Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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Although both Louise and Nellie Fickert, who owned the sprawling 25,000-acre Fickert Ranch that later became Bear Valley Springs, were mentally sharp until they died, other infirmities of age caught up with them in their last years. Dr. Vincent Troy was the Fickerts' doctor for many years. He was always there to help Louise and Nellie, especially after they became confined. Mary Farrell felt that the sisters looked upon Dr. Troy as the son they never had. For one reason or another – perhaps beca...
The incident occurred on March 15, 1870, in the mountains of Kern County where John W. Searles was on a general hunt with companions. He heard a California Grizzly bear and was seeking to locate it when the beast reared up, its nose not two feet away. Searles could not back away because of the dense brush. He pointed his gun toward the bear's jaw and fired. The bear pitched to its forefeet, gasping and pawing at its eyes where the flame of the cartridge had burned the hair – but it was not s...
Our ongoing spring storms, and occasionally sunny days in between, have brought out those little yellow flowers that most lawn gardeners detest: dandelions. But I must confess that I am the exception – I like dandelions. And until fairly recently, so did most people. This incredibly widespread plant is native to Europe and Asia but is now naturalized throughout most of the temperate regions of the world, and is found from coast to coast in the U.S. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is a l...
I had an interesting experience observing a pair of ravens in my orchard. I had gathered some eggs from my chickens that were blue, white and brown. These were in equal numbers. I placed them in separate color groups out in our orchard. The ravens soon arrived. They at first started to jump around the eggs and flap their wings, acting all excited. I guess this was to see if the eggs were alive or where a threat to them somehow. Next they threw dirt at the eggs. Then they approached the eggs and...
In 1914, there were only two cars registered in Tehachapi – one belonged to Phil Marx and the other one was my dad's. My dad had one of those old Baby Grand Chevrolets and Marx had a Winton 6. There were stockyards all along the railroad tracks then, down by Mill Street and where Tehachapi Lumber had their yard. They put all the stock in those pens and loaded them up on the train to take them out of here. People drove their stock on foot, right through town. Johnny Brite, he raised free-ranging...
When I turned 80 years old, I gathered my family together and we went snowboarding at Mammoth Mountain. I was fortunate to have all five of my children, as well as 11 of my grandchildren and 13 of the great-grandkids there. Part of my inspiration for choosing to spend my 80th birthday on the slopes was a marathon snowboarding session that I did in the winter of 1994-95. I started in November, and ended up snowboarding every single day without fail for 230 days, into the month of June until my...
As I drove slowly through the quiet, older residential streets east of Downtown Tehachapi, my headlights shown on a furtive figure in a mask who hurried across the road. It wasn't a person observing social distancing in the time of the coronavirus pandemic, but it was a local resident: a large raccoon, out for some late night foraging. These interesting animals are mostly nocturnal and tend to conceal themselves in hollow logs, trees or other hiding places during the day. Raccoons emerge at...
Gary Davies is a lifelong Tehachapi resident and military veteran who has found solace and satisfaction in hand carving assorted animals out of wood. Gary, who was born in Tehachapi Hospital in 1959, has many talents and has spent his life working with his hands. His father taught him to weld when he was only 11 years old, and he worked as a welder for the Navy and in Texas oilfields. He has also worked in vegetation management, landscaping, carpentry and masonry. The Veterans Administration...
Our family moved to Tehachapi in 1930 when my parents, Julius and Jeanne Fritz, swapped their home in Willowbrook for 47 acres of land and a farmhouse on Old Town Road, which had been there about 10 years at that time and was known as "the Burton place." The property was dominated by an enormous Gray Pine (Pinus sabiniana) and my Dad wanted to name the place "Lone Tree Ranch" but someone else was already using that name so he settled on the "White Feather Ranch," because he immediately started...
When my daughter Teagan was born, her father gave me a pair of 1-carat diamond earrings to commemorate her birth. They are the most meaningful pieces of jewelry I have because they represent Teagan to me, and all the wonderful things she's brought to my life. Her father and I are no longer married but those are my "Teagan earrings" and I wear them all the time. Recently I was cleaning out the rental unit where we had been living after most of our things had already been moved into the new...
There aren't many Tehachapi residents left who remember the days when almost every phone call made in this area required a person working at a switchboard, an operator who manually put a plug into a jack to complete a call. Pat Gracey, 91, not only remembers that time, she actually was one of those hard-working women who made phone calls possible. Patricia Davis Gracey was born in Mojave on September 2, 1928, the youngest of four children born to Chauncey and Maude Davis. She was raised in...
I used to sell a lot of beer when I owned the Monolith Store. It was all Acme brand – about as bad a beer as you could buy, but I bought from the Bohemian Distributing Company and that's what they had. I bought Ambassador Reserve wine from them, and they also had the Acme beer distributorship. The previous owner of the Monolith Store, Bert White, he was a pretty smooth politician, so when he went down to talk to the guy at Bohemian he always took down a dozen nice, big T-bone steaks to the b...
I was out irrigating a five-acre alfalfa field that we had at our place on Cherry Lane, moving 3-inch aluminum sprinkler pipe, when I saw something up at the edge of the field. It looked like a twisted piece of pipe. When I got close, I saw that it was one of the biggest gopher snakes I've ever seen. It was 'bout as big around as that sprinkler pipe. But it was dead. And there was a big ol' boar gopher sticking out of side of that snake. I guess that big snake had caught the gopher and...
