Murder at Long Tom The last edition of Tales from the Vault noted that the Yellow Aster Mining Company was founded with a gold discovery east of Red Rock Canyon in 1895. This was not the first time gold was discovered in this area. Prospectors had been rushing to Kern […]
The Yellow Aster Mining Company Tucked away in the vault are two cancelled checks, one dated 1905 and the other 1910. The amounts of $70.45 and $36.25 were drawn on an account owned by the Yellow Aster Mining and Milling Company. Both checks are signed by John Singleton and R.S. […]
Marie Beale & Decatur House This edition of Tales brings us to one of the most interesting of Kern County’s pioneer families. We have all heard of the remarkable stories about General Edward Fitzgerald Beale, Mexican/American War Hero, and friend of Kit Carson, gold smuggler, Indian Agent, and land holder. […]
In a previous edition of Tales, I described the U.S. Naturalization record of Peter Gardett. The HRC holds U.S. Naturalization records for Kern County that span from 1866 to 1982. These records document the rich diversity of our county. People immigrated from countries such as Austria, Canada, Chile, China, England, […]
In the last edition of Tales we left off with the question of who was the first person to legally naturalize to Kern County. A check of the U.S. Naturalization records located in the Historical Research Center Archives shows that it was Michael Sandrigan who naturalized on July 28, 1866. He […]
Of Heart and Mind What does the movie The China Syndrome have in common with CSUB? The movie, starring Jane Fonda and released in 1979, was about an accident at a nuclear power plant that was investigated by a reporter. On May 22 of the same year Jane Fonda spoke at […]
2016 marked the sesquicentennial of the establishment of Kern County. To commemorate this, the HRC was busy researching photographs that document the history of the county for the exhibit 150: The History of Kern County Through Photographs. While researching this exhibit, I happened upon a timeline of the development of […]
Tales from the Vault #5 “Earl Warren and California State College, Bakersfield” This edition of Tales takes us to the Earl Warren Collection housed in the Historical Research Center’s Special Collections and Rare Book Room. Many of you perhaps know Earl Warren as the Supreme Court Justice who presided over […]
Tales from the Vault #4 “The Long Hard Road of a Country Musician” This edition of Tales from the Vault takes us to the Bakersfield Sound. The Historical Research Center at the Walter W. Stiern Library contains a number of interviews with Bakersfield musical legends such as Oscar Whittington, “Tumbleweed” […]
In the last edition of Tales from the Vault I mentioned the vast inventory of oral histories on deposit in the Historical Research Center. Not only do these oral histories cover CSUB faculty, they also document the history of the San Joaquin Valley. Interviewees who experienced the Dust Bowl, farming, […]