Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 1 - 8 of 8
In 1913, a funding bill was passed to build a road from Bakersfield to Mojave to replace the wagon and horse trails that, at the time, were the only way in and out of the Tehachapi Valley. In 1916, a 28.2 mile road was completed from Tehachapi to Mojave that opened the area up to better forms of transportation. Construction began in 1937 on a more modern highway, which took many years to complete. WWII took many of the able-bodied men away to the service, so prisoners were used for the...
I was thinking the other day about things that happened around Edwards when I was a kid, and many of you would be surprised just how diverse that experience was. Case in point: I was good friends with Tim and Jeff Geisen. Their father, Walt Geisen, was a major player at General Electric over the years. One morning during summer break, I got a call from Tim, who said his mom June had something fun for us to do if my dad could pick us up after he got off work. Game on! We worked out the details...
Back in WWII the skies over Tehachapi were a constat buzz as B-24s training at Muroc would make the trip over our mountain home to the San Joaquin mountains, then north to a point where they crossed over the Sierras and returned down the Owens Valley. One of those planes became a painful reminder of the price young Americans and their families were paying as they trained for war. The story of #42-73358 and a lost crew in Kern County Lieutenants Bauscher and Hauplnthal were enjoying New Year's...
Last week I was invited to do a program for the Kern Historical Society about a stretch of abandoned rail line that had operated for many years between Boron and Mojave. While doing some research into the origins and operation of that old alignment I found some rabbit trails of information that had me take a long look at a man who had made some history in the Tehachapi region, and not to mention just about every other place in the western United States. John Charles Frémont became known as...
This time every year I start to get that feeling that an important date is just around the corner and that feeling has been with me for decades. Back in the early 1970s, I was in a hobby shop and the owner handed me a book about the 5,000 series 4-10-2 Southern Pacific locomotives. The Boynton written "Three Barrels of Steam" started me on a journey that I continue with today. The great cloud burst of 1932 over the Tehachapis had a chapter dedicated to it as one of the locomotives involved with...
Many of long timers in Tehachapi will remember Camp Earl Anna, nestled up in the mountains, south of the valley. It was active for many years. Many in the community helped support that wonderful facility, which was built to give young people a chance to come together and live life in a rustic environment. Much has been written and shared about its history, but I would like to take this opportunity to share my personal reflects and a few tails as a former camper. I eventually became a counselor...
Having been a resident of our region for almost 70 years, I've become very keen on the existence of our Joshua trees around the region and their struggles to coexist with humans. It's pretty easy to take them for granted when you live among them, but realizing that the Joshuas only make up 0.002% of the living plant life on earth, you can understand why so many of us are concerned about the current mind-set that is thinning out the population of our Joshua forests. Just east of Cameron Canyon,...
Aviation Cadet Paul Day was looking at his instruments and straining to hear any communications over the sound of his radial engine, as he flew blind in the clouds all alone. What seemed like just another routine training flight had now become a struggle for life itself, as he and more than a dozen other young aviation cadets came face to face with the dangers of flying - not in combat, but facing the wrath of the one adversary that has plagued aviators for generations: the weather. March 18,...
