{"id":224,"date":"2017-05-04T00:18:09","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T00:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/?p=224"},"modified":"2017-05-04T00:36:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T00:36:58","slug":"private-eye-hired-by-kern-county-land-co-discovers-locals-dont-like-its-water-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/04\/private-eye-hired-by-kern-county-land-co-discovers-locals-dont-like-its-water-schemes\/","title":{"rendered":"Private eye hired by Kern County Land Co. discovers locals don&#8217;t like its water schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Back when water barons hired undercover agents<\/h1>\n<ul class=\"list-inline\">\n<li>By LOIS HENRY, The Bakersfield Californian lhenry@bakersfield.com<\/li>\n<li><time class=\"asset-date text-muted\" datetime=\"2015-01-27T16:56:04-08:00\">Jan 27, 2015<\/time><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"subscriber-preview\">\n<p>Indulge me while I share a fascinating fragment of Kern County history. And, wouldn&#8217;t ya know, it has to do with water, sort of.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-preview\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_238\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-238\" style=\"width: 229px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/hh-ferg-ltr.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-238 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/hh-ferg-ltr-229x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"229\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/hh-ferg-ltr-229x300.jpg 229w, https:\/\/loishenry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/hh-ferg-ltr.jpg 732w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 229px) 100vw, 229px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-238\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Letter from Kern County Land Co. superintendent S. Ferguson seeking help to find the culprits who burned several stacks of hay on Land Company farms in 1891.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As anyone who&#8217;s read my columns knows, I love any and all info related to the Kern River.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>So, when Kern County Museum Curator Lori Wear told me last year she was getting a cache of old documents from Castle &amp; Cooke, I was all ears.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tncms-region-article_instory_top\" class=\"tncms-region hidden-print\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>In case you don&#8217;t know, Castle &amp; Cooke is the descendant company of Tenneco West, which was the descendant of the Kern County Land Co. And no two entities were more intertwined than the Kern River and the Kern County Land Co.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Yes! I told Wear, lemme know what you find.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>She and her staff are still going through the massive document trove, but Wear alerted me to one shiny gem that caught her eye. It&#8217;s a series of letters from 1891 about the hunt for desperate criminals marauding the countryside burning hay stacks. Not just any hay stacks but those belonging to Kern County Land Co.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>The letters are between the Land Company and a private detective firm in San Francisco.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>First, the letters are a wonderful peek into Kern County life at the turn of the last century. Second, and more importantly, they clearly show a level of animosity and intrigue you just won&#8217;t find in textbooks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>In mid- and late-August 1891, 10 hay stacks were torched on two properties owned by the Land Company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Why is that a big deal?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Hay stacks back then were enormous. And without a store of hay, the Land Company couldn&#8217;t feed its livestock. That&#8217;s money on the hoof.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Aside from that, the Land Company was ever vigilant against disgruntled settlers and others unhappy with how much land &#8212; and water rights &#8212; the company was gobbling up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>The Land Company&#8217;s response to these hay burners was quick and decisive. But, interestingly, not local.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>If the Land Company did call local authorities, it didn&#8217;t give them much time to solve the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>About a month after its stacks were torched on Aug. 16 and Aug. 20, 1891, the Harry N. Morse detective agency in San Francisco already had a man on the ground in Fresno preparing to infiltrate the hay arsonist&#8217;s ranks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Morse was a legendary Bay Area lawman known as the &#8220;bloodhound of the far west.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>A Land Company boss, S.W. Ferguson, had discovered the names of about half a dozen locals who he believed might be the hay torching culprits. That included &#8220;Old man Emerson of the Paletta Ranch,&#8221; according to a letter he sent to Morse&#8217;s agent, known only as &#8220;Operative H.H.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>&#8220;Emerson was at one time arrested at the instigation of the Company for cutting water pipes and was in jail for a while on account of this,&#8221; Ferguson wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>See? It all comes back to the water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Anyhow, the hay burning was taken extremely seriously by Ferguson who not only wanted to know who burned the hay, but also anyone who had been &#8220;&#8230; openly or secretly antagonistic to the Kern County Land Co.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>According to Operative H.H.&#8217;s reports, he too, was all in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>In his first report from Fresno, H.H. mentions how he and his wife, yes, his wife, had traveled by train from San Francisco and went about getting a wagon, team of horses and camping gear. Not too expensive, nor too cheap looking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>After haggling over the price of horses and covering the wagon himself rather than pay the &#8220;exorbitant&#8221; price of $15 for stable hands to do it, H.H. and his wife got underway to Bakersfield on Sept. 27, 1891.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Three days later, they arrived in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tncms-region-article_instory_middle\" class=\"tncms-region hidden-print\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>&#8220;We put up at the Arlington Hotel. We did not care to go to a first class hotel, as we wished to avoid suspicion, and we had the appearance of first-class &#8216;hay-seeds,&#8217; and not wishing to change our appearance, we concluded to stop at a second class hotel,&#8221; H.H. writes in a report dated Sept. 30, 1891. (His reports are all type written, by the way, so, he must have squirreled away a typewriter among his hay seed trappings.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>H.H.&#8217;s next report is dated Oct. 4, 1891.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>He spends some time roaming around town asking about land for sale and gets some good intel via a time honored technique: &#8220;I have found that by the use of some stimulants in the shape of beer, they loosen up considerably.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>He also lets the locals know he&#8217;s not a fan of the Kern County Land Co. He meets a man named Charles Scribner, who has connections to a real estate agent named Mr. Maude (likely A.C. Maude, who also dabbled in insurance and owned the weekly <em>Californian<\/em> newspaper for a time).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>Scribner joins in the Land Company bashing, H.H. reports.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>&#8220;&#8230; he frequently alluded to the Land Company as monopolists, and some very endearing terms were used by him against the Land Company. He also said that the Company had &#8216;spotters&#8217; around, and if there was anyone in town looking for land these &#8216;spotters&#8217; would inform the person that he would get swindled if he purchased from him, or Maude, or anyone but the Land Company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>&#8220;Mr. Scribner said that the Land Company would do anything to dispose of its worthless land.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>H.H. does meet with Mr. Maude, who warns him against bad mouthing the Land Company, which controls the water and could make things &#8220;very bad for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>H.H.&#8217;s next report goes even deeper into dark history of land and water in Kern.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p>But I&#8217;ve run out of room so you&#8217;ll have to check back next week to hear how it ends.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"subscriber-only\">\n<p><em>Opinions expressed in this column are those of Lois Henry. Her column runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Comment at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bakersfield.com\/\">http:\/\/www.bakersfield.com<\/a>, call her at 395-7373 or email <a href=\"mailto:lhenry@bakersfield.com\">lhenry@bakersfield.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back when water barons hired undercover agents By LOIS HENRY, The Bakersfield Californian lhenry@bakersfield.com Jan 27, 2015 Indulge me while I share a fascinating fragment of Kern County history. And, wouldn&#8217;t ya know, it has to do with water, sort of. As anyone who&#8217;s read my columns knows, I love any and all info related &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/2017\/05\/04\/private-eye-hired-by-kern-county-land-co-discovers-locals-dont-like-its-water-schemes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Private eye hired by Kern County Land Co. discovers locals don&#8217;t like its water schemes<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/loishenry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}