Robert Price: 70 years ago, a distinctive earthquake shook Kern and was well dated by a former mayor | Robert Price

The picture must be an indelible picture: two Bakersfield police officers, falling from head to toe in white dust, answering one loud call after another, desks skewed, floors littered with sheets of fallen plaster.

Assistant Chief Constable Charlie Dodge rushed to the police station, having just passed groups of anxious townspeople huddled on the front lawns, some in their summer pajamas, too afraid to go back inside and too surprised to be conscious of their backs.

The pre-dawn earthquake caused his wood-frame Dodge home to crash hard for a terrifying 45 seconds, and the streets of his neighborhood were wet from a collapsing water tank that fell like Goliath slashed 100 feet onto the asphalt, sending the clamor of water and steel nails gushing down Bernard Street. .

The coming hours and days will not be like anything he’s seen before. The third strongest earthquake in recorded California history struck, then and still is, at 4:56 a.m. that morning, July 21, 1952—70 years earlier this week. The 7.3-magnitude earthquake, whose epicenter was near Tehachapi, killed 11 people in that small mountain town and 12 people in the equally devastated city of Arvin. And the worst, in terms of structural and cultural loss, is yet to come.

Dodge called earlier that morning and instructed the sergeant’s office. Edward Olson and First Lieutenant Albert J. Mir, commander of the Night Watch, to call all reserve officers and off-duty officers. Then, slithering out of his rushing dash into the desk, Dodge walked into what seemed to be the fallout of an explosion. It was hard to see through the fog: the remnants of the “gingerbread” crown mold that lined the edges of the building’s high ceilings had smashed to the ground, sending clouds of crushed plaster and covering everything, including the men in what was once. blue.

While Olson and Meir barked instructions and reassurances into phones and two-way radios, occasionally scraping off the fallen bits of plaster that continued to run loose, Dodge tended to other matters, including the wounded officer: Patrolman Lewis Moss was in the squad room writing reports on Reactions the night before when he was hit by a piece of fallen plaster. He was taken to hospital with a minor leg injury.

Police Chief Horace Grayson, who survived the city manager’s corruption charges three years ago, is now facing the biggest public emergency of his career — and was on a hunting trip in the High Sierra when she presented herself. Dodge eventually managed to get to him, but until the President was able to return to Bakersfield, the Assistant to the President was in charge.

Dodge joined the Bakersfield Police Department as a patrolman in 1937 and advanced to the rank of assistant chief of police, a position he held for 16 years. When, after Grayson’s forthcoming 1966 retirement, it became clear that the outgoing president would endorse another candidate, Jack Towell, Dodge took three months off from the oath to campaign for mayor. He defeated the incumbent and served two terms.

He established the county’s first helicopter patrol, was the first sheriff to run Lerdeau Prison and created the county’s first anti-drug task force. For decades after his retirement from public life, Dodge was one of the primary people who went to local historians, and 16 years after his death, his archived interviews remain a great resource. He spoke to California state librarians Bakersfield and UC Berkeley, among others, as did his wife, Lieutenant Mary Holman Dodge, the city’s first female officer.

But Dodge’s most useful diary was perhaps the little-known, 100-page document, “The Personal History of the Bakersfield Police Chiefs from 1933 to 1966,” which was written when Dodge was seventy-seven (therefore, circa 1987) and was printed on a machine. Hand Typewriter by Dedicated, 79, retired Sheriff’s Department Secretary. It highlights some great moments in time, and the 1952 earthquake – in fact a series of seismic events that terrorized the province for 33 days – was one such chapter.

The following are excerpts from Dodge’s history of how Kern County and the Bakersfield Police Department handled the crisis.

On July 21, 1952, the first of two summer earthquakes struck Bakersfield and Kern County. The first earthquake, which occurred in the early morning, was 7.5 on the Richter scale (later reduced to 7.3) and lasted for 45 seconds. People felt the earthquake from Modesto to Imperial Valley. The epicenter was identified as a white wolf fault in a cotton field about 20 miles southeast of Bakersfield.

The populated area hardest hit was Tehachapi. The commercial area of ​​that small town was almost completely destroyed. …

I can clearly remember this early morning event as if it had happened yesterday. The movement of the rolling machine woke me up. I ran to my front room window and looked out in a southwesterly direction just in time to see a great explosion at the Paloma Refinery located near the Lake Buena Vista area. …

The business districts of downtown and east of Bakersfield had nearly every glass window on the buildings. There was a lot of structural damage, but most of it was not visible from the street. Regular and reserve officers responded without delay, and there was no news of looting in the city.

