On May 16, 1893, Madera County was officially formed. On Tuesday, it will have been 130 years since that day.
This county did not just magically appear. There was a long process, and many efforts to unify this area into a county. Originally, there were 27 counties in California, and these counties were formed in 1850. Mariposa County was one of them, and this area was originally part of Mariposa County, which stretched from (what is now) the northern part of Los Angeles County to what we now know as Mariposa County. It was a huge area for a county. So, little by little, people withdrew, and nine counties emerged from the original very large Mariposa County. Today, Mariposa County is the smallest of the nine counties.
Madera became part of Fresno County after some of the counties seceded from Mariposa County. The division of Madera from Fresno County met with some debates and some tense conflicts, but there was a special election held on May 16, 1893, and the vote carried to establish Madera County.