Some names from the past are lost to history. Others live on, in the form of landmarks, place names or streets. But many times, the stories behind those names are a mystery to most of us. We look at one of those names from the past today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots – the story of Bakersfield’s Benjamin Brundage.
The drivers on today’s Brundage Lane in east Bakersfield probably don’t know the significant role the road’s namesake played in the history of Kern County and for that matter, California as a whole. Brundage was born in Ohio and was admitted to the bar there, before serving the state in the Civil War. In 1865 he came to California, selling insurance in San Francisco for a short time. Later that year, he settled in Kern County, in the small gold mining town of Havilah, which became Kern County’s first seat of government in 1866.
Brundage practiced law and quickly rose to prominence, helping to lead the effort to move the county seat to Bakersfield, which itself was rising to prominence with the arrival of the railroad. But Brundage wasn’t done. He helped establish the Kern County Superior Court, and was the court’s first judge. He also was a member of the state Constitutional Convention of 1879.
As a judge, Brundage played a big role in one of the most important legal decisions in California history – the fight over water rights between land barons Miller and Lux versus Bakersfield’s Haggin, Tevis and Carr. Called the Trial of the Century – the legal battle involved who had the rights to the waters of the Kern River, those who had appropriations upstream, or those who had riparian rights by owning land along the river downstream. Brundage ruled for Haggin, but the California Supreme Court ultimately ruled for Lux, setting the precedent for California’s water wars to this day.
