Former Sheriffs
Appointed: 1951-1955
Joe Tracy was born in Iowa on November 12, 1897, the youngest in a farm family of fourteen children.
In adulthood, he moved to Southern California, working in the chemical and oil business. He was later was employed at a movie studio.
In 1937, he became a U.S. Marshal in Los Angeles and was later transferred to the Fresno office. In 1950, he ran for sheriff and unseated George J. Overholt, who had held the office for 20 years.
Appointed: 1931-1951
George Overholt was born on Oct. 23, 1883, in Clark's Valley (Crawford Avenue north of Hwy 180), east of Sanger, where his father was a homesteader. He attended school in Clark's Valley, Centerville, Sanger, and Fresno, and later attended a business college in Pennsylvania.
After completing his education, he worked as a ranch manager, a hotel manager, and in administration for lumber companies in the Sierras of eastern Fresno County. In 1918, he was the campaign manager for sheriff's candidate William F. Jones.
Appointed: 1919 – 1931
William F. Jones was born in Tehama County, California, on July 31, 1874. His father died when he was 5, and at the age of 13, he left school and went to work making redwood shakes. Throughout the years, he worked his way up in the lumber industry, eventually managing logging camps in Shasta, Siskiyou, and Tehama Counties.
In 1907, he came to Fresno County, building and managing lumber mills in the area of Hume Lake. Having no prior law enforcement experience, he ran for sheriff in 1918, near the end of the Great War.
Appointed: 1915-1919
Horace Thorwaldson was born in Dupivog, Iceland, on Feb. 4, 1869. His father died in 1877, leaving a wife and ten children. In 1880, Thorwaldson's mother left Iceland with her children, settling in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, where they established a farm on the prairies of Pembina County.
In 1886, Horace left home and traveled to Seattle, where he apprenticed as a saddle and harness maker. He moved to Watsonville in 1893 and to Fresno in 1898, opening his own saddle and harness business.
Appointed: 1911-1915
Walter McSwain was born on his family's ranch on the Merced River below Snelling, on Oct. 4, 1865. In 1876, the family moved to Tulare Lake, where they ran sheep. Later they moved to Huron, where they operated sheep pens and built the first house in town.
They arrived in Fresno in 1881. McSwain worked on farms and in packing sheds, and later as a teamster in partnership with John Zapp, of Zapp's Park fame. In 1897, he was hired as a patrolman by the city marshall's office, the predecessor of the Fresno Police Department.
