Kern County CA Archives History - Books .....The Coming Of The Iron Horse 1934
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Book Title: Where Rolls The Kern

CHAPTER XII.
The Coming of the Iron Horse.

   PRIMARILY Bakersfield's hope for future greatness was based on the
colonization of the vast tracts of fertile lands surrounding it, but it was a
well known fact that no colonization plan could succeed until the transportation
problem had been solved. That crops could be successfully grown had been fully
demonstrated, but the marketing of these crops on anything more than a minor
scale could only be accomplished through the medium of such transportation
facilities as a railroad would afford. Horse-drawn stages then traveling the
valley might suffice to care for the limited passenger travel, but something
faster and cheaper than freight wagons as a means of carrying crops to market
was vitally necessary if agriculture was to become the mainstay of the young
county and the infant city of Bakers-field. Hence, it can be seen that the
city's hopes were based almost entirely on the early building of the railroad.

   The railroad had been building South for some time, and despite many vexing
delays and rumors, apparently well founded, that the railroad might miss the
town entirely, the optimism that has been present in Bakersfield from the days
of its inception until the present, prevailed, and plans for welcoming the
arrival of the iron horse and its attendant anticipated prosperity went forward.

   It was the anticipated coming of the railroad that quite evidently proved the
greatest factor in removal of the county seat; but even before this important
contest had been fully concluded, steps were taken for the incorporation of the
town. Following the circulation of a petition which had been liberally signed,
the Board of Supervisors, acting on the power vested in them in those days,
declared Bakersfield an incorporated city and called an election for the
selection of city officers for May 24, 1873. The resolution of the Supervisors
named J. B. Tungate, E. H. Dumble and A. R. Jackson as election officials.

   The election resulted in the following being chosen as the city's first
officials: Trustees, W. S. Adams (president), Dr. L. S. Rogers, M. Jacoby, J. B.
Tungate and R. W. Wittington; Recorder, A. R. Jackson; Treasurer, J. Weill;
Assessor, William McFarland; Marshal, Joseph Short. Adams was a liveryman;
Jacoby and Weill were merchants; Rogers was a physician, and Wittington and
Tungate were saloon keepers. About the first order of business of the official
governing body of the new city was to fix license fees. The annual license fees
for saloons and general merchandise establishments were fixed at $20; for
breweries at $10, with a lesser fee being prescribed for other lines of business.

   In July, 1873, what appeared to be a body blow was dealt to the young city,
for in that month came news that work on the railroad had ceased at a point four
miles South of the Northern Kern County line, and approximately thirty miles
North of Bakersfield. Whether this cessation of building activities was caused
by a shortage of funds or was prompted by ulterior motives was not definitely
apparent; but in any event, the action, or lack of action, on the part of the
railroad builders led directly to the founding of a new town at the railhead.
This new town was Delano, and for a time is was a formidable rival of
Bakersfield. Delano—named for Columbus Delano, Secretary of the Interior in
President Grant's Cabinet—became the Northern terminus of the stage and
freight-wagon lines from Los Angeles, and for a time was a most flourishing
business center, and gave those who had staked their all on Bakersfield no
little concern.

   To add to the discouraging aspects of the situation, in January of 1874, a
bill was introduced in the California Legislature calling for the creation of a
new county out of territory lying in Northern Kern and Southern Tulare Counties.
The new county was to have been known as Monache County, and the bill named
Porterville as the county seat. Had this bill passed, the new town of Delano
would have been in the proposed new county, and Kern County would have been
unable to boast of a single mile of railroad within its borders. Despite the
fact that this was in the day when county division was one of the great indoor
sports of the State Legislature, the bill failed of passage, and Kern County
retained its Northern territory and its four miles of railroad.

   Unperturbed by these real and threatened discouragements, the progressive
citizens of Bakersfield carried on, and continued to take steps that would
improve the city's position as a commercial metropolis. On February 24, 1874,
the Kern Valley Bank was organized with a capital of $50,000, and plans were
made for the institution's formal opening about April 20th, in the Wells Fargo
office. Solomon Jewett was made President; S. J. Lansing, Secretary; F. A.
Tracy, P. T. Colby and P. D. Jewett, Directors.

   The two business streets were sprinkled daily; the construction of a water
tank thirty or forty feet high to provide gravity pressure for fire fighting
purposes was discussed; and to provide a few thrills, which apparently seemed
neecssary even in that early day, the Mexicans staged a bull and bear fight
South of town.

   April 6, 1874, came word that the Southern Pacific had resumed construction
work from Delano Southward, with a crew of one hundred men and thirty-five
teams. August 1st; of the same year, trains reached the North bank of the Kern
River. On the 29th of the same month and year—August, 1874—grading for a depot
was commenced; not at Bakersfield, but at a point some three or four miles
distant. Coincident with the commencement of grading operations came the
announcement that the railroad company had filed script on a large tract of
land, and that preparations were being made for the platting of a townsite to be
known as Sumner, and later to be incorporated as the city of Kern, and today
known as East Bakersfield.

