KINGS COUNTY
This county, now appearing under its English form, originally received its name from the river, which was discovered by a Spanish exploring party in 1805, and called by them El Río de los Santos Reyes (the river of the Holy Kings), in honor of the “three wise men.”
A considerable part of the area of this county was at one time covered by Tulare Lake, but the shrinkage of that body of water through the withdrawal of its sources of supply have added nearly the whole of the territory occupied by its waters to the arable land of the county. This subject is further discussed under the head of Tulare.
EL RÍO DE LOS SANTOS REYES (THE RIVER OF THE HOLY KINGS).
“ ... named in honor of the three wise men.”
The river seems to have been known at one time as the Lake Fork, by which name Fremont mentions it in the following paragraph: “We crossed an open plain still in a southeasterly direction, reaching in about twenty miles the Tulare Lake river. This is the Lake Fork, one of the largest and handsomest streams in the valley, being about one hundred yards broad, and having perhaps a larger body of fertile lands than any of the others. It is called by the Mexicans El Río de los Reyes. The broad alluvial bottoms were well wooded with several species of oaks. This is the principal affluent of the Tulare Lake, a strip of water which receives all the rivers in the upper or southern end of the valley.”