underground water table, the railroad’s decision to move the area’s commercial stop from Allensworth to nearby Alpaugh, and the start of World War I that saw a mass exodus of the community’s youth.

The 40-minute program saw an audience comprised primarily of college-age people, with a smattering of older area residents and some just beginning their life’s lessons.

Denise Macias, 8, was the youngest in the theater. She was there with her mother, Rocio Macias, who was there to earn extra credit in one of her classes.

Macias’ daughter was at PC for Wednesday’s program because she was home sick from Vandalia Elementary School. But that didn’t prevent her from picking up some new information.

“I figured I’d bring her in so she could learn something,” Macias said of her daughter.

Denise sat quietly during the program. Before leaving the theater, she said the thing that struck her the most was a portion of the program during which Ptomey spoke about the relationship between the founders and early resident of Allensworth and the livestock they raised in the community.

The farm animals, Ptomey made very clear, were seen as food, not as pets or anything else.

The slide up on the screen during that portion of the talk showed an early Allensworth resident leading a cow by using a rope tethered to a nose ring. That’s the image — and explanation — that stuck in Denise’s mind.

Denise said she plans to share her experience with her friends at Vandalia.

The talk featured what Ptomey described as the Big H and the Little H, the former representing the more generic history of the town, its founding and its gradual demise, the latter representing the personal details only available by talking to, and reading the correspondence of, those who actually lived there.

Ptomey described the work to restore the original town church to its near-original state, focusing on a stained glass window shown in historical photos. Those excavating the site found only a few pieces of broken colored glass from the original window, but had no idea what the overall color scheme and pattern looked like.

At one point, Ptomey said he was visiting with an elderly man who lived in Allensworth during the community’s formative years, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. They were talking about the church, and the effort to restore the stained glass window.

“You’re looking in the wrong place,” the man said, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Ptomey pressed for details and discovered that the original window had been broken. After that, children in the community used to pick up the broken pieces and throw them into a nearby field as a form of childhood entertainment. The man pointed to the field and, sure enough, excavators found a collection of broken glass — literally a stone’s throw away.

Using what was found, they were able to piece together enough of the original window to get a sense of the color scheme and patterns represented in the stained glass. From there, a new window was crafted and included Masonic symbols hidden in the design.

Another incident involved work at one of the original homes in the town that burned to the ground in the 1930s. Ptomey said a descendent of the home’s resident was there while work was being done. Excavators found a cross on a necklace, and the woman proclaimed that it belonged to her grandmother.

The cross was hanging on her grandmother’s bedpost at the time of the fire and was never found, the woman said.

“That just doesn’t happen,” Ptomey said of the events surrounding the cross, its discovery and its identification.

He likened it to finding an arrow at an excavation site and having someone that’s there, who has first-hand knowledge, say it was used to fight Gen. George Armstrong Custer.

This was the last of four programs at the college associated with Black History Month.

Antonia Ecung, dean of academic affairs at the college, said she’s often struck by how much — or how little — community interest there is in the various programs presented at the college.

“Sometimes we have a lot of people from the community,” she said. “It’s interesting what people find interesting.”

She said Monday’s program on children’s literature, with a strong focus on African-American children’s literature, drew a sizeable number of people from off campus to the college theater.

That’s exactly what PC professor Richard Osborne hopes to do more of.

Osborne helped start the Cultural Historical Awareness Program at the college after visiting the World War II-era internment camp at Manzanar in California’s interior desert near Lone Pine, where Japanese-American were held during the war.

The visit, coupled with the lack of awareness among PC students of the camp’s historical significance, led to a CHAP-supported program on Manzanar in 2002. The program in 2003 focused on Allensworth, in 2004 on the Vietnam era, and in 2005 returned to the Manzanar theme.

After that the focus shifted to programs centered on specific decades: the 1930s in 2006, the 1940s in 2007, and the 1950s during this, the 2008-09 academic year.

Today’s program on Allensworth, while not specific to the 1950s, saw CHAP’s involvement due to February’s designation as Black History Month.

“We do other programs as the opportunity arises,” Osborne said.

-- Contact Glen Faison at 784-5000, Ext. 1040, or gfaison@portervillerecorder.com.

Upcoming Programs
March 18: “Changing Roles of Women in the 1950s” with presenter Susan Regier, a PC language arts professor, noon to 12:40 p.m., PC Theater.
March 20: “Lucy’s Legacy: The Quest for Human Origins” with presenter Donald Johanson, director of the Institute for Human Origins, Arizona State University, 7 to 8 p.m., PC Gymnasium.
April 15: “It Came from the Cold War: Movie Monsters-50s Fears” with presenter Jay Hargis, a PC history professor, noon to 12:40 p.m., PC Theater.
April 17: “Wildlife and Human Life: Experiences of Isolated Duty in the Antarctic Region” with presenter George Brannan, a PC health careers professor, 7 to 8 p.m., PC Theater.
April 22: “Frozen Foods, Fast Foods and Street Rods” with presenter David Bezayiff, a PC history professor, noon to 12:40 p.m., PC Theater.
All programs are free and open to the public.