   This action on the part of the railroad people did not come as a complete
surprise, for it had been hinted at for some two or three years; but
nevertheless the action caused a wet blanket to be cast on Bakersfield's hopes
for a time at least. It must be remembered that this was back in the horse and
buggy days, when three miles was a full three miles, and for an ambitious young
city to be three miles from a railroad with a new and rival town with the
backing of the railroad interests located at the end of that three miles was not
the most pleasant contemplation. In fact, it is a little difficult for the
impartial observer of today to look back, and understand just why Sumner did not
actually take the lead and walk away with the commercial glory that has since
become Bakersfield's. In any event, the new town was for many a day a rival of
more than insignificant proportions.

   If then recent disconcerting events had not robbed Bakersfield of all hope of
obtaining metropolitan greatness, affairs had at least reached a status where
the majority felt that the town could carry on without the dignity of being an
incorporated city; for on February 27, 1875, we find the Courier strongly urging
editorially the abandonment of organized city government. The Courier advanced
as its reason for its attitude that the expense was a burden, and that nothing
worth while was being received in return. The newspaper soon had the backing of
a healthy majority of the citizenry in its campaign for disincorporate; but
while unnecessary expense continued to furnish the background for the campaign,
it appears that in reality the move was largely a case of burning down the barn
to get rid of the horse. It seems that about the chief individual item of city
expense was the $76 monthly salary of the city marshal, one Alex Mills. Mills,
we are told, was a Kentuckian of advanced years, who hobbled about with a cane,
and who had a habit of telling first one business men and then another just what
he thought of him in language far more expressive than eloquent. These frequent
outbursts on the part of the city's guardian of the peace, came at the most
inopportune times, regardless of who might be present when the verbal explosion
occurred; and what then evidently appeared to be the only way to put a stop to
the practice was disincorporation; although this was never publicly advanced as
the reason for the move. After a sufficient agitation, a petition was
circulated, signed by three-quarters of the qualified voters, and on January 4,
1876, we find the Board of County Supervisors declaring the city
disincorporated—a power which they had in those days. Bakersfield was not to
reincoporate again for twenty-two years —January 11, 1898. In fact the rival
city of Kern was to attain the dignity of an incorporated municipality some five
years before the county seat again attained it, Kern having been incorporated in
1893.

   Meanwhile we find the Southern Pacific struggling on Southward toward Los
Angeles. In February, 1875, the Courier informs us that the engineers were
engaged in the accomplishment of that great engineering feat of surveying the
railroad grade over the Tehachapi Pass, and in March of the same year there were
1,000 men working on the grade over the Tehachapi. The following year—1876—saw
the founding of three more towns within the county as a direct result of the
coming of the iron horse, Caliente, Mojave and Tehachapi.

   The founding of the latter town was in reality the founding of a second town
of that name, the establishment of the first town, which was henceforth to be
known as Old Town, having predated the platting of the new town by many years.
In fact, the China Hill placers had caused a settlement to have been made in
that locality in a real early day. John M. Brite is credited with having been
the first resident of the Tehachapi district, having located there in the fall
of 1854. The Cudde-backs were also among the first settlers of the district, as
was William Wiggins, who became the first postmaster and the first justice of
the peace. The first Fourth of July celebration in what was to become Kern
County was held under a tree, in 1856, near the present site of Tehachapi. Ed.
Green opened the first store in "Old Town," W. C. Wiggins taught the first
school, and "Uncle" Jimmy Williams conducted the first hotel and livery stable.

   O. D. Green located a mile or so from there, and for a number of years was
postmaster, the postoffice being known as Greenwich.

   J. E. Prewett opened the first store in the new town. He later became
Superior Judge of Placer County where he served with distinction for many years.
In 1875 school was conducted in a log cabin at Greenwich

   One by one new businesses continued to be established in the new town, and
gradually the populace moved over from "Old Town" or deserted the district
entirely, until "Old Town" eventually became little more than a memory, while
the new Tehachapi continued to expand until it became a city of considerable
importance, a position it maintains until this day.

   Caliente never made any growth of importance, although it continues to be
known as a railroad point, and is today the distributing point for the mountain
mining district.

   The first store in Mojave was opened by a man named Moon. Mrs. Morrisey
opened the first hotel, and Robert Charlton became the first postmaster. Mojave
enjoyed fairly rapid growth for the early days, and has continued to maintain
commercial importance throughout the intervening years. It is known chiefly as a
railroad point of importance and a supply point for the great mining districts,
both metallic and non-metallic; that surround-it. For a great number of years it
was rightly known as a rather wild and woolly town, and had its full share of
stirring events so common to the frontier towns of the old West.

   A review of this chapter will; reveal that the coming of the railroad was
directly responsible for the founding of five new towns in the county, while the
town that had hoped to gain most from its coming was left entirely off its line.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Where Rolls the Kern

A History of Kern County, California
By Herbert G. Comfort

MOORPARK, CALIFORNIA:
The ENTERPRISE Press
1934

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