As the little town of Madera was growing up in the 19th century, several important politicians visited here. Presidents, former Presidents, and would-be Presidents met at Captain Mace’s hotel on the corner of E and Yosemite Avenue to begin a journey that would take them to the Big Trees and beyond. One of these was General Ulysses S. Grant, and before he left Madera, he met an old adversary that would one day become one of the founding fathers of Madera County.
On Oct. 1, 1879, just three years after the first building was built in Madera and six months after the first tourists traveled the Yosemite Stage and Turnpike line to the mountains, former President Ulysses S. Grant came to Mace’s establishment to catch the stage to Yosemite.
Traveling with a large party that included Flora Sharon, daughter of Senator William Sharon, Grant rolled into Madera at midnight on his special railroad car. He had sped down the Southern Pacific tracks from Stockton at the fantastic rate of 25 mph.