History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 3

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682

USA > California > Kern County > History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 3

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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CATTLE IN A KERN COUNTY ALFALFA PASTURE

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

of hills, and great wastes of level, barren sands, slicing off from San Ber- nardino county for the benefit of Kern a great triangle from the western edge of the Mojave desert with its lonesome wildernesses, its bewildering mirages, its mocking, brackish waters, its great beds of coarser chemicals, and its recklessly strewn treasures of gold and tungsten. The base and altitude of this triangle, which fits into the southeastern corner of the county, are approx- imately sixty miles each. Its hypothenuse is roughly marked by the eastern slopes of the Sierras, where the great range near its southern end curves westward toward the sea. In the history of Kern county this desert triangle was the last and least to be appreciated, therefore we get its description first out of the way.

A View of the Kern Valley

For our view of the valley portion of the county-the place where the oil fields and alfalfa pastures are and where the orchards and vineyards and groves of oranges and olives are coming to be-let us take ourselves to one of the round-topped treeless, grass-carpeted mountains that form the eastern sentinels of the Coast range. From such a point-near the middle of the western line of the county-spreading out before us we would see a great sweep of valley, open at the north but closed in by the Coast range on the west, by the Sierras on the east and on the south by a cross range that meets and joins the two great ranges and forms a mighty horse shoe of mountains that walls in the intervening plains and mesas and protects them from winds and storms and gives them the warm and equable climate that the vegetable kingdom loves.

From the point where the west side mesa begins to slope down to the floor of the valley to the point where the east side mesa melts into the foot- hills of the Sierras, the distance is close to fifty miles, and from the upper edge of the mesa that lies along the northern side of the cross range northwest through the center of the valley to the north county line it is approximately sixty miles. From the great area thus enclosed, an area every foot of which will one day be watered and tilled, or made productive through the extrac- tion therefrom of oil or other valuable minerals, a new state like Delaware could be carved out, and of the scraps left over a new Rhode Island might be pieced together.

In reality the haze of dust and distance covers all this land as one might see it on a summer day from the summit of the Coast range hills, and even in the clearer air of winter little of the prospect could be seen except the nearby mesas, a great sea of light hiding the valley beyond, and far away, floating in the thinner strata of the upper air, the rugged, snow-capped peaks of the high Sierras rising, as Mrs. Mary Austin says, "like the very front and battlements of heaven."

But let us suppose the dust and haze are swept away and our eyes can search out the objects in the valley. Then something like this great panorama of industry and natural wealth would be laid before our view.

The West Side Oil Fields

Down below us in the foreground is the great sweep of the west side oil fields, beginning near the San Emidio ranch in the southwestern corner of the county and following northwest with the trend of the hills through Sunset, Midway, McKittrick, Temblor, the great, problematic reaches of the Lost Hills and Devils Den districts to the northwestern corner of the county and on thence to Coalinga. The whole distance prospected with more or less profit

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

or promise is not far from seventy miles within the county. Wildcat drilling, as yet without result, extends eastward of San Emidio fifteen miles farther. In width the proven or prospected strip varies from two to fifteen miles.

Only the merest fraction of this vast territory is as yet commercially pro- ductive-a thin line, a mile and a half to three mile's in width drawn diagonally across five congressional townships represents it. Yet out of this small frac- tion of the county's west side oil territory were taken in the year 1910 not less than 24,680,000 barrels of oil, equal in fuel value to between eight and nine million tons of good coal. Two branch railroads and four pipe lines connecting with tide water have been built to furnish an outlet for this oil, and a great electric transmission line has been completed to furnish current for light and other purposes for which it may be needed in the fields. Three towns, large enough and permanent enough to aspire to incorporations- Maricopa, Taft and McKittrick-are the fruits of the local business activity of these oil fields, and three or four other towns are in process of building with varying reasons to hope for the future.

