Black History Festival

Celebrate our history and culture in a place that was once an all black town established in 1908. Learn, tour historic buildings. Food, music, horse/buggy rides, dancing, poetry, and entertainment.

Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park is a state park unit of California, United States, preserving Allensworth, the only California town to be founded, financed and governed by African Americans. The small farming community was founded in 1908 by Lt. Colonel Allen Allensworth, Professor William Payne, William Peck, a minister; John W. Palmer, a miner; and Harry A. Mitchell, a real estate agent, dedicated to improving the economic and social status of African Americans. Colonel Allensworth (1842–1914) had a friendship with Booker T. Washington and was inspired by the Tuskegee Institute and development in its neighboring town. Allensworth hoped to develop the “Tuskegee of the West”. Uncontrollable circumstances, including a drop in the area’s water table, resulted in the town’s demise. Allensworth is now an unincorporated area in Tulare County. Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park is also an Amtrak conditional-flag-stop train station on the San Joaquin trains.