The Underground Tour: Baldassare Forestiere (1879-1946) left his hometown of Filari in Sicily with a fourth grade education. He came to the United States in search of his fortune.
Unable to find a job, he became a subway digger in New York City. Baldassare, however, had a dream. His father was a citrus mogul and he too wanted his own a farm. He saved enough money to move to California where he was told citrus grew well. He found a great steal of a property -- 80 flat acres of land in Fresno. The paperwork signed and his savings gone, Baldassare began to dig; he found nothing more than 'hardpan' five feet deep.
With no house and no money, Baldassare dug himself a three room hole because it was cooler -- and cheaper -- to live underground. Like most men descended from the Romans, he still dreamed of citrus trees, underground caverns, and building a restaurant.
For the next seventeen years, Baldassare had a day-job digging ditches and working on other farms around Fresno. During his free time, he dug underneath his own land. He never married, never had children, and spent the bulk of his time digging until 37 years later he had dug himself 80 acres of underground passageways, replete with citrus trees that he could sell at the market.
The good news: beneath the first five feet of hardpan, Baldassare discovered fertile soil. He planted an orange tree inside his underground, allowing the sun to beam down from a skylight between passageways. His attempt was successful. From there, he planted an unknown quantity of trees, which included kumquats, lemons, grapefruit, Jujuba, Carob, and Grape vines. He also experimented with creating blended trees: three different seeds twining together and rising above the skylight, where the fruit could be picked at street level like shrubs.
Baldassare's underground trees received less sunlight, so they tended to blossom a bit later in the season -- allowing him to corner the market during the off season and even quit his day jobs in order to exclusively sell his produce -- after the first 17 years of digging.
Baldassare also created a quaint home for himself underground. He built arched passageways like the ancient Romans that curved to promote good air flow. He built a water well and a pond where he could save his fresh catch of the day from the nearby river. He had not one, but two bedroom caves -- one for the summer and the other for winter. One bedroom and some passageways had peek holes so that Baldassare could see visitors before they saw him. Baldassare also brought down a bath tub, a stove, and eventually had electricity wired throughout his living space.
He had hoped to create a restaurant and hotel, but that never materialized despite the large driveway ready to receive cars for valet parking. He died at the age of sixty in 1946. His descendants have created only 5 acres worth of the underground tunnels into a museum. They don't allow pictures, except for personal use, so I respect that here -- no slideshow today. But if you happen to be in Fresno, you can find all the information you need at their website: www.undergroundgardens.com
It's a California Historical Landmark and well worth the visit!
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