The Buena Vista Gas Belt

Just beyond the line of the producing oil fields lies the great gas belt of the Buena Vista hills, where wells estimated to produce from ten to fifty million cubic feet per twenty-four hours have been brought in within the past two years. Already this gas is piped to Bakersfield and to the different parts of the west side oil fields for cooking and lighting and for use in fur- naces, and a great trunk line is now carrying it over the mountains to Los Angeles and other Southern California towns. In addition to this use an ex- tensive plant recently has been installed for extracting gasoline from the natural gas by means of compression and cooling after a process similar in many respects to the making of liquid air.

If we search the fields from our hypothetical point of vantage we may see. perhaps, anywhere from one to half a dozen great oil wells spouting their inky fountains of oil and gas from two hundred to four hundred feet in the air. Great pillars of smoke rise from where waste oil and refuse are burned from the sump holes, and if it were night and the chance served we might see the towering torch of some burning gasser lighting the sands and sage brush on the surrounding dunes.

Recent Activity in the Oil Fields

The past few years have witnessed a tremendous activity on the west side. The older fields of Sunset and McKittrick have been widened and extended, the greatest oil gusher in the history of the industry being brought in in the former field, and Midway, lying between Sunset and McKittrick, sprang from the least to one of the largest of the oil fields of the valley. The Buena Vista gas fields were first tapped in 1909. At the present time prospectors are drilling with tireless energy in the northward extension of the MeKittrick field, and all over the Lost Hills district that extends from McKittrick to the north county line, wild-catters are hopefully working, and occasionally a productive well of light gravity oil is brought in at the mary- elously shallow depth of 500 to 1000 feet.

In Devils Den, close to the hills in the northwestern corner of the county, a few drills are dropping, and strung along the foothills from Devils Den southeast to Temblor are a few prospectors' derricks, miles apart and accom-

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

plishing little as yet save to demonstrate the faith of their owners that the oil measures lie beneath in an unbroken belt.

For the rest the foreground is filled with low, rolling hills and gently sloping mesas, covered in spring with short grass and bright wild flowers, but dry and brown throughout the summer and fall, with only the wandering dust pillars of the whirlwinds, the heat shimmer, the straggling growth of dwarf sage brush, the lonesome derrick of the wildcatter and the lonesomer cabin of the lease herder to vary their desolate monotony.

Reclaimed Swamp Land

These rolling hills and sloping mesas (all of which may some day be oil- or gas-bearing) fill a strip of country at the base of the Coast range from ten to twenty miles in width. Then comes the western edge of the county's agricultural land, its limit clearly defined by the line of the ancient swamp that filled the trough of the valley with a width of two to a dozen miles before the waters of Kern river that fed it were diverted into a great irrigation system, that waters 250,000 acres of land.

Just to the east of the Midway oil fields is Buena Vista lake reservoir, a body of water covering thirty-six square miles, formerly a natural depression in the swamp and now enlarged by means of levees on the east and north for the purpose of storing the waters of the river for irrigating the reclaimed swamp lands to the north. From this lake extending northwest along the western edge of the former swamp is a canal, one hundred and fifty feet in width, built for the combined purpose of distributing irrigation water and carrying away any excess of water that may come down the river in time of flood. This great ditch, known as the Kern Valley Water Company's canal, runs through lands now belonging to Miller & Lux, and that corporation is now extending it northward, by means of the largest steam dredger ever brought to the interior of the state, with the ultimate purpose of completing an artificial water way from . Buena Vista to Tulare lake. The canal will be of a size to serve as a means of transportation, but whether it is used for such a purpose remains to be determined by the demand, the disposition of the owners and the availability of the water at all times to fill it.

Lying along this canal to the east, in the bed of the ancient swamp, fed by the deep, black tule lands, are the fat alfalfa pastures of Miller & Lux. the first expanse of perennial green that greets the eye as we look eastward from our perch on the Coast range mountain. The Miller & Lux alfalfa and grain fields reach to the northward from Buena Vista lake for something more than twenty-five miles. Beyond that the old swamp. dry except in unusually wet years, extends to the northern limit of the county untilled and unpeopled.

