Click on an image to see full page    Our Bountiful Valley Mural    (Mural-In-A-Day)    29 x 18 ft., acrylic, Oct. 2007    Manteca, CA	Our Bountiful Valley Mural This Mural-In-A-Day project was painted in Manteca, CA on October 21, 2007. Manteca is a farming community in the heart of California's large, fertile central valley, the San Joaquin Valley. The town is now being rapidly suburbanized as housing tracts replace many of the surrounding fields. The mural is a tribute to the history and evolution of the Valley and of Manteca. The first residents were the Yokuts Indians, represented by one of their beautiful and intricate basket designs. The first European Americans were fur trappers from the Hudson Bay Company, represented by a trapper image taken from an antique daguerrotype of an actual California fur trapper. Later came farmers and ranchers. One of the first homes in the area was the house built on the Salmon Ranch in 1866. That house still stands and is shown in the mural underneath the Yokuts basket. The two sepia tone images show a harvesting machine on the Salmon Ranch being pulled by horses, and a group of field workers harvesting a crop by hand.