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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.

The Quakes of '52

By MISTY WILLIAMS, Californian staff writer e-mail: mwilliams@bakersfield.com

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

Photo courtesy of Jerry McCright The Kern County Equipment Co. building on East 19th Street was heavily damaged during the Bakersfield earthquake on August 22, 1952.

In the early morning hours of July 21, 1952, U.S. troops were at war in Korea, and Tehachapi residents were sleeping soundly in their beds.

At 4:52 a.m. Kelcy Owens, then 27, was startled out of bed. His house was shaking, the air rang with loud booms and rumbles.

Thoughts of war raced through his mind.

"Myself and a lot of other people thought we were being bombed," said Owens, now 77. "Everybody thought, man, we're in big trouble."

But Owens and the other 1,500 residents of Tehachapi were experiencing a force much fiercer than war.

For 45 seconds, an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale rocked the small town, killing 12 people and injuring 35.

Centered along the White Wolf fault near Wheeler Ridge, more than 40 miles southwest of Tehachapi, it was the third-largest quake in California's history, surpassed in magnitude only by the 7.8 temblor in Fort Tejon in 1857 and the 7.7 quake that destroyed San Francisco in 1906.

Covering an area of 160,000 square miles, the temblor was felt as far south as Ensenada, Mexico, and as far north as Santa Rosa.

Reinforced concrete railroad tunnels with walls 18 inches thick were cracked, twisted and caved in. Rails shifted and were bent into S shapes.

Near Caliente a large crack measuring 59 inches at its widest opened in the earth.

Buildings in Los Angeles suffered extensive cosmetic damage and at least one building was damaged in San Diego. The quake was also felt in San Francisco, primarily by people in the top floors of multi-storied buildings.

Photo courtesy of Lester Anderson A car is buried under rubble in Tehachapi following the July 21 earthquake.

Damage widespread

Downtown Tehachapi suffered the most, however.

Unreinforced brick buildings made with sand and limestone mortar crumbled. About 70 percent of the downtown area was destroyed.

Phil Marx, now 93, owned Tehachapi Supply, a hardware store on G Street, the business district's main thoroughfare. The walls whipped around, Marx said, snapping the bottom of concrete columns located every 10 to 15 feet in the store.

Cans of paint were flung to the floor, popping the lids off and spilling across the store. Despite the losses, Marx said he felt he came out without too much damage.

Others weren't as lucky.

Louis Martin suffered more loss than just his business - Martin's Furniture Store.

The two-story brick building on G Street, now Tehachapi Boulevard, collapsed, killing three of Martin's children and a 13-year-old houseguest sleeping in the rear of the store.

Pete Quintana and his family, who had just arrived from Silver City, N.M., were staying in a house next door when the walls collapsed on top of them. Four of the Quintana children were crushed to death, along with Quintana's wife, Blanche.

Three other lives were claimed by the Tehachapi quake.

Walter Nolen, 55, of Bakersfield, died after sustaining injuries from falling debris while asleep in downtown's Summit Hotel. In Brite Valley just west of Tehachapi, 16-year-old Florence Ann Fillmore, who was visiting from Los Angeles, died when the roof of the guest house she was staying in collapsed on top of her.

The 12th quake victim, Ramon Tescador, a 52-year-old employee of the John J. Kovacevich ranch near Arvin, died on July 23, 1952. Tescador had been admitted to Kern General Hospital the morning of the quake. He suffered burns from a gas-run refrigerator, damaged by the temblor, which exploded when he opened the door.

Patients at Tehachapi Valley Hospital, at Green and E streets, were evacuated from the building, which was eventually torn down. Some injured were flown to hospitals in Bakersfield, Mojave and Ridgecrest, but most received medical attention in tents outside the hospital.

Pat Gracey, who was 23 years old, was staying in her parents' home on F Street.

"I just couldn't figure out what it was. I was so stupid," Gracey said. "I thought to myself, 'I'd better stop screaming' because I was afraid a spider might fall in my mouth."

Gracey's husband, a Marine, was in Korea at the time and had no idea if his wife and two children were safe.

"He was pretty anxious," Gracey said.

When she asked Red Cross workers how to get in touch with him, she was told to write a letter. It was two weeks before her husband knew they were OK.