Irrigation Canals Radiate From Bakersfield

Twenty miles northeast of Buena Vista lake is Bakersfield, at the eastern edge of a great, nearly level plain that extends from the old swamp to the point where the land begins to rise again in an upward slope to meet the foothills of the Sierras. Just northeast of Bakersfield Kern river leaves a deep furrow of a mile and a half in width which it has plowed for itself through the hills and mesas to the eastward, and enters the flat, alluvial lands of the valley. From Bakersfield the channel of the river runs in an approximately direct line to Buena Vista lake, but the river waters are taken out in a series of canals, heading above and below Bakersfield and spreading fanwise to the northwest. west, south and southeast.

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

This system of ditches covers roughly a territory twenty miles wide and forty miles long, beginning at the southern end of the valley where the mesas slope up to Tejon and San Emidio, and extending northwest within twelve or fifteen miles of the north county line. Only the circumstance that the water is all used on nearer lands prevents the irrigation system reaching the northern boundary of the county, but the shortcoming of the canal system is supplemented by the presence of an artesian belt in the north part of the county, bordering on the eastern edge of the swamp, where flowing wells are obtained at a depth of 500 to 1000 feet, and by the existence of abundant water strata at depths varying from twelve to forty feet in depth from which water may be pumped for irrigation.

These facilities for irrigation make of the middle distance of this vast panorama spread out before us, a belt of country twenty miles in width (exclusive of the swamp land heretofore described) and fifty-five miles or so in length, every foot of which can be irrigated, either from canals, from artesian wells or from shallow pumping wells. Close to Bakersfield this land is tilled to fruit, alfalfa and dairy pastures. Farther south and northwest it is utilized for great grain fields or pastures for beef cattle. All of it is suitable for similar purposes.

Beyond this belt of cheaply irrigated land lies the great mesa that skirts the western foothills of the Sierras. In width and length it is only a little less than the great belt of land just described, and along its lower edge the cost of pump irrigation is but a little greater than on the lower valley lands. This mesa forms the county's citrus belt-as yet, for the main part, potential. But while the county's orange and lemon production is yet in the future, so far as any great commercial results are concerned, the capacity of the soil, the abundance of the water and the perfect adaptability of the climate have been demonstrated past all doubt. Oranges grown on the San Emidio ranch, already referred to in the description of the west side oil fields, have made a name and fame for themselves in the most critical markets of the state. At Tejon, in the hills some twenty miles east of San Emidio, oranges of equal size and flavor are grown, and scattered all along the mesa north- westward to the north county line are smaller groves that prove the whole of the great thermal belt.

Beginning of Orange Culture

At the present time near Edison, eight miles east of Bakersfield, the Edison Land & Water Company is beginning the cultivation of orange groves on a considerable scale, and is making all its improvements in the thorough-going fashion that promises the fullest success. Smaller ventures in citrus culture have been launched in the wide stretch of mesa land that reaches south from Edison and other centers of development have been established at Delano, McFarland and Jasmine, in the northern part of the county. The development around the latter places is really the southern extension of the orange districts of Tulare county. The great success of citrus culture around Porterville has tempted the planting of similar lands farther and farther to the south, and the result is expected to be the gradual closing of the gaps between Ducor and Jasmine and Edison and between Edison and Tejon.

Under all this mesa land water for pump irrigation is found at depths that vary almost directly as the height of the surface above sea level. Along the lower parts of the thermal belt water may be found at a depth of forty

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

feet or less, while near the hills the depth may run above two hundred feet. There is an immense body of land, however, on which water is to be had in abundant quantities with a lift of less than one hundred feet.

