Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 212
Tropical storm Hilary had a tremendous impact on Southern California and the Tehachapi Valley. Most obvious was the impact it had on curtailing Mountain Festival activities. Less obvious was the impact the storm had on the Tehachapi Depot Railroad Museum. While not quite as horrific as the 1932 rains and floods, Hilary was more subtle. Most people are not aware that under the freight room of the depot, there is a basement. In the basement there is a drain in the floor created to capture any cond...
Few would elect to be in a major disaster, but if you've experienced one, there is a kinship with those who also shared the catastrophe that creates a lasting camaraderie. People sometimes ask, "What were you doing when Kennedy was shot?" The same question about Sept. 11, 2001. Many just call it 9/11. We all remember events such as those but as time passes, and the people who were there also pass, the event itself dims. Franklin Roosevelt said that the attack on Pearl Harbor is a date that...
Tehachapi has a long history of having outside dances in the Downtown area, and that tradition is going to be renewed with this year's "Green Street Get Down," held in conjunction with this year's Tehachapi Mountain Festival. The dance will be on Saturday, Aug. 19 from 6 to 10 p.m. on Green Street, and admission is free. Three different bands will perform over the course of the evening: Soda Crackers, Muleskinner Revival and Three Bad Jacks. Food, beer and wine, and merchandise will be available...
There are two events that have occurred every August for many decades in Tehachapi. One is the annual Tehachapi Mountain Festival, typically on the third weekend in August, and the other is the Tehachapi Oldtimers Reunion, held on the first Sunday in August. The Oldtimers Reunion is open to people who have lived in the Tehachapi area for at least 40 years, and also to anyone who lived here 40 years ago or more, even if they moved away long ago. It's a chance for people who don't get to see each...
On Thursday, June 29, Tehachapi City Council held a special meeting approving several redevelopment projects in Tehachapi. Among them were two repavement projects on Valley Boulevard. A construction bid for the Valley Boulevard Road Resurfacing project was awarded to Griffith Construction and the city hopes to have a 0.3-mile portion of Valley Boulevard between Curry and Beech Streets repaved before the start of the 2023-24 school year. Permission to file for an allocation of Regional Surface...
Tehachapi Mountain Democratic Club voted to support the city's Adopt-A-Landscape Program. After the vote to sponsor the planting at the corner of Green Street and Tehachapi Boulevard, several members rushed out to see their garden spot. The smiles show their approval of the site....
Isabel Cortez Cervantes was a well known and respected citizen of this community until her death in 1991 at age 87. In 1914 when she was only 11 her father, Odilon Cortez, immigrated his family from the small Mexican village of Cosio in Aguascalientes, to Tehachapi. Much lumber was being taken from the Cummings Mountain area and sent to Los Angeles and the work was good. Another vital reason for the move was the regular raids on villages in their area by the notorious bandit, Pancho Villa; a...
There are two clocks in Downtown Tehachapi that stand in mute testimony to disasters that befell the town in years past. One of these can be found in the Tehachapi Museum at 310 South Green Street. This clock, which had kept perfect time, was brought to a sudden and final stop in the early morning hours of July 21, 1952. . . The large clock hung in the front window of the Tehachapi Radio Electric store on Green Street, about where Petra Mediterranean Café is today. In the predawn Monday...
I'd like to tell you about the beautiful pear orchard that once grew within Tehachapi city limits, not far from the downtown area. It was orderly and well-maintained, and when that forest of trees were cloaked in snowy blossoms each spring, it was like an inland sea of white flowers. But first, let's talk about pear trees in general. . . Pear trees are amazingly long lived. Governor Peter Stuyvesant brought a young rooted pear tree with him from Holland in 1647 when he arrived to become the dire...
Tehachapi's weekly Farmer's Market is always a fun activity in the summers around here, and I love going to see all the produce and craft booths. Our market usually runs from May or June through August or September, in the late afternoon and early evening. Other cities have farmer's markets that run year-round at different times. Bakersfield is one of those cities and actually, they offer a couple of different markets. My friend Leila and I decided to check out the Hagen Oaks Farmer's Market a...
The City of Tehachapi is happy to announce the addition of a "Tehachapi Hometown Christmas" event on Saturday, Dec. 3 in downtown. "The idea came from within our community. We were approached with the idea to have a Christmas festival of sorts on Green Street, like what we do for Farmers Market," said Key Budge, City of Tehachapi. "A few of us from the city got together and thought about how we could enhance what occurs in Downtown Tehachapi during the holidays." A Tehachapi Hometown Christmas...
At their Oct. 10 meeting, the Tehachapi Planning Commission unanimously voted to give the Sage Ranch development an additional three months to file the Precise Development Plan for the first phase of the housing project that will be built on Valley Boulevard behind Tehachapi High School. The Tehachapi City Council had approved the Final Master Plan and Tentative Tract Map 7366 in 2021. Once approved the applicant had one year to submit the Precise Development Plan for the first phase of the...
Access to new CoStar Software Highlights major commercial investments in the City of Tehachapi Commercial real estate investment continues in the City of Tehachapi as investors have spent millions in the last few months on some marquee properties in transactions with long-term stable tenants. As part of a new initiative, the City of Tehachapi has partnered with CoStar to access real-time commercial real estate data to assist in economic development efforts. This software is a powerful tool that...
