Kern County CA Archives History - Books .....That's Gold In Them Thar Hills 1934
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Book Title: Where Rolls The Kern

CHAPTER III.
"That's Gold in Them Thar Hills."

   FEBRUARY 18,1850, the county of Mariposa was created. It was the largest of
any of the original twenty-seven California counties, extending from Tuolumne
County on the North to Los Angeles and San Diego Counties on the South, and from
the Coast Range to the Nevada State line. Naturally, the Kern country formed a
part of this vast county—a most remote part, and at that day a most unimportant
part, economically speaking at least.

   September 9th, of the same year, California was formally admitted to
statehood; and there were great things doing in the Northern portion of the
State, where gold had been found and where miners and other fortune-seekers were
rushing in by the thousands. Not so in the Kern country, however. The Indians, a
few Mexican vaqueros with their herds, an occasional intrepid American explorer
or settler dotted the landscape, but so far there was little visible that would
attract population.

   A California State map now in the Henry E. Huntington Library collection at
San Marino, published in 1851, by B. F. Butler, Post-office Building, San
Francisco, defines all then existing county boundary lines, names all cities,
towns, rivers, lakes, etc.; but the one lone mark of designation on the entire
area now occupied by Kern County is Kern Lake. Not a town, station, ranch or
river is designated—not even the Kern River itself, nor Buena Vista Lake.

   Thus it can be seen that in 1851 the Kern area was of almost total
unimportance to one California geographer, at least.

   Despite the lavish wealth to be found in the Northern gold fields,
prospectors, true to the characteristics of their kind, commenced to drift
Southward in search of the yellow metal, and the Kern Hills came in for
exploration. The first recorded find of gold was made in the Kern area in 1851.
However, of this find, little is known, and it was of minor importance save as a
stimulant to further explorations in the area.

   As a matter of fact, there is fairly good evidence that gold was found in the
Kern area long before Marshall's celebrated discovery at Coloma. One bit of
evidence along this line was contributed by J. C. Crocker in 1870 when he
reported to the Kern County Courier the finding of a tunnel driven in solid rock
in the Coast Range, west of Bakersfield, which was proven by a tree growing in
its mouth to have been dug long before the country came into the possession of
the Americans. However, this testimony possesses little but historical interest,
since the Kern country was not recognized as a gold producing country until
1853—and then only to a minor degree.

   In 1852 the Kern district became a part of a new county—Tulare—formally
created by legislative act on April 20th of that year. The act creating Tulare
County decreed that "the seat of justice shall be at the log cabin on the South
side of Kaweah Creek, near the bridge built by Dr. Thomas Payne, and shall be
called Woodsville, until changed by a vote of the people." Shortly thereafter
"the vote of the people" caused the removal of the county seat to the then new
town of Visalia, which brought the few scattered residents of the Kern area much
closer to their seat of county government, than they had been when the district
was a part of the vast county of Mariposa. However, this fact was of no major
importance, for there is no evidence to indicate that the Kernites had any
considerable amount of official business to transact.

   The gold discovery of 1851 had stimulated interest in the district on the
part of prospectors, and when, in 1853, a prospector found a gold nugget
weighing 42 ounces, about four miles below the present site of Kernville,
everything was ripe for a gold rush into the area—and a rush there was; but it
did not reach full proportions until 1855; the activities of the latter year
being greatly stimulated by additional important discoveries made in 1854.

   An excellent pen picture of the excitement that prevailed along the Kern was
painted by that late historian, J. M. Guinn, in a paper read before the Southern
California Historical Society, April 4, 1898. In part, Guinn said:

   The Kern River excitement surpassed everything that had preceded it. Seven
years of mining had skimmed the richness of the placers. The Northern and
Central gold fields of California had been thoroughly prospected. The miners who
had been accustomed to the rich strikes of early years could not content
themselves with moderate returns. They were ready for a rush. The first
discoveries on Kern River were made in the summer of 1854, but no excitment
followed the first reports. But during the Fall and Winter rumors were set
afloat of rich strikes on the headwaters of that stream. The stories grew as
they traveled on. One that had "a wide circulation and was readily accepted ran
about as follows: A Mexican doctor had appeared in Mariposa loaded down with
nuggets. He reported that he and four companions had found a region paved with
gold. The very hills were yellow with outcroppings. While gloating over such
wealth and loading it into sacks the Indians attacked them and killed his four
companions. He escaped with one sack of gold. He proposed to organize a company
large enough to exterminate the Indians and then bring out the gold on pack mules.

   This, as well as other stories, equally as improbable, were spread broadcast
throughout the State. Many of the reports of wonderful strikes were purposely
magnified by merchants and dealers in miners' supplies who were.overstocked with
unsalable goods, and by transportation companies with whom business was slack.
Their purpose was accomplished and the rush was on. It was the first rush that
had profited Los Angeles. It came at an opportune time for the town. It was hard
times in the old pueblo; business was dull and money scarce. The Southern
Californian of December 24, 1854, says: "The great scarcity of money is seen in
the present exhorbitant rates of interest which it commands, eight, ten and even
fifteen per cent, a month is freely paid, and the supply even at these rates is
too meager to meet the demand."

   In January the rush began. It struck the old pueblo like a cyclone. Every
steamer down the coast was loaded to the guards with adventurers for the mines.
The sleepy old metropolis of the cow counties found itself suddenly transformed
into a bustling mining camp. The Southern Californian of February 8, 1855, thus
describes the situation: "The road from our valley is literally thronged with
people on the way to the mines. Hundreds of people have been leaving not only
the city, but every portion of the county. Every description of vehicle and
animal have been brought into requisition to take the exhultant seekers after
wealth to the goal of their hopes. Immense ten-ton mule wagons strung out one
after another; long trains of pack mules and men mounted and on foot, with picks
and shovels; boarding house keepers with their tents; merchants with their
stocks of miners' necessaries and gamblers with their 'papers' are constantly
leaving for the Kern River mines. The wildest stones are afloat. We do not place
reliance, however, upon these stories. If the mines turn out ten dollars a day
to the man everybody ought to be satisfied. The opening of these mines has been
a godsend to all of us, as the business of the entire country was on the point
of taking to a tree."

   As the boom increased our editor grows more jubilant. In his issue of March
7th he throws out'these headlines:

   "Stop the Press! Glorious News From Kern River! Bring Out the Big Gun! There
are thousands of gulches rich with gold and room for ten thousand miners. Miners
averaging fifty dollars a day. One man with his own hands took out $160 in one
day. Five men in ten days took uot [sic] $4500."

   Another stream of miners and adventurers was pouring into the mines by way of
the San Joaquin Valley. From Stockton to Kern River, a distance of 300 miles,
the road was crowded with men on foot, on stages, on horseback, and on every
form of conveyance that would take them to the new El Dorado. In four months
five or six thousand men had found their way into the Kern River Valley. There
was gold there, but not enough to go round. A few struck it rich, the many
struck nothing but "hard luck," and the rush out began. Those who had ridden
into the valley footed it out, and those who had footed it in on sole leather
footed it out on their natural soles or depended on sackcloth or charity.

   The conclusion of Mr. Guinn's paper might quite naturally leave the reader
with the impression that this marked the end of the Kern River gold rush, for
the time being, at least. However, this was not the case. He evidently had in
mind solely the placers. It is true that interest in placer mining did subside
to a great extent, as it had in all the placer fields; but with the decline of
heavy placer production came the search for the quartz ledges, which brought
still greater excitement to the Kern region, as we shall see in a later chapter.


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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