Next door to Gracey, her nephew, 8-year-old Jim Davis, was just as confused by the rumbling and shaking.

"I thought my dad was trying to wake us up by shaking the end of the bed," said Davis, now 58. "My cousin was screaming, and I thought it sounded like a good idea, so I started screaming, too."

Davis' family camped outside for six weeks, venturing quick trips inside to use the restroom.

Colleen Carroll / The Californian Kelcy Owens, 77, owner of Kelcy's restaurant in Tehachapi, recalls his own experiences at the time of the earthquake, as he views his extensive collection of before and after earthquake photographs of Tehachapi.

The shaking continues

The day of the quake, six aftershocks measuring more than 5.0 on the Richter scale shook the town. Hundreds more were felt in the following month, keeping residents' nerves on edge.

Three aftershocks from the Tehachapi quake registered above 6.0. Another 20 measured over 5.0

Many families lived outside for a while, said Mary Farrell, 79, a quake survivor and local historian.

"I was nervous," Farrell said. "I was comfortable outside."

Lying on the ground at night with her ear against the earth, Farrell could hear the aftershocks coming, a noise she likened to an approaching train.

During the day Farrell kept occupied by taking her young sons, in kindergarten and first grade, downtown in their Red Flyer wagon. They collected bricks from the debris-filled streets.

"That was mental therapy," Farrell said. "We walked in the middle of the street. Nothing could hit me because it was all down already."

After several weeks Farrell was relieved to hear a new kind of rumble as trains began to pass through town again.

"It was pleasant to hear the steam whistle," she said. "It brought order to our lives."

Tehachapi was not the only town that struggled to regain order.

In downtown Arvin, three buildings were destroyed and 14 were condemned. The Carrol Hotel in Maricopa was also leveled.

More than 400 inmates were evacuated from the California Institution for Women at Tehachapi and were kept under guard in a temporary camp outside. Later, Gov. Earl Warren recommended that each inmate receive a month off of their sentence for exemplary conduct.

In Bakersfield, Kern General Hospital sustained heavy damage, as did several public schools. Numerous structures downtown, such as the Kern County Courthouse and City Hall, were also weakened.

Charlie Dodge, 92, of Bakersfield, remembers looking out his window and seeing a water tower crash, sending water cascading down his street.

"I got into my uniform as fast as I could and got into my car," said Dodge, who was the city's assistant chief of police at the time. Dodge later served as Kern County Sheriff.

Dodge found the police department, then on the second floor of City Hall, in disarray. The desk sergeant managed his post with plaster falling all around him, turning his blue uniform a powdery white, Dodge said.

With City Hall badly damaged, the police department, city attorney, city manager, assistant city manager and mayor's offices all moved to a building on 17th and L streets.

"We were all crammed up together in there," Dodge said.

Photo courtesy of M. De La Cruze Rubble on 19th Street in Downtown Bakersfield following the August 22, 1952 earthquake.

Bakersfield next

But those were minor inconveniences compared to the destruction inflicted on Bakersfield 32 days after the Tehachapi quake.

On Aug. 22, 1952 at 3:41 p.m., Friday afternoon shoppers were strolling through downtown Bakersfield when an earthquake, measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale, struck. It was another aftershock of the huge Tehachapi quake.

Unreinforced brick buildings in Bakersfield were ravaged by the 11-second quake, with more than 400 buildings destroyed or damaged. The crumbling structures fell onto residents, killing two people and seriously injuring 40 in the community of 125,000.

The temblor was felt over 40,000 square miles.

"You would see a building start wavering on the bottom and go clear to the top," said James Dalley, a 32-year-old police sergeant at the time.

Dalley, now 82, responded to a call of a woman buried beneath several feet of debris at Lerner's Dress Shop on 19th Street.

Edna Ledbetter, a 26-year-old McFarland resident, had been running for the door, Dalley said.

Dalley directed rescue efforts but by the time workers got to her Ledbetter was dead.

Patman Cozby, 67, a Southern Pacific Railroad engineer, also died in the quake. He was crushed by falling debris inside the Kern County Equipment Co., 615 E. 19th St.

