Upcoming Porterville Visalia Portal to Portugal Tulare's leaders want to make sure people in their rural town doesn't forget their roots. The farmhouse on Road 112 shows its age.
White paint flakes off the siding, exposing century-old wood.
The structure tilts to one side, teetering almost off its foundation. But McCarthy's hesitant to ask its current residents, whom she's never met, for her first tour. It's where her grandfather, Manuel Tavares, settled at the turn of the century to raise his 11 children and start the town's first Portuguese-owned dairy. I've driven past it hundreds of times, and it always made me smile. This is where my family's history in this country began.