Madera’s first physician

For The Madera Tribune

Dr. Brown’s tombstone in Madera’s Arbor Vitae Cemetery.

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When Madera was just six months old, it had no one to tend its wounds. It had 25 buildings, most of them dwellings, but no doctor to watch over the people who lived in them. Then, in April 1877, C.E. Brown came to town. Although it could hardly compare with the mining community of Buchanan, from whence he came, it had promise. That’s why he decided to remain and become Madera’s first physician. 

When Dr. Brown walked up the trail that was to become Yosemite Avenue on that April afternoon, it was already adorned by two saloons. Charley Strivens had a comfortable, neatly finished watering hole, and right next door was Mr. Sanford’s smaller establishment. Dr. Brown decided to put the latter out of business by buying him out. 

Once Sanford’s saloon belonged to him, Dr. Brown took every bottle of whiskey in the building and poured the contents out into the street. The dust and dirt of Yosemite Avenue quickly absorbed the liquor in that terrible drought year. Brown turned the former saloon into a pharmacy and proceeded to tend to the ills of Madera’s pioneer residents.