Joshua W. Singleton and his wife, Henrietta Vera, moved to Allensworth from Winfield, Kansas with their three children, Van Virginia, and Henry, around 1910. Joshua had been a stone cutter in Kansas but had to give up that profession due to poor health. Henrietta was a practicing nurse and midwife. Her son, Henry, stated “She knew home remedies like asafetida. Asafetida is a bad smelling substance prepared from the juice of certain plants of the parsley family. It has been used in medicine as an antispasmodic. It had the worst smell. You’d make a plaster for carbuncles and bumps of all sorts. She cooked up her and stuff.” Following bankruptcy in 1915, the family moved to Sonoma. Henry graduated the next summer as the only black student who had gone to school in Sonoma. Mr. Singleton was the music teacher at Sonoma High School. In 1916 the family returned to Allensworth and reopened their store.

The Singleton store was in operation until Mr. Singleton died in 1928. Henry went to college between 1916 and 1919, only returning to visit. During the summer time, he worked for Louis Blodgett, The Colonel’s soon-in law. In 1919, he returned and was postmaster for a year. He left intermittently until 1923 or 1924 when he moved to Oakland where he worked as a lab technician at the University of California at Berkeley.

Besides running the store and serving as postmaster for four-and-and-a-half years, Joshua organized an orchestra, using his collection of stringed instruments. Practice took place in the back of the store or at Frank Milner’s barbershop. Sometimes in the Summer they would play outside in front of the store. Joshua also experimented with raising cotton. He planted twenty acres of Long Staple Pima near well number three, which did well.

Joshua died on May 4, 1928, in Tulare. He left everything to his wife, as stated in his handwritten will The property consisted of one building (the home and store) and the store’s stock. He also owned several pieces of property in Allensworth. His entire estate was worth $1500.

It was reported in the Negro Trailblazers in 1917, that Mrs. Frank A. Smith moved from Colorado to Allensworth in May 1910. The Smiths, according the Beasley, were among the first families to settle in Allensworth. Frank, an ex-slave and native of North Carolina, was the first Smith to make the westward trek. He later persuaded several of his brother’s, (Joe Smith) children to relocate to Colorado. But only one, Winmark, followed him west to Allensworth.

In Colorado Springs, Frank operated a successful trash and ash collection business. The first of his nephews moved to Colorado Springs because his growing bsuiness needed additional laborers. Winmark Smith Sr., a native of Clinton Mississippi and the son of an ex-slave, arrived in Allensworth and moved into Frank’s home, in 1912 with his two young sons, Paul and Winmark. Winmark made the move after his wife Sarah’s death. Before relocating, Winmark visited Allensworth, probably sometime in late 1911. When he returned with his family in the Fall of 1912, his Uncle Frank had died. Winmark Sr. found work in Tulare leaving his sons with their great-grand Aunt Laura.

During the seven years the boys lived in Allensworth, they spent the summer with their dad in Tulare. For about two school terms toward the end of the decade, Winmark Sr. made arrangements for the boys to board with Mrs. Gross. At the end of the 1919 school term, when the boys were 11 and 13, their dad moved them to Tulare and assumed responsibility for their full time care. Frank resided in Allensworth less than two years before his death on November 8, 1911. For at least six months of his residence, he was under a physician’s care for a cardiac disorder.

Nothing is known about the life of Mrs. Laura Smith, Frank’s wife, before her time in Allensworth. She was a resident and active community member until 1935/ For a period around 1914, she served as president of the Women’s Improvement League. She held a four-year appointment as school trustee. As a member of the Allensworth Cemetery Community, she helped create a protected cemetery district and went on record in 1918 as one of the District’s three trustees. The cemetery district established by Laura Smith and her colleagues has been a protected property for sixty-five years.