The Edna Wade Project was launched October 2003 in honor of the lady who researched information of the first families to relocate from the south to Tulare in the early 1920’s. About the Author Edna Louder was born in 1924 to the union of John and Emma Louder the family quickly relocated to Tulare in 1925 first sharecropping on a small ranch just outside of the then city limits. Edna would later write about her father John growing cotton on the farm before learning of lots being offered inside the city limits in the new Lincoln Tract area, the lots were being offered for twenty to thirty dollars some at the price of fifteen dollars, recalled Mrs. Antoinette Chatmon during an interview with the Tulare Advance Register. The property (lots), which were first purchased by Mr. James Sims and his nephew Mr. Author King as a development plan for the area which a large group of African American families had began to settle the hopes were to allow those who wish to build and own their own homes to do so. Edna and her family took up residence on R Street by 1928; there she would remain until completing her education in the Tulare Public Schools. Edna began recording the early history of her family and others creating a valuable book of scrape which after her death in 1999 became the foundation for the Edna WadeProject
We hope you enjoyed our look at to Black History of Tulare (Edna Wade Project). The project is a product of many hours of research and collaboration with the Tulare Public Library and Edna Wade recorded information in her scrape books, with recalled events of earlier days from Jeanie King Brooks, Eleanora O’Keith Smith, Leroy Young, Lillian Baugh, Jerry Carolina & Others.
We hope you will find the contents of this Web Site both informative and entertaining. We once again welcome you and thank you for your time in viewing our project.
We wish to express our deepest appreciation of being awarded a grant from the Tulare County Historical Society for use of up keeping our website along with researched and pamphlets distributions. We are pleased beyond words as to being recognized and found to be worthy of such an honor.
