| Kerman has two murals located at the North and South entrances to town
on Madera Avenue. They were erected in 2001 and painted by Claudia
Fletcher.
The mural on the North end of town commemorates the Steam Boat J.R. McDonald's passage up the San Joaquin River to Skaggs Bridge in the early part of the 20th century. It was a major event that attracted many spectators. Today boats can not travel this far up stream because the river has since been damned at the base of the Sierra foothills to create Millerton Lake (info) which helps control flooding and supplies water for agricultural use to the San Joaquin Valley. The mural on the South end of Kerman harkens back to the early days when Kerman was a watering station for the railroad. The railroad still passes through Kerman today (crosses Madera Avenue near "A" Street) but the watering tower has long since disappeared. |
