Sometimes being first doesn’t guarantee your place in history. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots the story of the earliest settlers of Bakersfield, before Colonel Baker.
Back in 1860, the area we know today as downtown Bakersfield was home to swampy land around the Kern River known as Kern Island. It was here in 1863 that Colonel Thomas Baker began building the Kern Island Canal, draining the swamp, and founding the city we know today. But while Colonel Baker gets the credit and the statue outside city hall, it turns out he wasn’t the first settler in Bakersfield.
First of course were the Native Americans who called Bakersfield home. The Yowlumne Indians had a village here called Woilu, near 16th and F Streets. In the 1840’s Mexican settlers like Ventura Cuen settled at Rio Bravo, also known as Old Panama.
Things really started happening around 1860. In February of that year, German immigrant Christian Bonha arrived in Kern Island. He built what some historians claim was the first permanent house in Bakersfield near 20th and K Streets. He cleared 10 acres and had success growing corn. Other early pioneers soon arrived, including Dr. Sparrell Woody, who married Bonha’s daughter. But in December 1862, everything changed when a massive flood devastated the residents of Kern Island. Bonha wound up selling his property for $200 to Colonel Baker, setting the stage from the Bakersfield we know today.