Continued from our Sept. 17, 2022 issue. (I wrote an account of the 1932 flood over 30 years ago for the Tehachapi News. I was lucky to find someone who had been in Keene when the waters washed away people, houses and even buried a Santa Fe Engine, as well as washed a Southern Pacific engine off the tracks . I carefully kept notes after talking to Walter Hicks, who was in Keene during the whole thing. I have not added anything to enhance the story; only the facts told me at that time, by Walter...
I had such a great time on a Sunday drive a few weeks ago that I decided to take another similar one last week. This time I took a different route to the Lake Isabella area – up and back down the canyon – specifically with the idea of visiting the Silver City Ghost Town in Bodfish. And once again, the drive was just as entertaining as the destination. I headed out of Tehachapi on the 58 and took the Comanche exit, turning north toward the 178. A few miles later I turned right onto the 178, follo...
On May 17 at approximately 1 a.m., officers with the Tehachapi Police Department conducted a traffic enforcement stop on a vehicle for equipment violations on West Valley Boulevard near the intersection with Griffin Street. Almost simultaneously, the Tehachapi Police Communications Center advised of a theft of a catalytic converter that had just occurred in the 900 block of Mulberry Street. Witnesses reported the vehicle, a silver Saturn Vue, was last seen westbound on Cherry Lane. The officer...
WARNING: This article contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised. (Note: This is the continuation of our 31st article, from our April 2, 2022 issue, in a continuing series about local military veterans and their service to our great country. The articles may contain graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.) (Note: As a .50 caliber ball turret gunner in a B-17 "Flying Fortress" heavy bomber, Stanley had taken part in 11 hellish combat missions against such heavily defended...
One Fourth of July we were sitting there watching the parade go by our old house on Tehachapi Boulevard, and there was actually snow in the air. Bobbi McCullough was the parade queen, and they were throwing bags of potato chips off the float because of all the potatoes that were grown in the area at that time. It was so cold! – Lydia Muro Wheat The Muro family lived in the house near the corner of Tehachapi Boulevard and Robinson Street, across the boulevard from Taco Samich. It is believed t...
Undergrounding of Valley Blvd. utilities moves forward At their February 7 meeting, the Tehachapi City Council adopted a resolution that created an Underground Utility District. Development Services Director Jay Schlosser said this is the next necessary step in preparing for relocating the overhead utilities along Valley Boulevard between Las Colinas Street and Curry Street to underground and removing the existing telephone poles. The City Council approved the project on January 18 following a...
I started dating Helen Owens in May of 1982. She is the youngest daughter of Kelcy and Margie Owens, who had Kelcy's Restaurant on Tehachapi Boulevard. Helen and her sister Kathy told me about a new company called Zond Systems that had recently moved into the Talmarc Building on Curry Street (now home to the Family Life Pregnancy Center). Since the company was located just down the alley from Kelcy's, Zond employees came in to eat almost every day and had mentioned that they were hiring. I went...
Karen Cussimonio announced that beginning on Jan. 8 and continuing for the following two weeks, On the Boulevard Antiques will be holding a special estate sale at their store, 112 E. Tehachapi Blvd., in Suite A. The sale will include furnishings from the closing of 5 Heart Quilts & Fabric store. Karen added that following the sale On the Blvd will be downsizing and moving everything remaining in Suite A into Suite B. “Maintaining both sides of the building became too difficult,” said Karen. Thi...
When I was a little boy, one of my favorite things to look at on my family's old Tehachapi farm was a faded scrapbook with an embossed eagle on the cover. I would open it up, and slowly turn page after page, studying the images. It was like a time machine into the earlier days of the 20th century, for it contained more than 100 of the magazine covers that Norman Rockwell painted for the Saturday Evening Post. Like most of her contemporaries, my grandmother loved the work of Rockwell, and while...
On Nov. 13, Tehachapi's only Taco Bell restaurant closed to begin a complete renovation, the first since opening in 1992. District Manager Mirabel Medina was reluctant to say how long the restaurant will be closed while the work is done, but she said similar projects have taken over two months to complete. In addition to updating the look of the building to be in better step with Taco Bell's current style and branding, the kitchen and drive-thru will be fully modernized. In the meantime, we'll...
There is a remarkable native plant that can be found growing mostly unnoticed in the Tehachapi Mountains. It has several unusual qualities, and once you are aware of these, you are unlikely to forget it. It is known most commonly in our area as Coyote Gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima), though it has acquired numerous aliases. Among these are buffalo gourd, calabazilla, wild gourd, fetid gourd, chilicote, prairie gourd, wild pumpkin and more. The Mountain Lion is the animal credited with more differ...
City supports investments with infrastructure maintenance Maintaining vital infrastructure continues to be a facet of economic development in the City of Tehachapi and a slough of recent projects are once again proving that priority with action. The City of Tehachapi recently repaved three local roadways as part of a series of maintenance projects. One roadway, Green Street, received new asphalt from Tehachapi Boulevard north to the Tehachapi Municipal Airport gate, as well as from F Street...
