The massacre at Burton’s bar

For The Madera Tribune

In 1890, L.O. Sharp, shown here on the right, was Madera’s postmaster. Thirteen years earlier, as a constable, he was trying to clean up the mess from a barroom brawl in the hills.

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In October of 1877, the Madera County portion of the San Joaquin Valley was almost deserted. Madera had just celebrated its first birthday, and its neighbors, Berenda to the north and Fresno to the south, each were only five years older. In between these fledgling communities were the sparsely settled “Fresno Plains,” so named because of their proximity to the Fresno River. Pioneer life on the Valley floor was just beginning as the last quarter of the 19th century dawned.

In the foothills, however, it was a different story. Communities such as Coarsegold, Finegold, Fresno Flats, and Buchanan were well established by the time that civilization reached the valley, and the usual institutions of organized society — churches, schools, and sewing circles — had long ago transformed these rugged little mining camps into full-fledged towns. Standards of common decency prevailed, and by 1877, Eastern Madera County had shed its frontier garb and wrapped itself in the clothing of civility — except for places like McKeown’s Store.

McKeown’s, located on the Fresno River at the Millerton Road Crossing, had a rough reputation. For years it provided a back-woods haven for outlaws and other ne’er-do-wells. John Burton, the proprietor, always had his hands full, trying to keep peace in his saloon, and generally he did a pretty fair job, until that fateful evening in 1877, when knives flashed and pistols cracked in one of this county’s bloodiest barroom brawls.