In addition to the possibilities of the mesa lands for the growing of oranges and lemons, they are famous for their early fruits of the deciduous kinds and for vegetables. The mesa soil for the most part is an admixture of sand, gravel and clay that is easily tilled, very fertile and sufficiently porous to insure the best results from irrigation. In places the thermal belt is almost frostless, and tomato plants live the year round. This means that it is possible to have strawberries and a great range of vegetables at Christ- mas time, and grapes, apricots, melons and other delicacies that capture the high prices of the early markets may be supplied in great quantity and perfect quality.

Cheap Power Available

For the further development of the mesa lands great things are expected because of the abundance of cheap fuel for the generation of power. In addition to the power that may be developed from steam plants run by crude oil or from gas and gasoline used direct in engines, the San Joaquin Light & Power Company, which has recently entered the field with electric power and which has now completed a transmission line circling the valley portion of the county, announces that it will encourage the use of electricity in pumping water by extending its service lines where there is any hope for a market. The Lerdo Land & Water Company, which is a kindred cor- poration to the San Joaquin Light & Power Company, is preparing to lead the way in the use of water pumped by electricity by sinking wells and installing pumps on a tract of several thousand acres which it has purchased recently and which lies along the Southern Pacific railroad beginning about seven miles northwest of Bakersfield.

At Wasco is established another center of pumping plant irrigation, and the practicability of raising deciduous fruits and raisins by this means is being fully demonstrated. At Rio Bravo, south and west of Wasco and nearly due west of Bakersfield, farmers are proving that it pays to pump water on the lower land for alfalfa and grain. At Semitropic, due west of Wasco and thirty-five miles northwest of Bakersfield, a combination of pumping plants and artesian wells is solving the problem of irrigation for general farming and dairying. Just at the eastern edge of the swamp land in what is known as the Goose Lake slough country is a thriving settlement that depends wholly on artesian wells to mature its crops.

Beside the ventures in orange culture around Delano, Jasmine and McFarland, many pumping plants have been installed in the northern part of the county for the growing of deciduous trees and vines, and for growing alfalfa for dairy cows. North of Delano, along the county line, pump irri- gators have been especially active. At McFarland within the past three years a rose nursery of one hundred and sixty acres has been established for the growing of rose bushes for the New York market.

Along the foothills and out on the mesa as far as Delano dry wheat farming has been the main industry from the time of the settlement of the country until the present time, but it is considered now but a matter of a few years before the pumping plant will make the land too valuable to be longer farmed to grain.

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

Great Land Holdings

As for the great area of country under the irrigation system already referred to, the bulk of it is held by the Kern County Land Company, a corporation that figures largely in the story of the county. Scattered among the company's holdings are many small farms, where all kinds of fruits, alfalfa, corn, vegetables and the usual agricultural crops are raised and where dairying is carried on with handsome profit. The Land Company's great fields are devoted to wheat and barley or are fenced into huge alfalfa pastures for the fattening of beef cattle raised in the mountains or shipped in from other parts of California or from other states. Whole townships of the finest garden soil are farmed in immense wheat fields or form rough pastures for Arizona steers. The almost equal Miller & Lux holdings, equally desirable. are farmed in about the same manner.

If we were sitting on the top of the Coast range in reality instead of metaphorically we could see that the county's agricultural possibilities have not yet approached the stage of realization. But a thorough knowledge of the facts and the possibilities is necessary to gain any conception of how far short of realization the present falls. There is no finer body of land in the state than this great valley, and there are few so well watered. With the breaking up of the large holdings of land and the coming of small farmers in numbers adequate to till the soil in thorough fashion, Kern county will become one of the chief sources of food supply in the west. At the present time agriculture is so far overshadowed by the oil industry that a greater number of farm products are shipped into the county than are shipped out.

The Kern River Oil Field

Before we leave the valley for a brief survey of the mountains we must take note of the Kern river oil field, averaging throughout its history the greatest single producing field of the state, although Coalinga, Midway and Sunset have each, at different times forged past it. Thirty miles from the nearest of the other oil fields, on the other side of the valley and with no apparent connection with the west side oil measures, Kern river holds a place alone and needs a wholly separate description. The field lies across Kern river to the north of Bakersfield, sloping from the water's edge up to the top of the mesa. It covers approximately eleven sections of land, under all of which the drill has found a great pool of oil. First drilled in 1899 and pumped ever since to the limit of the market demand, in 1910 the field produced 13,700,000 barrels of oil, and a large part of the proven territory is yet untouched.

