Colonel Thomas Baker wasn’t the first person to live in what is now Bakersfield, but his legacy lives on, in more than just the city that bears his name. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, we explore his remarkable story.
Thomas Baker was born in Ohio in 1810 and served in the Ohio militia, becoming a colonel. In 1838 he settled in what is today Iowa, eventually becoming the territory’s first district attorney and a member of Iowa’s first state legislature. He came to California during the Gold Rush, but by 1852, he left the gold fields for the Southern San Joaquin Valley, where he was one of the founder of Visalia. In 1855 he was elected to the state assembly and would go on to represent Fresno and Tulare Counties as a state senator.
Soon Baker's interests turned south, literally. In 1857, the legislature granted the Montgomery brothers a franchise to reclaim swampland and overflow areas around the Kern River. In the early 1860's Baker and a business partner purchased the rights to the franchise. Baker also purchased the home and land of early settler Christian Bohna who left the area after a devastating flood on the Kern River in 1862.
Colonel Baker officially arrived in what was then known as Kern Island in September 1863, and got to work, draining the wetlands in what is now downtown Bakersfield, and building the Kern Island Canal. His farm fields became known by travelers from Los Angeles to Visalia, and Colonel Baker's Field became Bakersfield.
Aside from his real estate business, Baker would go to own a profitable toll road between Bakersfield and Havilah. He died in a typhoid epidemic in 1872, around a year before Bakersfield became a city, and the county seat of Kern County.
