Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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"When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value." – Robert A. Emmons Robert Emmons is a researcher in the Department of Psychology at UC Davis who partnered with Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami to conduct research into gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life....
Among the most interesting insects to be found in the Tehachapi Mountains, or anywhere for that matter, are the translucent-winged dragonflies. Since dragonflies always lay their eggs in or near water, aquatic habitats are necessary for dragonflies. The dry Inland Ranges of California are not known for their abundance of aquatic habitats, of course, but dragonflies can often utilize small ponds, pools, seeps, etc. You can also find some adults quite a distance from any surface water. The...
My family, the Freemans, arrived in the Tehachapi Valley 140 years ago when my grandparents, Farmer and Susan Freeman, moved from Havilah to Tehachapi in the 1870s. The Freemans ran a small dairy located on Green Street, about where the former St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store (and before that, Town and Country Market) was located. My grandmother would turn her cows loose after the morning milking, and they would wander down the canyon by the railroad tracks and eat the meadow grass. It used to b...
Among the most charismatic – and largest – wildlife in the Tehachapi Mountains are the American Elk (Cervus canadensis nelsoni) that can be seen in outlying areas. These huge deer are impressive creatures, about the size of horses, and the bulls grow spreading antlers each year. You may wonder where these picturesque animals came from, and if they’ve always been here. They now wander the areas of Bear Valley Springs, Stallion Springs, Golden Hills, and the mountains south of Highline Road in a r...
A Southern Pacific Railroad Fireman named James Rolls risked his life in an attempt to save a little child right in front of the Tehachapi Depot. It was April 1, 1952, and Fireman Rolls was onboard a freight train that had pulled off on the No. 1 siding track in Tehachapi to let a fast passenger train, the Santa Fe "Grand Canyon Limited" go by. As that eastbound passenger train bore down on Tehachapi, Santa Fe Engineer Sammy Uren was sickened when he saw a little blond-haired two-year-old girl s...
When my brother Lawrence and I were teenagers in the 1930s, we used to work for old Bill Browning catching jackrabbits outside Delano. He was an oldtimer, the first white baby born in Kern County and he once owned half of Delano. He was a bootlegger during Prohibition, and he was a great guy. He used to sell big jackrabbits to the greyhound dog tracks in LA for $1 apiece. When he had an order for 40 or 50 jackrabbits, then we would go set up nets out west of Delano in the alkali scrub, in the...
Now that summer is beginning to look towards the coming autumn, oak trees in the Tehachapi Mountains are starting to produce the crop that sustained life here for thousands of years: acorns. These distinctive, conical seeds are highly nutritious, containing significant amounts of carbohydrates, fats, protein and fiber, as well as minerals including potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and vitamin B-6. Animals of many kinds rely on the annual bounty of acorns to feed and nourish them, both now and...
"Anything north of the 210 freeway is Northern California." – Cal Fire Captain While in town to fight a massive wildfire in Blackburn Canyon, a Cal Fire crew went into a restaurant on Tehachapi Boulevard to eat and said to their server, Megan, that, "This is our first time here – we're from Southern California." When she replied that Tehachapi IS in Southern California, this was his response....
"I wasn't born in Tehachapi, but I chose to live here for years, and that counts for something." – Cactus Jack Cactus Jack was well-known for the beef jerky he used to sell at the corner of Highway 202 and Cummings Valley Road....
"Indian Summer weather in Tehachapi, with warm gentle days and cool nights, can be as sweet as the smile on a sleeping baby." – The Mountain Poet...
"Life is easy; it's music that's hard." – Dave Bouldin Dave Bouldin is retired from the fire service as a station chief but has long been a musician and band leader....
"Time, industry, hard work, patience and a large number of donkeys and mules will overcome all difficulties." – Padre Johann Jakob Baegert Father Baegert was a German Jesuit priest stationed in Baja California in the mid 1700s. Large numbers of mules were used to move the huge sections of pipe needed to build the Los Angeles Aqueduct beginning in 1904. The cement plant at Monolith (now called Lehigh Southwest) was built by the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power to supply cement for the a...
The annual Tehachapi Oldtimers Reunion was held on Aug. 1, and more than 425 people gathered in Philip Marx Central Park to visit with friends, acquaintances and in many cases, former neighbors who returned to their old hometown for this celebratory event. The Tehachapi Oldtimers Reunion is a special event that is a testament to Tehachapi's strong sense of community and respect for history and traditions. Most cities and towns don't have an annual celebration like this. They don't even try. The...
Did you know there are about 20 different species of wild cats that can be found in Kern County? Only two of them, mountain lions and bobcats, are native to this area, but you can see these two as well as snow leopards, fishing cats, jaguars, servals, caracals, ocelots, Canada lynx, margays, jaguarundis and more in a shady oasis only 30 miles from Tehachapi at Rosamond's Feline Conservation Center. Kern County holds many surprises, and one of them is this remarkable sanctuary, formerly known as...
