Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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I miss driving but being a passenger has its perks, also. For myself, on recent trips, I could really examine the panorama. Even leaving Tehachapi, I notice a lot of things that have changed or disappeared completely. At any rate, it certainly helps awaken old memories. As one leaves the Tehachapi Mountains and gazes out on the Mojave Desert looking south, I see sights that are not new but still changed, forever. One change, sort of heartbreaking, is the loss of Mount Soledad to the strip...
"I saw you toss the kites on high and blow the birds about the sky..." That quote from Robert Louis Stevenson's book, "A Child's Garden of Verses," kept me thinking of the aforementioned "wind." Good old Tehachapi wind was present for the Heritage League Errea Garden Dedication held on Saturday, May 28. Like a naughty child who sometimes shows off for guests when they visit, the wind was only able to blow the tops of the trees. The garden, itself, was sheltered on all sides. "Foiled again!" Old...
When I occasionally travel Willow Springs Road toward Rosamond and Lancaster, I pass Truman Road and Hamilton Road. For years I have told anyone who would listen that the two roads do not stand for an early American statesman, Alexander Hamilton, or former President Harry Truman. The two roads are a reminder of Truman Hamilton, former lawman and Constable of the 11th Judicial Township. Beginning his job in 1922, residents saw a man of substantial size; both in height and weight. His size alone...
Some years back I ordered, from a little catalog, a strip of something with inserted flower seeds. All one has to do is lay it down in the flower bed and water it. I can do that. I am not too handy when it comes to planting little seeds. They allow me to water them, though. The little strip of seeds – pansies – sprouted right on time and their pretty little faces, all identical, so lovely. Suddenly, I am sure those pansies were shocked to see a strange spear-like green "thing". I felt sorry for...
I have mentioned before that I originated in Mojave and only moved to Tehachapi in 1937. During my brief stay in the desert mining, railroad town one would have found two churches; a Protestant and Catholic. People attended the Catholic or the Protestant, or maybe neither. It was a friendly little town, just as Tehachapi is as well. We did not attend the Protestant Church but one Sunday my sister attended a service there with a friend. I recall the minister's name was Reverend Oldfield; a kind,...
In 1950, when I began living in the Southland, it was, and still is, 200 miles from Oceanside, California to Tehachapi, and if I had a dollar for every time I have made the trip I would have a comfortable amount. At first, our trips consisted of getting into my husband's 1947 Buick Roadmaster and taking off. It was a lovely car, one that he acquired during his bachelor days while still an enlisted man in the Corps. Highway 101, between the two points, at that time, was a three lane affair. The...
The Hoppers are not a family that moved here recently, but little hopping insects; grass hoppers and crickets. In a back issue of The Loop newspaper I read in my friend, Jon Hammond's article, about a grasshopper plague hitting the whole Tehachapi Valley in 1940. "Golly!" I exclaimed. "I was there!" I thought it was in 1939 but Jon knows his dates. At any rate, I was 12 in 1940 and we lived on the south side of Highline Road about a half mile east of China Hill. We always called Highline Road, P...
I was fortunate to be able to grow up, during most of my childhood, in the same town with long-time friends. These are people about whom we can say, "we go back a long way." My children, as children of a military man, had to make adjustments when we would change duty stations. They would exchange letters with their left-behind friends and then the friendships would fade. One thing about military children is, they learn to make friends easily. In 1936, a new Tehachapi grammar school was...
In the early 1800s, the entire San Joaquin Valley of Central California was populated by the Native Americans of that region. The larger portion of the population were Yokut, but there were a significant number of alternate tribes in the area. The Gold Rush and the influx of settlers and miners were to inevitably displace the natural residents of the area. It was not to the Native Americans' advantage as there was bloodshed and broken treaties. The resistance continued for decades with...
One hundred thirty-eight years ago there was a small frame building on West F Street. A frame church built with square nails and lumber with redwood pilings for the foundation. This was in the year 1884. Local parishioners were the construction crew and there was a bell in the bell tower that rang for the Sunday service. Travel being what it was in those days, it took the Bishop from the Los Angeles area a few years to arrange time to travel to the small mountain community to officially...
The first time I heard about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was in 1950. My Marine husband and I had been married eight months and were living in a Quonset Hut at Camp Pendleton. It was late November and Gene Autry, the cowboy movie star of that era, was on the radio singing his heart out about the latest addition to Santa's transportation system. I know Autry owned a baseball team (the L.A. Angels) but he must have had a large interest in the radio station too, for his voice and that song came...
There used to be a radio program whose host gave news as it was supposed to have happened. After telling the tale, he would then say, "...and now, for the rest of the story." He would then give some interesting facts that completed the tale. His name was Paul Harvey. I'm no Paul Harvey but it seems that when I hear someone telling a story of an experience of a local or long past happening, I often remember a little tidbit that was left out of the tale and I want to add it. Usually, I try to...
