HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT

Vol. 21 No. 4 April 2006 ___________________________________________________________________________

APRIL PROGRAM: "SHADY" MYRICK AND THE SHADY MYRICK PROJECT

The Society's April meeting will feature John Lightburn speaking on "Shady" Myrick and his family's "Shady Myrick Project." The meeting will take place on Tuesday, April 18 at 7:30 PM at the Maturango Museum.

Francis Marion "Shady" Myrick was a prospector in the local mountains especially noted for finding semi-precious stones. Born in Iowa in 1850, he moved out west as an adult. After a spell in Colorado and elsewhere in the mountain states, in 1900 he moved to Johannesburg, CA, where he spent the remaining 25 years of his life. From that home base, he would strike off on prospecting trips between here and Death Valley, searching for gold and gemstones. So successful was he that some of his specimens were displayed at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915. Not the stereotypical lone prospector, he was also public-spirited, being elected to the Colorado legislature, participating in local politics in Johannesburg, and loaning his telescope to the US Navy when it ran short in World War I.

Shady also maintained a lively correspondence with his relatives the Lightburns. To memorialize him, his family has started the Shady Myrick Research Project, a multifaceted program promoting the history, education and appreciation of gem and mineral collecting, rockhounding and the lapidary arts, and dedicated to preserving and protecting an extensive gem and mineral collection founded on specimens collected by Myrick from 1875 to 1925, and continued by the Lightburn family, including this month's HSUMD speaker, Shady's great-grandnephew John Lightburn. Mr. Lightburn was born in Long Beach, California and raised in San Bernardino. Stationed at the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, in 1968-1969, he was assigned to Test and Evaluation Squadron Five. Mr. Lightburn holds a BA degree in the Social Sciences from California State University, San Bernardino, and has five children and four grandchildren. He now resides on the Mojave Desert and the Big Island of Hawaii.

The HSUMD meets on the third Tuesday of the month. All are welcome to attend. For more information on this or future meetings, call Society President Bill Nevins at 375-4764.
Andrew Sound

ANNUAL DINNER MEETING

The annual business and dinner meeting is planned for Tuesday evening, May 16, at Victoria's at the Heritage. Activities will start at 6:00 p.m. with a buffet meal and short business meeting. The speaker's topic will be the history of Manzanar, the Owens Valley town, in the early 1900's. Details to follow in the May newsletter, but please mark your calendar now.

OPEN HOUSE PLANNED

An open house in the old USO/County Building will be held on Saturday, May 20th. Details will be in the May newsletter, but mark your calendars now.

RECENT DONATIONS

Recent donations to the HSUMD collections include some old Valley Independent newspapers by George Silberberg, two pair of old spectacles by Bill Burns and several genealogical books on the Ernst family.

SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING: THE HISTORY OF SAND CANYON AND SEEP

A special meeting of the Historical Society will be held on Thursday evening, April 27, featuring a presentation on the history of Sand Canyon and the development of the Sand Canyon Environmental and Educational Program (SEEP). A showing of the Mark Pahuta video will also be made. This will be an opportunity hear about and discuss SEEP.

On March 25, 15 Society members and guests traveled to the Ruth Mine complex in the Homewood Canyon area north of Trona. George Baland, Volunteer Coordinator, and Scott Wood gave us a Ruth Mine history overview and then led us on a guided tour of the remaining buildings. George and Scott gave short explanations and answered our questions about each building. We had lunch in the Superintendent's quarters, where we were treated to ice cream and cake for dessert. A special thanks to Peggy Baland for the delicious cake. Jim Kenney

FIELD TRIPS

I need more ideas and suggestions for field trips. If there is a place you think the Society members might like to go to see local history, please call or e-mail me. Several future trips are in the planning stages, but we can always use more as not all members can attend every trip. I've been in contact with the local tour bus and we could do a group trip on the bus, but it's a financial commitment of $500/600 a day; thus it would take 30 people @ $20 to go. Contact: Jim Kenney, j.kenney@verizon.net, or call 371-2458. Jim Kenney

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

Hopefully by now, most of you, our members, have renewed your family membership in the HSUMD for 2006. If you haven't yet done so, please send a check to Fred Weals, our Treasurer, at P. O. Box 2001, Ridgecrest, CA 93555.

FIVE YEAR PLAN

We are in the process of developing our five year plan. If you have any inputs, please direct them to Lou Pracchia, phone 375-7385.