As the West in general, and California, of course, experience another devastating wildfire year in 2021, it reminds me of terrible fire that we had 10 years ago. One of the most destructive wildfires that ever swept through the Tehachapi Mountains struck in September of 2011, destroying 32 residences and 30 outbuildings, as well as 19 cars and trucks and 19 RVs as it burned its way through 14,585 acres. Started by a Sept. 4 plane crash that killed both occupants of a small Cessna, the blaze was...
I was born in Cummings Valley on Dec. 21, 1907. We didn't have no doctors here. You had to go to Bakersfield. My mother told me she had a midwife help deliver me, her name was Mrs. Martinez and she lived in Cummings Valley and her husband was a cowboy. That's all there was then, midwives, or the husbands would help deliver the babies. When I got married, my husband worked at Monolith, and before that he worked on ranches. For $30 a month. And we had money then. Now you can work for $30 a day...
When I was 17, in about 1905, I went to work for Nick Williams of Walker Basin, driving a horse and team hauling freight. The route usually went from Caliente up the Lion's Trail to the Walker Basin area, hauling goods for the farmers and miners in the area. I also drove a public stage for Bennett and Wallace, from Caliente to the Piute Post Office at the base of Piute Mountain. Any time a man can drive a team on Piute Mountain, he can drive a harvester. The biggest team I handled was 32-head...
When I was 16, I worked for the Tehachapi News taking photos and writing, and I was the sports editor. I had a 1971 Pontiac Firebird (which I still own) and my friend Dan Wells helped me paint it. Originally it was a lame shade of avocado green like a Sears refrigerator of the era, so my friend Dan Wells helped me repaint it a deep Warrior green. One Friday night I had driven the Firebird down to Bakersfield to cover a Garces football game, and had taken my friend Bill Millhollin, who was the...
The railroad through the Tehachapi Mountains, completed in 1876, is a vital thoroughfare for freight traffic. In fact, the Tehachapi line is considered to be the busiest section of single track mountain railroad in the world. While all the traffic is freight now, for the first nearly 100 years of the railroad's existence, there were daily passenger trains that passed through Tehachapi. It was one of these passenger trains that suffered the worst transportation disaster in Tehachapi history on a...
Last year at about this time Claudia White, the publisher of The Loop newspaper, asked me to write my column about rattlesnakes. Now that warmer weather has come back and reptiles have begun to stir, she thought it would be appropriate to revisit the topic. The Tehachapi Mountains are primarily home to one species of rattlesnake: the Northern Pacific rattlesnake (Crotalus oreganus oreganus). This snake typically has a basic "ground color" that matches their surroundings, and may be light brown,...
We are now in the middle of spring in the Tehachapi Mountains, and despite an extremely dry winter, there are still flowers blooming, birds singing and nesting, reptiles emerging and the other sights and sounds of the gentle season. Although most local areas reported less than four inches of rain this year, some wildflowers, as always, have managed to bloom. California Poppies are opening their bright oranges faces to the sun each morning, closing each evening, and on overcast days or when it...
Spring has now permeated throughout the Tehachapi Mountains, from the lowest elevation foothills at about 500 feet, just above the San Joaquin Valley floor, all the way up to the highest mountains above 7,000 feet. Along with the warmer weather and longer days, spring also signals that the Animal Kingdom has shifted its focus onto reproduction. Spring means baby creatures – mammals, birds, and even amphibians are most likely to produce offspring during the fruitful, fertile months of the v...
Many butterflies can often be found in the Tehachapi Mountains during the warmer months, as blooming wildflowers as well as garden blossoms provide food and refuge for these nectar-feeding adult insects. Among the first to arrive are the Painted Lady (Cynthia cardui) butterflies, which flow northward in a great river of winged beauties in March and April. These butterflies, considered to be the "most cosmopolitan butterfly in the world," start their lives as tiny caterpillars in Mexico and then...
One of the most unique and memorable experiences you can have in California is available just 31 miles from the city of Tehachapi at the Rankin Ranch, a family cattle and guest ranch that was founded in 1863. Nestled in the Tehachapi Mountains in the beautiful and pristine Walker Basin, the Quarter Circle U Rankin Ranch has been raising cattle in Kern County since the days of the Civil War. The sprawling ranch covers 31,000 acres, which is bigger than the five smallest countries in the world – S...
It was 10 years ago that I was able to take a trip that once happened multiple times every day, but now is a very rare experience: a train ride through the Tehachapi Mountains and down to Bakersfield. Of course multiple trains a day still pass through Tehachapi. The rail line through here is considered one of the busiest stretches of single-track mountain railroad in the world, but they're all freight trains. After nearly 100 years of continuous operation, passenger train service was...
