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Gabby Bradburn

Gabby's Chickens

Gabby's Corner

 

Edward “Gabby” Bradburn

Framed photo from Coarsegold Museum: https://coarsegoldhistoricalsociety.org/

Some of the old-timer’s kids may remember a vacation in Yosemite and driving up Highway 41 past Coarsegold and seeing the biggest junkpile ever. Let’s stop and visit.

Edward Bradburn was born Jan. 31, 1890 in Tipton, Indiana, son of McClellan C. Bradburn (1865-1950) and Emma H. Johnson (1872-1940). The family moved to the Sanger area. He married Nina Blanche Barkley (1894-1991) in 1912 with kids Edward (1913-1997) and Patricia (1928-2008). He remarried Mattie Irene Tomlinson (1900-1967) in 1949. He passed in Fresno on July 24, 1995.

Edward got the nickname “Gabby” because he looked like Gabby Hayes in the cowboy movies of his days. Ed reported himself also a stagecoach driver in silent movies along with his dog. He settled up Highway 41 from Coarsegold in a sweeping curve renamed Gabby’s Corner. Passersby would often stop to check out his pile of junk… but a few complained.

Madera Tribune, April 2, 1967:

GABBY’S ATTORNEY SEEKS NEW TRIAL — Gabby has a lawyer and may end up with a new trial or even a dismissal of the charges against him. Edward (Gabby) Bradburn was up for sentencing today after being convicted by a jury of maintaining a storage of junk on Highway 41. However, Fresno attorney A.A. George was in court to represent him. George requested and received a continuance until May 10. Outside court, George said two former Madera County Supervisors sat on the jury that convicted Gabby. “This is no way an attack on the veracity of former supervisors Phillip Eastman and C.C. Clark,” George said, “but there is a possibility that these two jurors may have influenced others on the jury.”

Obituary – Fresno Bee, July 25, 1975:

Highway 41 ‘Landmark’ - 'Gabby' Dies At 85

     Edward Bradburn, better known as "Gabby" to the thousands of people who passed by his Highway 41 doorstep, died Thursday in a Fresno hospital after a short illness.

He was 85.

     Bradburn, who attained his nickname because of his resemblance to former Hollywood western star Gabby Hayes, was a roadside institution for thousands of San Joaquin Valley residents and tourists who passed by his ramshackle tent-shack on Highway 41 above Coarsegold.

     There Bradburn accumulated some of the most interesting junk imaginable in 40 years of collecting.

     Bradburn's Walter Mitty life encompassed the full gamut of what other people only dream about. He was a former Hollywood actor (in the silent era), a dog trainer, ventriloquist, wrangler, photographer stuntman, rancher and baseball player.

     His 16 foothill acres, once the object of a civil action for littering, was the home for numerous friends, a goose, chickens, roosters and three dogs.

     In his latter years, Gabby talked a lot about ecology and how he was going to clean up the land, all the while adding to the three-foot high stack of dog food cans at the side of his wheel-less old Los Angeles City bus and one-hole outhouse.

     One of his last projects was a plan to dig a well that would put his place and his name on the map. He envisioned hauling up water with aphrodisiac qualities, a fountain of youth, of sorts.

     That project was abandoned in 1973 when Gabby seemed to sense the years closing in and moved on to something else--going off into the hills to find some "hippies" with musical talent and form a "hippie band" to perform skits along side the road in front of his place.

     That dream faded, but was quickly replaced with another - an old people's place where "they could take care of themselves and put in their own garden." He also talked of building a greenhouse by some dead oaks, and, up the ravine, a spa where there is supposedly healing water and mud - another fountain of youth.

     Gabby will be buried in Sanger where funeral services are pending.