It was the Kern river field that gave the county its first oil boom, and made the people of the county forget for the time their long demand for agricultural expansion. The field has been the best dividend-payer in the state, despite the fact that none of the spectacular gushers which have given fame to the Midway and Sunset fields have had a parallel in Kern river. The drilling has been easy and certain, the percentage of loss has been small. and even the limits of the field were established so carly that little money has been spent in fruitless prospecting about its borders. That the field may not be extended in the future is not assumed. In fact, recent drilling to the north and northwest has met encouraging indications, and many people believe that some day oil derricks will be scattered along the east side mesas as they now are scattered along the Coast range. Prospect holes are now being drilled due south of the Kern river field about twenty-four

HISTORY OF KERN COUNTY

miles, and due north of the field almost an equal distance. Both these new prospective districts are near the Sierra foothills, but the results of their exploration must remain for a later writing.

The Mountain Sections

The description of the mountains is quickly written, although one might live there many years and wonder at the freshness of their charm and interest. It is because of the impossible task of a full description that little can be said. The Sierras fill in between the desert and the valley a great barrier, thirty to fifty miles in width, built out of lofty peaks, rugged, pine-clad ridges and shoulders of earth, timbered slopes, fertile valleys, streams that tumble down rocky cascades and flow gently along level reaches, great ledges that carry treasures of gold, silver, copper, and lesser minerals of many sorts.

Suppose we desert our Coast range mountain top for an airship, pre- ferably a dirigible, and sail slowly over the tops of the Sierras from the north county line southward. On the western slope of the range in the northern tier of townships is Woody, named for one of the county pioneers and not for the big oak trees that cover the hills and fill the little valleys. A little farther east and a little higher up is Glennville, in the fertile Linn's valley, named for William Lynn, but spelled with an "i" in later years. Cedar creek and a number of other little streams water the country hereabout and while stock-raising is the chief industry all down the western slope of the range, not a little general farming and some fruit raising is carried on in the little valleys and fertile meadows about Glennville. To the south of Glennville are Granite station and Poso Flat, both small centers of stock- raising.

Over the Greenhorn mountains from Glennville and Linn's valley is Kern river flowing at times through narrow canons, and elsewhere through wider valleys where the stream is bordered by fertile bottom lands. It was along Kern river, at Keysville, about eleven miles south of the north county line, that the first important mining camp in the county was estab- lished. Keysville was about three miles below the junction of the north and south forks of Kern river. Whiskey Flat (now Kernville) is about the same distance above the junction, on the north or main branch.

Above the junction the South Fork flows through the South Fork valley. a fertile strip of bottom land that forms the most important of the mountain farming districts. All this valley, about twenty miles in length, is irrigated and farmed to alfalfa. Weldon and Onyx on the South Fork, Isabella at the junction, Palmer and Vaughn a little to the south from Isabella, form the centers of the sparse population of the northern mountain section. Havi- lah, lying in a little valley, hardly more than a gulch, a little farther still, was once the metropolis and county scat of Kern, but its glory and greatness long since have faded.

The mountains over which we have sailed so far arc rugged and beautiful, stretching away in purple vistas, clad on their summits with pines and cedars and on their lower slopes with oaks, madrones and chaparral. To the south of Havilah, forming the water-shed between Kern river on the north and Caliente creek on the south, is Mount Breckenridge, a handsome, broad- topped mountain, rich in lumber pine that in earlier days was sawed and hauled to Bakersfield. The mill is still there but it has not been operated for some years.

At the southern foot of Mount Breckenridge is Walker's basin, another

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History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 3

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1682

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682