Sierra Summer School
By Savannah Nakamura, Henry Madden Library
In the earliest years of Fresno State’s history, students escaped the Central Valley heat at Sierra Summer School in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains. Beginning in 1914, only three years after the Fresno State Normal School first began enrollment, students and faculty packed up and headed into the wilderness for six weeks of classes. In 1918, the Normal School leased a piece of land from the federal government at Huntington Lake in the Sierra National Forest — today just an hour and a half drive up Freeway 168. Located at an elevation of 7,000 feet, Sierra Summer School provided opportunities for learning and adventure for Fresno State students.
During the six weeks at Sierra Summer School, students took six credits with an emphasis on art, biological sciences, geology, music and nature study. Most of these classes were, according to the 1929 class catalog, “conducted in the open among the beautiful pine and fir trees.” Outside of class, students enjoyed a library, an open-air theater, basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, croquet and tennis courts. Students also wrote and edited a weekly newspaper, The Sierran. The close proximity of Huntington Lake provided opportunities for boating and swimming, and the lake was well stocked so visitors could fish. On the weekends, faculty and students enjoyed hikes to nearby sights, including Twin Lakes, Mount Givens, Florence Lake, Mono Creek Dam and the McKinley Grove big trees. During other times of the year, the Huntington Lake campsite also served as the annual preseason football camp.
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Students attending Sierra Summer School stayed in tents with board floors provided by the School, or in the cottages and tents at the nearby Lakeshore Resort or Camp Cedar Crest. Many students also chose to camp at the nearby public campground. A cafeteria on the Sierra Summer School campus provided meals, but some students preferred cooking over a campfire in the great outdoors.
The final week of the summer sessions ended with a presentation of a play or music performance by the students at the Sierra Forest Theater, and a graduation ceremony and banquet to celebrate the graduating class.
Sierra Summer School ran through the summer of 1950, with a short interruption during World War II. Thereafter, Fresno State relocated the summer courses to different campuses around the Valley, including Fresno State, Bakersfield Junior College, College of the Sequoias in Visalia and Merced Junior College. While Fresno State no longer offers the Sierra Summer School program, Valley residents can still visit Huntington Lake and hike and swim the beautiful Sierra Nevada region that some of the earliest alumni enjoyed.
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