Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 40th most populous in California, and 192nd in the United States.

[12] The area around Visalia was first settled by the Yokuts and Mono Native American tribes hundreds of years ago.

In 1859, Visalia was added to John Butterfield's Overland Stage route from St. Louis to San Francisco.

Included in the early citizens were some notorious and nasty individuals who preyed upon the travelers along the Butterfield Stage route.

Visalians then could get timely information of the events taking place on the East Coast that would ultimately develop into the Civil War.

The federal government, however, was not so easily convinced, and reacting to concern about sedition, banned Visalia's pro-South Equal Rights Expositor newspaper and established a military garrison.

Camp Babbitt was built in 1862 to stop overt Southern support and maintain law and order in the community.

[22] In 1893, the train bandits and murderers John Sontag and Chris Evans were apprehended, badly wounded, outside Visalia in what is called the Battle of Stone Corral.

Sontag died three weeks later in police custody in Fresno; Evans was sent to Folsom State Prison.

[24] In October 1933, Visalia was the site of a fact-finding committee appointed by Governor James Rolph and charged with investigating labor violence in the San Joaquin cotton strike.

The hilliest parts of the Visalia area are the Venice Hills and the entire Sierra Nevada foothills east of the city.

The Friant-Kern Canal runs just east of the city along the western edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Visalia enjoys plenty of sunshine throughout the year, with an average of only 26 days with measurable precipitation annually.

[29] Visalia averages 10.32 inches (262.1 mm) of precipitation annually, which mainly occurs during the winter and spring (November through April) with generally light rain showers, but sometimes as heavy rainfall and thunderstorms.

While the Sierra Nevada mountains farther east in Tulare County tend to receive snow every winter, snowfall is extremely rare in Visalia.

The team has had nine names, most of which reflected its changing major-league affiliates, most recently the Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies, Oakland A's, Tampa Bay Rays, and Diamondbacks.

[37] Owing to geography Visalia suffers from air pollution in the form of smog, agricultural and other particulates.

The Visalia area and the rest of the San Joaquin Valley are susceptible to atmospheric inversion, which holds in the exhausts from road vehicles, airplanes, locomotives, manufacturing, and other sources.

More recently, the state of California has led the nation in working to limit pollution by mandating low emission vehicles.

Particulate pollution can also be high during the winter due to frequent low-level inversions and during longer periods of dry weather.

Much of the European American population is of German, Irish, English, Italian, Russian, Polish, and French descent.

[65] The census indicated that 70.9% spoke English, 12.1% Spanish, 1.0% Lahu, 0.8% Mien, 0.7% Hmong, 0.6% Laotian and 0.5% Tagalog as their first language.

[69] Light manufacturing and industrial/commercial distribution represent the fastest growing portion of Visalia's employer base.

[73] It is also home to the Visalia Vapor Trailers, the longest-active official National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) car club.

California State Route 99, known as the Pearl Harbor Survivors Memorial Freeway, is the major north–south highway that heads north to Fresno and south to Bakersfield.

California State Route 198 runs east to Sequoia National Park and west to San Lucas.

California State Route 63, Mooney Boulevard, heads north towards Orosi and Kings Canyon National Park, and south to Tulare.

Originally planned to be at-grade, the High-Speed Rail Authority has now built a viaduct crossing California State Route 198, which the station will be situated atop.

[93] The railroad primarily serves the Visalia Industrial Park, on the western side of the city limits.

The railroad ceased operation by October 1900, a victim of competition and an accident with a wandering calf on May 7, 1900, which injured several people.