HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT

Vol. 18 No. 1 A UNITED WAY AGENCY January 2003

JANUARY PROGRAM

The Historical Society of the Upper Mojave Desert meets at the Maturango Museum, 100 E. Las Flores, on the third Tuesday of the month. Each meeting features a presentation on some aspect of local history.

This month's speaker will be Mrs. Marge Powers, wife for 51 years of the late historian and author, Bob Powers. She will give a presentation on "Desert Country," Bob's latest book on the local area.

Marge was born in Bakersfield and moved to the Kern River Valley in 1946, before the Isabella Dam was built. She went to elementary and high schools in "Old" Kernville. In 1951 she married Bob, who was a fifth generation to live in the Valley. Together they raised five children and now have eleven grandchildren.

Marge was a school secretary for 25 years, a career she loved. She typed Bob's first five books on an old typewriter and was very thankful when they were able to purchase a computer. She is very proud of all her husband accomplished.

The January meeting will be at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, January 21 at the Museum. Everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, call Bruce Wertenberger at 375-2369 or leave a message at 375-8456. Andrew Sound

MEET GARY MILLER

I want to introduce you to member Gary Miller of Camarillo, CA. Gary and his wife Marijo have been members since late 2001. They joined because of an abiding interest in Capt. Joseph Reddeford Walker and our society's proximity to Walker Pass. Gary and I had arranged to meet at our society's office on Saturday Jan. 4, 2003. There we shared our mutual interest about the great things that Joe Walker had accomplished in opening the West. Gary has researched and amassed a very impressive collection of textual and visual references about Walker.
Some of this material he brought with him and provided some items for our archives.

Currently Gary has been verifying routes that Walker took to Arizona and other western regions in the 1850's. In addition to operating his own printing company, Gary is also in the process of creating a "Frontier Adventure Series" of books about Walker and his various travels.

To learn about Joe Walker and his impact on our country's history I suggest reading "Westering Man" by Bil Gilbert which can be found at most public libraries.

And yes, the late Ardis Walker of Kernville was a relative of Joe Walker. Lou Pracchia

THE INDIAN WELLS VALLEY EARLY TIMERS MAKE GIFT TO THE HSUMD

Recently, at a little gathering at the Historical Society's offices, the final formal act of a local group of people called the "Indian Wells Valley Early Timers" took place. After deciding that the group was getting too small and that getting together was getting too difficult, they decided to disband and donate their cash assets and records to the Historical Society. The picture in the newsletter records that action.

The HSUMD very much appreciates the gift.

The Indian Wells Valley Early Timers started as a group of people who were living in Indian Wells Valley before the U. S. Navy arrived in late 1943. Through the years they sponsored a number of reunions, the early ones quite large. They usually met in the park in Inyokern and often timed their activities to complement Trona reunions, since many of them had worked at Trona.

The photo shows Vivian Van Devender and Ellen Carr, Lou Pracchia, Immediate Past President, HSUMD, Delbert Rollingson, Larry Fox, Bruce Wertenberger, President, HSUMD, and Henry Schuette. All are Early Timers, except as noted.

Our membership year is on a calendar year basis, so as of January 1, all annual memberships need to be renewed. Memberships are $15 per year per person. If you have not already done so, your check should be sent to Mr. Fred Weals, Treasurer, c/o Historical Society, P. O. Box 2001, Ridgecrest, CA 93556.

Membership fees help pay for the newsletter costs, utilities for our office building, production of our exhibits and various other expenses. Please help fill our mailbox! Thanks for renewing promptly.

BUSINESS MEMBERS

We appreciate the support of our business members: 'Granite Construction ­ Sand and Gravel, Farris' at the Heritage, The Indian Wells Valley Insurance Co., and the Swap Sheet. Please patronize these business members whenever possible. We also encourage any of our members who are eligible to become business members, to do so.

LOCAL HISTORY BOOKS NEEDED

We very much would like to add to our collection of local history texts. Of particular interest is obtaining the donation of a copy of "Kern County Wayfarers" a 1977 publication of the Kern County HS edited
by W. Harland Boyd. If you have one which you would like to donate, please contact Lou Pracchia or sen an e-mail to our address on the last page. Thank you.

E-MAIL, BROWN AND THE GUS HAELSIG STORE

To quote Bruce, "It's Serendipity!"

The two previous newsletters have contained a serialized historical article by Historical Society member Julie Stayton about the former town of Brown, CA. You may recall that the name Haelsig was mentioned as the proprietor of the Brown store. Anyway, recently your Historical Society received an e-mail from none other than Richard T. Haelsig of Washington state telling us that by happenstance he typed his surname into his computer's search engine and up pops our newsletters as a source using that name. The Gus Haelsig of Brown who owned the store was his grandfather's brother.

This story gets even better! In an exchange of e-mail Richard e-mailed us two great photos. One showing his grandfather's store and the other a wagon load of aqueduct pipe arriving in town. Both photos date to the early 1900's. Furthermore, Richard has located other photos and is generously sending those to us on a CD. All this windfall due to typing a few characters on a computer and putting it on our Web site.

If you would like to see these photos on your computer, send a request to HSUMD@ridgenet.net putting BROWN2 in the subject line.

Happy New Year--yesiree! Lou Pracchia

HISTORICAL ARTICLE

(The following article is from material written by HSUMD member Julie Stayton in the 1960's as a class assignment. The material is based primarily on interviews and reference material. The article appears as written. The material which follows is a continuation of the article which appeared in the December 2001 newsletter. Ed.)