HISTORICAL ARTICLE

(Following is an article prepared by our great local historian member, John Di Pol, drawn from his library of history books. Ed).

The Arvin-Tehachapi Earthquake Of 1952

On Monday, July 21st, 1952, the strongest earthquake in California since 1906 occurred at 4:52 AM. Its main epicenter was at the eastern end of Wheeler Ridge, located in the southern San Joaquin Valley south of Bakersfield. Its magnitude was determined to be 7.7 on the Richter scale, the fourth most violent quake in the recorded history of California. The epicenter was on the small, little known, quiet White Wolf fault which runs for 35 miles from Wheeler Ridge trending northeast past the town of Arvin, then along the base of Bear Mountain to the railroad site of Caliente in the Tehachapi Mountains.

The tremor of the main quake was felt over an area of 160,000 square miles as far north as San Francisco and San Diego to the south. The main damage, however, occurred in the cities of Tehachapi, Arvin, Bakersfield and the surrounding infrastructure of utilities, transportation and agriculture. There was a loss of 14 lives and $60,000,000 in damages. Here in the Indian Wells Valley, the shaking was very strong, waking up most of the people who were still sleeping at the 5:00 AM hour. There were no serious structural damages as such, but some grocery store shelves were thrown to the floor, pictures falling from the walls and the like.

Arvin and Tehachapi were the hardest hit. There was extensive damage to buildings. Many were totally destroyed, others heavily damaged. The structures which suffered most were older buildings that existed prior to the enactment of the Field Act of 1933 (This legislation lead to the establishment of rigid building codes statewide. It was a result of lessons learned

from the 1933 Inglewood-Long Beach earthquake when many structures, especially school buildings, were destroyed or severely damaged.). The continuing series of aftershocks in the following months exacerbated the extent of damage, especially the magnitude 6.5 shock a week after the main quake. Of the 14 fatalities, 12 occurred in these two communities

Conversely, and strangely, the city of Bakersfield, while well shaken, suffered only relatively minor to moderate damage from the main quake. However, a strong earthquake hit Bakersfield a month following, on August 22nd, causing substantial damage. This was not judged to be an aftershock, but a slippage in a small local fault, possibly triggered by the big quake of July 21st.
But, back to the "Big One". The road and highway systems in southern San Joaquin were severely impacted. Highway 99 over the Grapevine and Ridge Route was cut by fissures and blocked by landslides. Highway 466 (then so numbered, now the Highway 58 freeway, more or less) was also similarly heavily damaged, especially in the Caliente area, where the roads remained closed for several weeks. But the most severe damage was to the Southern Pacific railroad line to the east as it entered the mountains at Caliente and wound its torturous path around the base of Bear Mountain up Tehachapi Canyon to the pass. Huge landslides and rock falls from the steep slopes of Bear Mountain destroyed road beds and most of the many tunnels along the route. The SP moved rapidly, It retained the big construction company, Morris-Knudson, who brought men, material and
equipment from all over the western states and, working day and night, had the line open and operating in 28 days.

Similarly was the damage to the area's electrical and water distribution systems. Pacific Gas and Electric moved swiftly to repair damaged transformer stations, ranging from major substations to dozens of pole-mounted units that had toppled and fallen. The domestic water systems serving the various small towns depended upon elevated water storage tanks, many of which toppled or sprung leaks.
The agricultural economy of the area, which depends upon frequent irrigation, suffered some losses due to damage to the water distribution and control systems.

The Arvin-Tehachapi earthquake of 1952 was subjected to extensive field investigations and analyses by various governmental agencies and academia including the U.S. Geological Survey, the State Division of Mines and the Cal Tech
Seismological Lab. The results of these studies were published in an excellent 277 page report by the California State Division of Mines (see Ref., below). Dr. Pierre St. Amand, a longtime IWV resident, was on the staff of the Cal Tech Seismological Lab at the time and co-authored a major section of this report.

A final word. 90% of all earthquakes in the contiguous U.S. occur in CA and NV. Ridgecrest, China Lake and Inyokern are a scant 13 airline miles north of the Garlock Fault, the second largest in California. The Garlock is still an active fault, but with no recorded quakes in modern times. Same as the White Wolf.

Ref: EARTHQUAKES IN KERN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA DURING 1952 - BULLETIN 171, 1955, California Division of Mines