To prevent further injuries, police barricaded 98 blocks downtown.

"The problem was the number of aftershocks," Dalley said. "We didn't know when we were going to get one or how big it was going to be."

Special passes, approved by the police chief, were required for those that wanted to inspect their businesses.

Assigned to make sure the barricades were manned at all times, Dalley worked more than 12 hours a day for 30 days straight.

"During that time, I don't recall a single case of vandalism," he said. "I think the barricades had something to do with that."

Unreinforced brick buildings sustained the heaviest damage, while wood-framed structures held up well. Many of the buildings already weakened by the Tehachapi quake, crumbled, filling the 64 blocks downtown with bricks, glass and other debris.

Hazel Hewitt, now 69, watched in horror as a wall in a labor room at Mercy Hospital began to crumble in front of her.

Hewitt, who had been experiencing labor pains since 3 or 4 that morning, was ready to dash for the door, but her doctor held her down, while a nurse and a nun both bolted out of the room.

"He said, 'No you can't move. That baby's ready to come,'" Hewitt said.

Hewitt said her baby was in the birth canal and the doctor was about to move her into the delivery room when the quake hit. As the doctor held her down, she said he could feel the baby retreat back into the womb.

"Nurses were running, and the nuns were hollering," she said. "There was a lot of panic going on."

Around 8 or 9 that night, the doctor induced labor, and Hewitt gave birth to Keith Saltvick, the second of her nine children, at around 2 a.m. on August 23.

Saltvick still lives in Bakersfield, and Hewitt lives with him.

Colleen Carroll / The Californian James Dalley, who served as a law enforcement officer for 32 years, was the first to respond to one of the two casualties of the August 22, 1952 earthquake in Bakersfield.

A city's look forever changed

Many of downtown's historic buildings - including the Beale Clock Tower at 17th and Chester, the county courthouse and Saint Francis Catholic Church - were all but destroyed and had to be torn down.

The facade of the Chester Avenue shopping district was forever changed, with the elaborate brick storefronts either collapsed or torn down.

Millions of dollars in damage was done to 33 schools in Kern County, 13 of which had to be shut down.

In all, the monthlong series of quakes caused approximately $48 million damage countywide.

Brock's Department Store, at 20th Street and Chester Avenue, was extensively damaged, with major cracks in the walls and broken artwork and dishes.

Instead of waiting for repairs to the 100,000-square-foot building, the store's owner, John Brock, Sr., set up his merchandise in a 22,500-square-foot, T-shaped circus tent on a vacant lot on F Street in the Westchester area.

Just 13 years old at the time, Loretta Blankenship, 63, shopped at Brock's with her mother.

"It was just kind of fun more than anything, going to a big, old circus tent," Blankenship said.

Brock did business this way until late spring the following year.

"The tent was quite a success at first," Brock said in a recent interview.

As weather got colder, however, shopping became more miserable for customers and sales began to dwindle, Brock said in a 1998 article he wrote for The Californian.

In February, Brock's customers and employees endured a mild snowstorm. Despite setbacks and revenue losses, Brock's survived and moved back into the building, which was reinforced with gunite.

In the days after the quakes, government agencies and nonprofit organizations flooded the cities.

In Bakersfield, the Salvation Army provided a steady flow of food and coffee to police officers and other emergency workers.

Military personnel from Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force bases arrived to help Tehachapi residents and the Red Cross set up an emergency center in the old Odd Fellows Hall.

The people of Tehachapi also pulled together to help one another.

Just two or three hours after the quake, Tehachapi residents organized an impromptu outdoor pancake breakfast to feed the children, Davis said.

"This town took care of themselves," said former Tehachapi fire chief Tony Anthony. "Everybody helped."

One portion of a wall in Kelcy's Restaurant, a diner in downtown Tehachapi, is dedicated to the quake, with dozens of photos lined up along its dark, wood paneling.

Restaurant owner Kelcy Owens moved to California from Oklahoma in 1945 and had experienced powerful tornadoes that ripped through towns, killing dozens of people.

"An earthquake is a picnic compared to a tornado," Owens said.

Still, he admits he has no desire to go through another quake.

"It was an experience," Owens said. "But I'd just as soon somebody else have the next one."