Visalia, California: Nat Vise's Town and the Mystery of '-alia'

Visalia, California, carries the name of Nat Vise, a hunter who settled there in 1852. Where the “-alia” came from is still unsettled, and the county’s historians could only list the guesses.

Nat Vise’s claim

In the county’s old histories, Vise comes across as a man who brought people with him. One pioneer, Gilbert Dean, remembered that his family came from Texas in a party led by Nat Vise. A 1913 history of Tulare and Kings counties, written by Eugene Menefee and Fred Dodge, says that when new settlers began arriving in 1852, Vise “induced most of these parties to accompany him to the neighborhood of his claim, where they could, he said, find better land.”

They liked it. The settlers got Vise to give up his title to the claim so they could lay out a town and make it the county seat, and they built a log stockade big enough to hold their wagons, for protection. An 1892 county history describes Vise in one line: the town “derived its name from Nat. Vise, a hunter who settled where the town now is in 1852.” Henry Gannett, writing for the U.S. Geological Survey in 1905, says the same, a bit shorter: “named for Vise, a hunter.”

Buena Vista lost the fight

You might expect the founder’s name to go on the town without a fight. It didn’t. According to Menefee and Dodge, most of the settlers wanted to name the place after Vise, but the county board of supervisors called it Buena Vista. For a few months the records went back and forth.

The name Visalia first turns up in August 1853, when the court of sessions divided the county into townships. That October the supervisors still ordered “that the seat of justice be Buena Vista.” Buena Vista appears for the last time in February 1854, and on March 11, 1854, the board granted a petition that the county seat be called Visalia. As the 1913 history puts it, “So much concerns the dispute over the name.”

Three guesses about the ending

So the Vise part is solid. The rest isn’t. Menefee and Dodge list three explanations people gave for how Vise turned into Visalia, and they don’t pick one:

• It’s Vise plus Sally, or Salia, said to be the name of Vise’s wife.
• It’s Vise plus “Sa-ha-la,” which some said was the Indian name for a sweat house. The book doesn’t say which language, and we couldn’t find a linguist who backs it up, so treat that one with care.
• It’s just Vise with the ending “-alia” tacked on, as in Vandalia or Centralia, because it sounded good.

If you’re hoping for a tiebreaker, there isn’t one in the old records. The settlers won the fight to put Vise’s name on the town, but the ending the name picked up along the way is still the one part nobody can explain.

Sources & further reading

• Eugene L. Menefee and Fred A. Dodge, History of Tulare and Kings Counties (1913), pp. 14-15. Vise leading settlers to his claim, the stockade, the Buena Vista dispute with its dates, and the three theories about the ending. Gilbert Dean’s memory of the party from Texas is in the same book’s early chapters.
• A Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern (1892). Visalia named for “Nat. Vise, a hunter,” who settled there in 1852.
• Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (USGS, 1905). “Named for Vise, a hunter.”
• GNIS feature 1652807 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal record: county seat of Tulare County in 1853, incorporated in 1874.