While driving home from Bakersfield on the back way (Bena Road) between Edison and the Arvin Cutoff this week, I noticed that the earliest wildflowers to bloom in our mountains were beginning to show their first yellow color. These unique and interesting plants are Bladderpods. The extremely drought-tolerant Bladderpods begin flowering on the San Joaquin Valley floor, and then follow spring as it moves upslope. With egg-shaped green globes dangling from the stems, beautiful yellow flowers and...
It was late August, 1966 on a very hot afternoon when my husband and I pulled into Tehachapi for the first glimpse at our new community. In Colorado earlier that summer we had interviewed with the Tehachapi Unified School District superintendent about teaching jobs in Tehachapi. Yes, he said, they needed a math teacher at the junior high, and yes, he said, Tehachapi has skiing and fishing very close, and yes, it is the top of a mountain pass. We signed our contracts with eagerness and excitement...
A fire at Bear Mountain destroyed much feed and valuable timber. The fire started near Sycamore last Saturday and was not under control until late Tuesday afternoon. Many sections of dry feed on the west side of Bear Mountain were destroyed, the loss falling almost entirely on F. W. Fickert. The fire fighters experienced many hardships during their three strenuous days and nights on the mountain, often without food or water for many hours at a time and sometimes surrounded by the roaring,...
I lived in Cummings Valley with my family. I was born on my Grandfather Ocana's ranch on December 21, 1907. My Dad was Anselmo Campos and he was a cowboy for the Hill Ranch. When we went to visit family in Bakersfield, we went in a wagon over the Sheeptrail. You could make it in a day if you wanted to – a long day. We didn't have a radio – we didn't even know what one looked like. My family had a Victrola with one of those big horns on it. Then they had those little rolly things [wax cyl...
Small footsteps crunch on the surface of the snow. The young face looks up at the house, and a little hand reaches skyward. A larger hand stretches towards the eaves, breaks off a thin tapering spike of ice and gives it to the smiling child, who promptly starts eating it. Our affection for icicles starts at an early age. Icicles, nature's water-flavored popsicles, are actually quite rare in natural world, but are common among human habitation in colder climates. Icicles typically form on steep...
When I was around 11 years old a lady moved in next door to us. I became friends with her oldest daughter, who was my age. When Christmas got close we found out they weren't going to get a tree. A single mother with three kids, times were hard. Daddy went out and bought presents for all of them. He even bought a record player for them so the mom would get something that she could enjoy. On Christmas Eve Thrifty would sell all their display artificial trees, fully decorated, for around $5.00. Lat...
There's a group of regulars who come into Kelcy's twice a day at about 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. I call them the "Board of Directors." It started with Boyd Lehman and Harold Rouse in 1961 or 1962, when it was still Trusty's Cafe. Then they started bringing in Chet Gilbertson, who owned The Rock Shop on Tehachapi Boulevard. Over cups of coffee, they'd discuss Tehachapi history, politics, their families and news of the day. And the group grew over the years. It's good to see them all. They're good friends...
At about 10 a.m. on April 13, 1992, a backhoe operator working on the City of Tehachapi's new sewer line on Dennison Road accidently tore through a telephone trunk line, cutting phone service for every single resident of the Ashe Village (formerly known as Ashe Tract) neighborhood north of the railroad tracks. Pacific Bell construction splicers Lonnie Latham, Mike Mattucci, Charlie Lunn and Jimmy Womack were dispatched to fix the massive problem, and arrived at the site at about noon to...
Short, cold days and long frosty nights. When the sun went down, the land grew dark. There were no lights anywhere, except the occasional flickering glow of a small campfire. The stars overhead glittered in the black sky. The nights were quiet, but not silent. Coyotes could often be heard as they yipped and barked, and sometimes wolves would raise their muzzles towards the sky and their mournful, descending wails would echo from the hills. This is the time of year in the Tehachapi Mountains...
“Louie Boden was a lawman in Tehachapi for 36 years, from 1915 until his death in 1951. He relied on his physical strength and popularity alone. He was our constable and he was a big, barrel-chested man. He was really strong, but he was kind-hearted and everyone loved him – he was probably one of the most popular men in town. He often chewed on a cigar as he made his rounds. “He was once called to break up a fight between two Marines at a bar on Tehachapi Boulevard, near where Kelcy’s is now....
The Kawaiisu had achieved preeminence as rain shamans. The rainmaker, or more accurately, weather-manipulator, is called uupu-ha-gud. In the land of the Kawaiisu, precipitation was of prime concern. The productivity of the wild plants is dependent upon rain in an area which often suffers from drought. On the other hand, water is capable of descending in an overwhelming quantity. Flash floods were known and feared and a dry creek bed could suddenly turn into a rampaging, destructive torrent....
We liked to have our chickens be able to roam around our property. One of our roosters disappeared and we didn't see it for a few days. I figured something must have happened to it since he had disappeared. Then I went to move a plastic five-gallon bucket that was sitting upside down. I lifted the bucket and that chicken was underneath it. It had gotten in there, probably pecking at grain or some food left while the bucket was lying on its side, and somehow straightened upright and wound up...
