Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway

by Effie Price Gladding

In the morning we had a most interesting breakfast with a long table full of hungry ranchmen. Next us sat a big fellow who was in a rather pessimistic mood. He spoke sadly of California and its resources and very warmly of Virginia. "That's the place to live!" he said. "You can drive for a hundred miles here and not see a ranch house or a schoolhouse or a church worth looking at. In Virginia it's just like, as a fellow says, 'every drink you take, things look different.' You drive up on a knoll, and you see before you a lovely farm with a nice farmhouse, and a well-built barn and outhouses. Then you drive over another knoll, and you see another nice farmhouse. Virginia and the East for me! In this country you can walk through foxtail grass until you're ruined, and you see no buildings worth looking at." This started animated discussion as to the merits of California compared with the merits of Eastern farming country, the young school ma'am vibrating between the little kitchen and the dining room and taking her part in the conversation. She was from Indiana, and told me that while she liked California she did not approve of California's neglect of history in the public schools. She felt that the children were given no knowledge of ancient or of modern history in the teaching scheme. She assured me that her own pupils were taught history very faithfully.

We were sorry to leave the ranch with its low houses and its pretty lake in the foreground. We drove on down the Pass, coming over rather precipitous roads to a last steep slope from whose height we looked off to an immense level valley which seemed to stretch away forever. Violet morning lights hung over it and it looked like an enchanted country. This was our first view of the San Joaquin Valley, through which we were to drive for many miles.

1., 2. and 3. Cowboy Games at Bakersfield.

As we began to cross the valley, coming first through rather dull, scrubby stretches, I saw acres of a delicate pink and white bell-shaped flower, somewhat like a morning glory, growing close to the ground, blooming luxuriantly in the midst of a whorl of green leaves. I later asked a country woman the name of the flower, but she could only tell me that they called the lovely delicate things sand flowers. As we approached Bakersfield the land grew richer and the grass was thicker and greener. Meadow larks were flying about in great numbers, singing their sweet, clear song. At Bakersfield we stopped at the New Southern Hotel, which is, like most Western hotels, European in plan. We found a delightful cafeteria known as the Clock Tower Cafeteria, kept by two women, and with most appetizing home cooking. Bakersfield is one of the most Western of California towns. Something in the swing of its citizens as they walk along, something in the wide sombreros and high boots which the visiting cowboys wear imparts a general breeziness and Western atmosphere. It is a little town with the clothes of a big town. It has very wide streets and is laid out on a generous scale. Its fine Courthouse, its beautiful new schoolhouse, its pretty homes, its residence streets with their rows of blooming oleanders, pink and white, make it an attractive town. But it must be confessed that it is very hot in Bakersfield, as it is in most towns of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys. The most interesting thing to me in Bakersfield was a leather shop, where I saw handsome Mexican saddles, very intricately and ornately stamped. These are made to order and have any amount of beautiful work upon them. At the same shop I saw handsome stamped belts and leather coin cases, long leather cuffs which cowboys affect, and tall riding boots with ornate stitching. When we left Bakersfield we saw just outside the town a perfect forest of oil derricks towering into the air, some of the wells being new ones, others having been abandoned. Bakersfield is the center of a rich oil territory, from which much wealth has flowed.

In leaving the town we turned by mistake to the right instead of to the left, and found ourselves traveling toward a Grand Canyon on a miniature scale. We were driving over lonely country where the water had worn the hills into fantastic shapes and where the whole country was a series of terraces. Sometimes small tablelands stood up boldly before us, sometimes cone-shaped pieces of plateau, like small volcanoes, appeared in long rows beyond us. Beautiful purple mists and shadows hung over these carvings of nature as the sun began to decline. The country grew lonelier and wilder, and we decided that we must retrace our journey and find out where we were. As we came near to Bakersfield again we saw the camp of an engineer who was making some borings for oil. He told us that we had taken the wrong turn and directed us on our way, past the tall derricks and northeast to Tulare.

So we turned our backs on the browns, yellows, and slate colors, the pinks and the lavenders of the lonely tableland country and struck north along a very fair road. We drove for twenty miles through rather level, brown, desert country, coming then into a grain country. All along there were pump houses on the ranches, connected with the electric current by heavy wires which ran from the main lines along the road to the little houses in the fields. I liked to think that the magic current streamed down those side wires from the main river of electricity, worked the pumps and brought up the water that made the whole country the fertile, grain-growing region it evidently was. We ate supper at the McFarland Hotel some twenty-five miles from Bakersfield. Our Wisconsin hostess who talked with us while her Japanese cook prepared our supper told us that three years ago there were only a few people living in tents in this region. Now the wells are down and there is a prosperous little town, the water being found only thirty feet below the surface. We came on through more fields of ripe wheat and green alfalfa. We saw one settler's tent pitched in the midst of a beautiful almond orchard, with great stacks of alfalfa near by. His wellhouse was near, and some day in the golden future he will undoubtedly build his dwelling.

Eleven miles from Tulare a tall country boy came out from the shadows as we passed through a little village and asked if he might ride to Tulare with us. We tucked away his bulky newspaper bundle in the machine and gave him permission to sit on the tool box, which was fastened on the running-board. He thanked us warmly when we reached the quiet streets of Tulare and offered to pay us, but of course we assured him that we were glad to have given him a lift. We did not often do this as we were always afraid some one would be hurt in riding on the running-board. We had a comfortable room at the Hotel St. Maxon, and drove on the next day through the fertile valley to Fresno. Now we were in the region of rich vineyards and luxuriant fig trees. For the first time, as we approached Fresno, I saw whole orchards of fig trees. Fresno is a pretty town with the wide, bright streets and look of prosperity of so many California towns. It is the home of several thousand Armenian and Greek workers. Only that morning the Young Women's Christian Association had welcomed to Fresno a little woman who had come all the way from Constantinople to meet her husband. The town pays the price for being the seat of the raisin industry by being very hot in summer.