Vintage Tehachapi postcards

Provided by Jon Hammond.

A 1970s shot of the Keene Store, complete with vintage cars in the parking lot.

Postcards were once part of most people's travels, and I have hundreds of them that my family members gathered from 1906 onward. Many are interesting and unusual, capturing vanished scenes of America or the world abroad, but naturally my favorites depict a less exotic locale: Tehachapi.

"Postcards from Tehachapi" is an extremely small niche among the thousands of categories of postcards, but I'm always excited to see my beloved hometown in photographic depictions, even if there's only a handful of them in existence.

The earliest American souvenir postcards are believed to be those issued to commemorate the World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893, but the practice of sending postcards didn't really take off until after 1898, when private printers and publishers were allowed to print their own – prior to that, the U.S. Post Office held a monopoly on printing them.

With the creative power of American photographers, illustrators and printers unleashed, endless styles and designs of postcards were made. Most were based on photographs but there were also many that featured the work of artists and illustrators, who either rendered locations and scenery or their own humorous, cartoon-like situations.

Initially one side of a postcard was filled with an image and the other side had a place for a stamp and the mailing address with the words "Post Card" appearing inexplicably large. There was no place to write even "Wish you were here" to the envious folks back home.

Provided by Jon Hammond.

An autumn shot of City Park (now Phil Marx Central Park) in Tehachapi showing the "S-curve" which has now been closed and turned into parking and more park space.

In 1907 the Post Office allowed private citizens to write messages on the address side of cards, and they began to have a divided back, with the left side for messages and the right side for the stamp and address. This important change further encouraged development of postcards and their popularity exploded.

Postcards were popular in part because of their cost: the cards themselves were cheap, they didn't require an envelope, and for decades it cost only a penny to send one. They were an inexpensive way to prove that you had actually gone somewhere and hadn't forgotten your friends and family members.

One aspect of postcards that doesn't get talked about much is the fact that there were (and are) actually two main reasons to buy them: one is to send to others, and the other is to simply keep them for yourself to have a photographic memento of your trip.

Especially in the early part of the 20th Century, cameras, film and processing were expenses many couldn't afford, but you could usually buy 3 x 5 postcards as you traveled and be guaranteed to have some good images of sights along the way. I have hundreds of California postcards that my family bought for this reason – to keep and look at later, not to send to others.

Provided by Jon Hammond.

This 1928 postcard of the Tehachapi Loop is the oldest I've found for this area.

The oldest Tehachapi postcard I've found is one of the Tehachapi Loop that was mailed in 1928. Like many postcards from its era, it is a black and white photograph that was watercolor-tinted to give it some color.

Later images of our area were taken in the 1940s and 1950s by Max Mahan for a company called Columbia Wholesale Supply, a Hollywood company that made postcards for even out-of-the-way places like Tehachapi. These cards are modest but endearing images of our mountain home.

In more recent times, there have been a few assorted postcards that featured the Tehachapi area, with images of wind turbines, railroad scenery, wildflowers, etc. Since Tehachapi now hosts visitors from all over the world, including those hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, there's no telling where postcards of this area have been sent. . .

Keep enjoying the beauty of life in the Tehachapi Mountains.

Jon Hammond is a fourth generation Kern County resident who has photographed and written about the Tehachapi Mountains for 38 years. He lives on a farm his family started in 1921, and is a speaker of Nuwä, the Tehachapi Indian language. He can be reached at [email protected]/.

Provided by Jon Hammond.

This image captures the time when growing sugar beets for seed was a major crop in the Tehachapi area. Note how Jamison Mountain, where the cement quarry is located at Monolith (the company is now called Martin Marietta Materials) was larger back then.