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1877 drought teaches us to conserve

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 22, 2008 at 4:43 pm

From the Bakersfield Californian:

The drought predicted this year is caused by three years of below average snowfall in the Sierras and scant rainfall the last couple of years. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a statewide drought emergency.

The most disastrous drought in California history occurred during the years of 1877-78. The Kern River dried up completely, but Bakersfield’s ground water supply furnished us with domestic water pumped by windmill or mule power. Most field crops relied on canal water from the river and were lost.

After only three years as county seat of Kern County, Bakersfield was just beginning to bloom. Three years after the Southern Pacific Railroad connected us with the rest of the United States, this drought must have been realized as a great setback for our community as well as the whole state.

With the new railroad connection, our bountiful produce could at last be shipped to national markets economically. Before the railroad, the cost of shipping to market by horse-drawn wagon was prohibitive.

During that era, Kern County’s major industry was livestock raising and the natural wild grasses were the lifeblood of this vast enterprise. Miller and Lux, Cox and Clark, Tracy and Canfield and the Crocker brothers all owned vast herds of cattle that relied on the natural grasses as feed and the river supplied their water.

There was hardly any rain in 1876 and none at all in 1877. No one had ever seen the Kern River completely dry until that year. Kern River Canyon was only a sun baked ditch filled with hot granite boulders. Buena Vista Lake and its sloughs were dry. The cattlemen banded together and dug deep wells about four miles apart in the Buena Vista Slough area and installed water pumps powered by mules to provide livestock water.

Read the full text of this story from the Bakersfield Californian by clicking here.

June 22, 2008 · Filed Under Water History