Within one-eighth mile of this site stood Woodville, the first settlement and county seat of Tulare County. It was named for John Wood, leader of a party of eighteen from the Mariposa mines, who built a log cabin here and was killed by Indians in the fall of 1850 along with fifteen of his party. In 1852, under an oak tree near that cabin, Tulare County was formed from the southern part of Mariposa County, and the cabin became the county seat. The settlement that grew up here was called Woodville or Woodsville. In 1854 the county seat was moved to a new settlement eight miles west called Visalia. The people of this area started possibly the first school in Tulare County, named the Woodville School District, and it remained so until the 1880s, when the name was changed to Venice. Over the years the area and village became known as Venice because of the abundance of water and the many streams and canals, and the hills just north of the school were known as the Venice Hills. The Goad family deeded the property on which the new school was built in 1898. It remained an active school and the only remnant of the oldest school in Tulare County until 1957, when the district ceded to the Ivanhoe District. The property reverted to the Goad family, who sold it to the Bente family, who kept the school building safe. In 1995 a group of parents and educators formed the Venice Community School Inc., and the school opened again in 1996 as a private school.