Bakersfield Life

Bakersfield's changing downtown architecture

By: Jeff Nickell, Director, Kern County Museum

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Of course, most of you know this area had inhabitants before the likes of Col. Thomas Baker, the Jewett brothers and a slew of others who came here in the mid to latter part of the 1800s. 
The Yokuts Indians had a large settlement near where Mercy Hospital now stands. Their homes were made from willow branches and tule reeds.
By 1870, our town was a fledging community with pioneers who were looking to make the most of the lower end of the San Joaquin Valley. Board and batten buildings were the norm, and false fronts made businesses look larger to attract more patrons. I am always amazed that just a few years earlier, the area was really nothing more than marshlands with the area being known as Kern Island due to the fact that the mighty Kern had two forks running through much of what is Bakersfield.
Col. Baker himself laid out the downtown streets of Bakersfield.  In fact, Baker was somewhat of an expert surveyor through his penchant for reading everything he could about the subject.  The streets and avenues were laid out wider than most towns of time. Baker wanted streets where travelers could pass slower-moving wagons or turn their wagons around.
 
Knock on wood
On these streets, buildings began to emerge made from what most towns across the country were being made of: wood. The process of building used was called board and batten, which describes a type of exterior siding or interior paneling that has alternating wide boards and narrow wooden strips. The boards are usually — but not always — one foot wide. The boards may be placed horizontally or vertically. The battens are usually — but not always — about half-inch wide. These battens are placed over the seams between the boards. Mills were built in Frazier Park and on Breckenridge Mountain due to the ample supply of wood their surroundings provided.
This was a great way to build. At least that is what the residents and business owners thought until the great fire of 1889 destroyed much of the city.  The fire and the earthquake in 1952 caused extensive damage that changed our downtown architecture. The fire caused a building boom with brick, and the earthquake damaged many structures beyond repair, causing us to utilize steel to reinforce structures to protect us against Mother Nature.
Personally, these parts of history are not things I lived through.  Growing up in Bakersfield, I did not get the opportunity to see the Arlington Hotel, the Southern Hotel (in all its finery), Redlick’s Departments, and so on.  The downtown landscape building-wise is not that much different than what we had when I was kid.  Yes, we have the Rabobank Arena, new courthouse, the County Administrative Office, the Superintendent of Schools building, and a few others but for the most part, minus the wonderful trees, what we now have it is much the same.
 
The influence of Charles Biggar
If you travel through the downtown area and beyond in just about any direction, you will find some grand old buildings, several of which were constructed between the 1920s and 1940s, that are a huge part of what Bakersfield is today, not only architecturally but historically, too.  
Some of these buildings include the Bell Tower, constructed originally for First Baptist Church; the Haberfelde Building (of Heberfelde Ford fame, the precursor to Jim Burke Ford); Vests Drugs; The Bakersfield Californian building (placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983), the Central Fire Station or Fire Station #1, the Fox Theater (completed Dec. 25, 1930), and many of the structures at Bakersfield High School, including community treasure Harvey Auditorium. All of the listed buildings were designed by noted architect Charles Biggar. And, even though flood, fire, and earthquakes have ravaged our downtown area, it would not have the historic feel that it has if it were not for Charles Biggar.
A historical survey completed several years ago by historian Chris Brewer, under the auspices of the city of Bakersfield, offers some details about some of these buildings. The Central Fire Station is “squarish Moderne Public Works Administration style architecture” that was built in 1938 on property that was once the old Bryant School. The property cost $15,420, and construction costs amounted to $120,000.
The same historical survey by Brewer indicates that Fox Theater was “considered the finest of its kind between San Francisco and Los Angeles” when it was opened to the public.  The theatre boasts a Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture, and its clock tower is six stories tall.
So next time you are downtown, look around for some of the wonderful buildings that still exist from the earlier years of the place we call home.  They are not only pleasing to the eye, but truly give us a sense of history as we go about our daily lives.
(P.S. I have purposely left out 1950s construction. You may want to turn a blind eye to that era for the most part. It is just my opinion that they are not the best-looking buildings in downtown, although they are quite functional).