Home  Photo gallery

Fifty years ago this Sunday, Kern County was shaken to its roots by the third largest earthquake in recorded California history.

The town of Tehachapi was heavily damaged, and 12 people were killed. A month later, an aftershock heavily damaged Bakersfield, killing two.

Today, some Kern County residents vividly remember the earthquake, but several more would find themselves unprepared in the event of another big quake.

Earthquake 45 seconds of sheer terror

By JOHN NELSON, Californian Correspondent

Monday July 22, 2002, 07:00:00 PM

World Wide Photo Main Street, Tehachapi, after the earthquake of July 21, 1952. The two-story concrete (with wood floors and roof) structure in the background is the Catholic Youth Center. Despite the fact that most of Tehachapi's business section was destroyed, this building suffered little damage.

TEHACHAPI -- A loud roar shattered the quiet of early morning, and Dick Johnson thought immediately, "The Bomb."

The 24-year-old Johnson and his wife, Joan, were still in bed when the first shockwave hit, throwing them into the air. They nearly panicked.

"It was 1952. The Cold War was on. I was sure it was an atomic bomb," Johnson said.

His house shook so violently that the doorbell began to chime wildly.

"To this day, every time I hear chimes, my mind goes back to that horrible morning," Johnson said.

At the time, Johnson's father, Walter, was publisher of the Tehachapi News. Dick and brother Warren worked for their father, but Johnson's first thoughts were not of the newspaper.

The day before, Dick and Joan Johnson had driven to Delano to pick up their nephew, Jimmy Moore, who was going to spend the week. When the quake hit just before 5 a.m. Joan Johnson screamed, "Get Jimmy."

"We tried to get out of bed to get him, but every time we got up, the earthquake knocked us back down again," Johnson recalled.

Johnson and his wife grabbed for any clothing they could find in the closet, managed to stumble from their bedroom, gathered up their nephew, and rushed outside.

"I can remember Joan sitting on the front lawn, holding onto the grass like it was going to stop things from shaking," Johnson said.

The earthquake lasted just 45 seconds -- "an eternity when you feel your home shaking apart" -- but Johnson and his family sat on the front lawn dazed until the sun came up. The block wall between his house and his neighbor's had fallen down.

"A few minutes later, Warren drove up in his old green pickup," Johnson said.

Johnson, who would take over the Tehachapi News from his father in 1960 and run it for the next 20 years, found devastation that day when he reached the newspaper office downtown.

The two-story building had collapsed. A piano from the Masonic Temple upstairs was the only thing holding up the roof.

In two buildings next to each other, seven children from two families were killed by collapsing debris.

"I recall going down to where those children were killed, and rescue workers were already in there with tractors digging, trying desperately to find any survivors," Johnson said.

Ambulances from Edwards Air Force Base were on the scene, joined by the Salvation Army, Red Cross and "a group from a religious cult dressed in long robes," Johnson said. Cult members were digging through the rubble with their bare hands, he said. He never did find out where they came from.

Tehachapi Hospital was in rubble, but Johnson said he saw the couple who ran it, Drs. Madge and Harold Schlotthauer, treating people on the lawn.

"A lot of people, including me, just walked around looking shocked," Johnson said.

It was several days before the Johnsons could get back into their newspaper building.

They kept publishing with the help of friends, and eventually settled in the Boy Scout hall. The hall was too small for a full-sized press, so they printed one page at a time and stapled them together.

A few weeks later, they moved into the old Bank of Tehachapi building, then bought a building next to it.

"One thing I'm proud of is, we never missed an issue," Johnson said.

Johnson is 74 now, and spends many of his mornings and afternoons at Kelcy's Restaurant sharing coffee and memories with old friends Ran Wheat and Ed Tompkins.

Wheat was in charge of the earthmoving equipment that helped dig Tehachapi out from the quake. He believes it was the single largest excavating effort of its time.

Tompkins, meanwhile, ran the old Food Locker and lived in nearby Monolith.

Johnson admits that time has dulled many of his memories of that day 50 years ago, but some are too vivid to ever forget.

"I saw Paul Owlsey and his wife, Olga, pass me on their way to Los Angeles with the body of their 15-year-old niece in the bed of their pickup," he said.

Later, he discovered the girl had slept in the Owlsey's old brick pumphouse to escape the heat, and it had collapsed on her.

"That July 21 was something I would never want to experience again."