BROWN ­ 1920 TO 1966 (cont'd)

Many children came to school barefoot, having to walk through nails and broken glass in the school year. Mrs. Standard spent some time administering first aid to the youngsters so she provided play money for the children to buy and sell nails. Thus some of the debris was cleaned up.

Tiny's class was responsible for Brown's only newspaper, The Mount Owen Echo. It was an excellent small town newspaper and had world and local news, personals and paid advertisement. Two subscribers were Alfred Herrol associated with the Bakersfield Californian and George Savage, publisher of the San Bernardino Sun.

In the late 1930's, Mrs. Standard got a new school building. It was a four-room building with a library, kitchen, dining room and school room of which she and her children were quite proud. Under the supervision of County Superintendent Hart, the new school was built with Kern County furnishing the material and County supervisors donating labor. Mrs. Standard taught in this school until 1951 when the doors of her school closed. Mrs. Standard had never had a substitute during the time of Mount Owen School and the doors were closed only during one period of nine weeks when Mrs. Standard was ill. (Mrs. Standard's school is now (1960, Ed.) in Ridgecrest and is called the Berean Baptist Church.).

While living in Brown, the Standards had as their home two box cars hooked together with a roof over them. They had a cellar for belongings other than food, a fence, and a cistern nearby for water brought in by tank car on the railroad. At that time all water was brought in by the railroad. The Standard's home (the building) is now on an alfalfa ranch near Brown. Mrs. Bowers, the Inyokern depot man moved it there and made it into a nice modern home.

Another prominent family of Brown was Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Didden. They arrived from Los Angeles on September 2, 1919, with their daughter the present Elsie Washmuth Carlin of Inyokern, their daughter and son-in-law Mr. and Mrs. Mannie Erickson, and one of their two sons and his wife Mr. and Mrs. Martin Didden presently of Fresno. They had not liked Los Angeles where they lived for two years after coming from St. Paul, Minnesota. In addition, they had had trouble recovering from the flu of 1918, so it was not difficult for the sheister (sp) Boden to persuade them to homestead on the desert. The Diddens and both daughters obtained homesteads near Horace and Frank Heaton. When they arrived in Indian Wells Valley, they stayed in army tents and the homestead of the Heatons until they each began their own homesteads at the foot of Grapevine Canyon near the old highway. Mrs. Carlin relates that trade rats were all around at that time, and it was necessary for her to kill them with a butcher knife.

In the spring of 1920 while homesteading, the Diddens bought the hotel building from Mr. George Brown. The land on which the hotel stood belongs to the railroad and was leased at two dollars per years. Mother Didden, as she was called, planned to run the hotel while Mr. Didden and their daughter worked the homestead.

The Diddens made many improvements on the hotel including planting athel trees for shade and protection. In 1923, Mr. Didden built a cooler for storing vegetables. It still stands in 1966 attesting to the sturdiness of its construction.

Good meals were always available at the Brown hotel. Mother Louise Didden prepared meals for the railroad men on their daily stops in Brown. They telephone an hour or more before they were to arrive so she could be ready. They were very loyal to her good cooking and would not let newcomers criticize the food or "make a pig of themselves." The charge for a family-style meal was seventy-five cents. After eating, the boarders, who were largely prospectors spending the winter in Brown, sat out on the chairs on the veranda.

The problem of the restaurant business at this time was preserving food. With the aid of a pressure cooker, much good food was canned. There was no cooling available so they used desert cooling. This was simply a frame surrounded by burlap material which had a metal pan over the top. Draped out of the top of the pan were wool strips of material through which water siphoned out to wet the burlap. Air then cooled the inside of the cooler where milk, butter, and other perishables were kept. Later on, Mr. Didden constructed an ice box and used ice obtained from the railroad.

In November of 1920, Elsie was married to Mr. Elmer Washmuth a mechanic from West End. She and her husband homesteaded close to Horace and Frank Heaton and had a garage and coffee shop in Walker Pass. Walker Pass was not a good location so a year later they set up a garage and coffee shop in Inyokern. Mrs. Washmuth relinquished her own homestead obtained before marriage.

Mr. Erickson, the Didden's son-in-law who had a homestead near the rest of the family spent time working on the aqueduct and later worked for Earl Standard on the section crew. When he was quite experienced, the railroad gave him his own section in Searles where he was foreman.

Mother Didden was a practical nurse and had nursed at least seventy-five patients without a doctor before coming to Brown. She never lost a patient, and while at Brown, she nursed quite a few people since the nearest doctor was in Trona. She cared for her daughter Elsie as both of Elsie's children were born in the hotel in Brown.

In July 1927, Mr. Didden died. After his death, Mother Didden continued to operate the hotel alone until 1943, when she sold the building to Kenneth Wortley the present editor of the Sierra Rainbow magazine. Mrs. Didden then went to live with her daughter in Searles. On February 8, 1944, Mother Didden died.

Kenneth Wortley tore the hotel building down and took the galvanized metal to Nine Mile Canyon to be used in a mill.

In 1920, Mr. and Mrs. Howard Gill owned the only store and Post Office in Brown. Mr. Gill had become Postmaster February 27, 1919. When it was very hot and unpleasant in Brown which it often was, the Gills went to their home in Grapevine Canyon where it was quite a bit cooler.

Another citizen of Brown was Miss Ruth D. Hibbard sister of Tiny Standard. She came to Brown as a homesteader in 1921 because of poor health. She became postmaster November 30, 1926, a position which she held until 1938. During that time she became Mrs. Ruth D. Powers.
(to be concluded)