City of Ceres

Ceres is a city in Stanislaus County, California. The population was 45,417 at the 2010 U.S. Census, up from 34,609 at the2000 U.S. Census. It is part of the Modesto Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Ceres is located in the San Joaquin Valley along State Route 99, south of Modesto and north of Turlock in Stanislaus County.Ceres is named after the Roman goddess of agriculture.

The newspaper in Ceres is called The Ceres Courier. It has been in publication since 1910. The offices of the Ceres Courier were relocated from an address in downtown Ceres in 2012. It has since combined day-to-day operations with its sister paper, The Turlock Journal, in Turlock, CA . Jeff Benziger was appointed Editor in 1987. There is also a Spanish-language paper.

Ceres hosts annual events at different times of the year. Spring brings the Ceres Street Faire on the first weekend in May. Concert in the Park is a regular summer event. Halloween Fun Festival marks the Fall followed by the colorful, and much-attended, Christmas Tree Lane opening ceremony.

History

The first non-native families that inhabited Ceres were those of John Service, Cassius Warner, and Daniel Whitmore in the year 1867. Daniel C. Whitmore is considered the first family and founder of Ceres. He built his home in 1870, the Whitmore Mansion at 2928 5th Street. That home still stands, fully restored by the city and the Ceres Historical Society.

In the early 1890s, the outlaws Chris Evans and John Sontag robbed a Southern Pacific Railroad train at Ceres and several other area locations.

In the late 1930s, a labor camp was developed within the city of Ceres.

The history of Ceres is recounted in Arcadia Publishing Company’s Images of America series entitled, “Ceres, by Jeff Benziger. It was released on August 23, 2010.

Source: wikipedia.org

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