By noon, nearly every viewing window was closed and some officers were relieved to get some rest before returning on the 12-hour night shift. The only damage to the dwellings was falling brick chimneys. Some of the older brick homes had structural damage for a full 24 hours. Not a single vehicle crime or incident has been recorded in the city limits.

The Tehachapi State Prison was then an institution for women criminals. It was made of unreinforced bricks and was severely damaged. The Navy furnished tents, a field kitchen, and other equipment, and 475 prisoners were transferred to it in the prison’s outer yard. Governor Earl Warren responded to the area to survey the damage.

Rail traffic over the Tehachapi Mountains came to a standstill as many railway tunnels collapsed, and tracks were broken and twisted by the force of the earthquake. Train traffic has not been restored for several weeks. On July 23, at 12:45 a.m. and 6 a.m., the county experienced two major earthquakes measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale, causing further damage to already weakened structures. The damage to the county has been measured in the millions of dollars.

City building inspector Larry Hinch ruled that the town hall (which also housed the police department) was damaged to the point that it was unsafe to occupy. City Manager Lee Gunn reassigns (Dodge) to find a division headquarters. The building at 1300 17th Street on the corner of 17th and L Streets was vacant and approved by Mr. Jean after the one-story structure had been given approval by the Building Inspector.

Chief Grayson was finally located on the day of the first earthquake and returned to town late that afternoon. He had to agree to the construction of 17th Street. We immediately began to move, as we first installed radio and telephone equipment. Moved into the police department the office of the city manager, the mayor – then Frank Sullivan – and the city’s attorney and his staff, who were practically “sitting on each other’s lap” in this relatively small one-room building.

The temporary sections were installed by auto officers Harley and Alfred Kimball, who were day-carpenters before joining the division. Other city offices moved to Fire Station #1 on 21st and H Streets and a day or so later, it was business as usual in the downtown area.

Some of the older two- and three-story hotels were judged unsafe and passengers had to move. Many transients and newcomers from the Midwest have left the city to return to Oklahoma and other Midwestern states. They are tired of the California earthquakes.

At 3:41 p.m., August 22, 1952, a second earthquake shook Bakersfield. This earthquake, rather than being of a rolling nature, was of a very severe type. It was determined to be a local earthquake on the Kern River Fault, with the epicenter located near the city limits.

Two people were killed by falling debris and brick walls in the city. A man lost his life in the Kern County Equipment Company building in the 1600th Building of East 19th Street. A woman was killed shopping at Lerner Fashion Store at 1400 Block of 19th Street. Barriers and walls weakened by the July earthquake and its aftershocks were strewn throughout the business districts of East and West Bakersfield. It was only after this earthquake that building inspectors realized the amount of structural damage that had been done in previous earthquakes.

The normal reserves and war contingency reserves were called into service. Officers were placed on 12-hour shifts with all vacations and holidays cancelled. For three weeks after this disaster, the entire western downtown area was closed to all traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian.

The temporary police headquarters building on 17th Street required minimal re-reinforcement of the walls and continued in use throughout the disaster in 1952.

Almost all the second floor hotels in the city center, corporate and professional buildings topped one floor. Many transients and others who lived in many hotel rooms camped in Central Park until they moved or found other shelter. The county court was declared unsafe and offices were moved to tents and other undamaged wooden structures on the fairgrounds. County Jail with all its dead iron hanging and still in use. But the front office section facing Truxtun Street had to be reinforced. Old City Hall was demolished using cutting torches on found heavy steel reinforcements.

The City Council, which had been meeting in the courtroom since the July earthquake, moved to a new meeting place at Carpenters’ Hall, 911 20th Street. The council authorized the demolition of the clock tower structure that was located in the middle of the intersection of 17th Street and Chester Street. This large, unlit structure was hit by two vehicles after the earthquake including a new 1952 police car operated by Patrolman Art Pelletieri. The president was the catalyst in removing this danger to the protests of historical groups. The clockwork has been preserved and is now installed in the replica tower in Pioneer Village.

This was the most destructive pair of earthquakes ever recorded in Bakersfield County and Kern County. Practically every public building and all of the city’s schools suffered serious damage, and many had to be replaced. The downtown Bakersfield area, with many of the second and third floors cut, has been changed forever.

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