There hangs on my wall, among an assortment of family photos, a photo of a fine looking lady. Her dress style would put her somewhere between the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth century; that is to say, in or near about 1890 or 1900. I have no idea who she might be, but she has been a guest on my family tree photo wall for "nigh on" forty-five years. My eldest son drove in from Bakersfield one day in 1976. He had driven down to Edison Highway to check out some of the junk shops that...
Father Joseph Mohr had journeyed to Oberndorf , a small town in Austria. It was his new assignment at St. Nicholas Church. He was a quiet, meditative man and a deep thinker. He could better put his thoughts down on paper than to express them orally. Still his sermons, carefully given and simply spoken, always had been quite acceptable by the congregation. As he walked over a recently fallen snow, he prayed his new parish would be a good one and he would serve the people well. He entered the...
As a young person, when I still lived in Mojave, it was a special day when we could come to Tehachapi to visit friends and I could go to the city park and play among the beautiful green trees. My parents had come to Tehachapi in 1923 but left in 1926 when a job opportunity opened up in Mojave, where I was born. In 1937 we moved back to Tehachapi and I loved the greenery of the mountains. I especially was fascinated by the two giant trees in front of the hospital on E Street. Tracing down the...
I remember one Dec. 31, 2016, New Year's Eve when Father Time, old 2016, made an effort to throw the weather book at us and he surely did. Starting with sunshine, then dense fog, then rain and finally snow, he went out in a fit of madness. Guess he didn't want to leave. It gets one to thinking about days gone by; sometimes decades. Our brain is a wonderful filing cabinet for episodes from our lives that can be called up at will. We see kids today completely engrossed in their smart phones that...
When you find that someone who should remember has forgotten your birthday, you say, "Oh, don't worry about it. That's OK." What you really mean is, "YOU FORGOT MY BIRTHDAY!" California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state on Sept. 9, 1850 but we Californians seldom take note. In fact, we're lucky if it is ever mentioned in the evening news. When I mention it to someone they usually say they were not aware of it at all. Being an old time Californian I always think of our state's...
This finishes off a thumbnail sketch of the happenings that I once jotted down. It's a mighty long "thumbnail" and I promise NEVER to do it again! Also, "sketchy" is the proper word, for it eliminates years of important happenings; just touching on a few facts. Continuing from December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: 1942 – First casualty of World War II, Bob Fraham. Ted Hainline dies in prison camp in Philippines. Lt. Donald Griffin, Army Air Corps pilot, killed in action. A...
I left you in the early days of the 20th Century in "nineteen 'aught' nine." That's the way the old timers said those early years. They called zeroes "aughts" in those days. We missed our chance. We could have been saying twenty " aught" one all through nine! Oh, well. 1909 – The City of Los Angeles Cement Company was established four miles east of Tehachapi. An aqueduct was needed to provide Los Angeles and parts of the southland with water from the Owens Valley. They closed the plant down a...
Sometimes it's interesting to read little timelines listing events of many years ago. I don't really live in the past, but it's interesting to find out what people were doing in this little valley when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin and "the rest of the boys" were signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 back on the east side of the country, as well as including a couple of hundred other years, just for fun. 1776 – Padre Francisco Garces traverses Tehachapi Pass with f...
Some years ago I was asked by the Friends of the Depot to speak at one of their meetings about my experiences in riding the passenger trains that came through our city regularly. I can scarcely believe how long it has been; some 50 or so years. I mentioned to one of my sons what I was going to do and he said when beginning a speech I should start with a joke to lighten the mood. The audience was made of friends and they were kind and cooperative. The evening went well and they laughed in all of...
When in high school I read a poem that began, "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky." Well, rainbows are always a delight but what really makes my heart leap up is a view of the Tehachapi Mountains when I am returning from a trip. Coming from Bakersfield, I almost always take the Keene off-ramp and drive up the "old" road that was once US Highway 466. It's curvy but what mountain road isn't? When you grow up in the mountains you learn to navigate the curves. Ascending the final...
The Tehachapi Heritage League has received permission to open the doors of the Museum and Errea House on Saturday, June 19 from noon to 4 p.m. What a great day that will be. Another great day exists in Tehachapi history: That being, July 4, 1977; the anniversary of the birth of our nation, as well as the grand opening of the first Tehachapi Heritage League Museum. The first location of the museum was in the 200 block of "downtown" Tehachapi in the old Chamber of Commerce building. The new...
One of my earlier memories from the 1930s was Tehachapi's 4th of July free barbecue! It was taken for granted that everyone would be in the City Park and have a wonderful meal that included beef prepared in deep-pit style cooking where the meat is slow cooked for 24 hours in an underground pit. Word spreads fast when the term "free" is included and people from near and far came; some as far as Los Angeles. Our small community, in the 1930s, had a population of a scant 1,000 souls, including the...
Even though the pictured home was destroyed by the 1952 Earthquake, at one time in the 1890s, it was the first home travelers would see as they drove up the narrow, winding road from Bakersfield and parts north into the town of Tehachapi. Driving in on old Highway 466, the road made a sharp turn to the left and for a quarter of mile on Curry Street one traveled down a lane of orchards; pears on the right and cherries to the left. Then immediately to the left one viewed a classically beautiful...
