Summers in California's Central Valley are no joke, and in the early 1900s, there was no AC unit to save you. According to the NationalRegister of Historic Places, the official U.S. government database of historic sites, one Fresno property has been recognized since 1977 for how one man solved that problem. He went underground for 40 years straight.
His name was Baldassare Forestiere, and more than a century after he began digging, what he left behind still stands, tucked away in a quiet Fresno neighbourhood. Forestiere was born July 8, 1879, in a small hamlet, Filari, near Rometta, on the northeast corner of Sicily. He immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s after a falling out with his father.
