US 395, Part 2: Kern County and Ridgecrest/BR 395

The Kern county portion of US 395 is pretty short -- not as short as, say, Sierra county's strip (in Part 15), but only on the order of around 37 miles (realigned). Kern was not part of the original 27 California counties; on California's declaration of statehood on 9 September 1850, it was originally part of then-Mariposa county. Further juggling of county lines caused Kern county to be formed from a portion cut from Tulare county and Los Angeles county in 1855, first called Buena Vista county, but then changed to Kern in 1866 after the Kern River. The Kern River, in turn, derived its name from topographer Edward Kern, who helped to plot officer John C. Fremont's 1845 expedition. A much more extensive view of western Kern county is found starting with Old Highway 399 Part 5, which traverses this major old highway up to its county seat in Bakersfield.

Fremont will be a recurring character in our discussion, so it's worth talking about him now for reference when we get to his additional exploits. Born John Charles Frémont in Savannah, Georgia in 1813, the future grand explorer had a rough early adulthood to the point where he was even kicked out of Charleston College for truancy. His non-compliance, however, was in stark contrast to his supremely analytical mind (and the college, recognizing his aptitude, eventually did confer him a degree in mathematics); it was in this capacity that he became a professor of mathematics in the US Navy in 1835. Fremont's great knowledge of topography and cartography made him a natural candidate for the federal topographical engineering brigade, and he was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1838. At this point, however, the big thinker decided to take on a bigger project -- the thorough exploration of the American Western frontier. In 1842, Fremont took twenty-eight men on his first of several expeditions to the West and explored the Rocky Mountains in detail, ascending the high Wind River peak that now bears his name. His next 1843 party discovered the Great Salt Lake (paving the way for the Mormon colonization of Utah), and then progressed into the Pacific Northwest along the tributaries of the Columbia River. His return trip, however, was a tremendously difficult struggle through the Sierra Nevadas (part of which is remembered in Part 9), and only by sheer perseverance did Fremont and his men finally reach civilization of sorts at John Sutter's fort in central California. A third exploratory party in 1845 ended in an ugly skirmish with suddenly unaccomodating Mexican forces, which we discuss in Part 9 as well.

The increasingly tense diplomatic relationship with Mexico led to an abrupt end to Fremont's free range wandering when a priority courier intercepted him in 1846 with orders to defend the American territories in the West against encroachment from Mexico (to the south) and Great Britain (to the north). Fremont immediately headed south into northern California, where he liberated the settlers there and was commissioned a lieutenant-colonel to finish the job; in fact, Fremont was the Army officer who had the honour of accepting Mexican General Andres Pico's surrender at the Cahuenga Pass in (what is now) Los Angeles on 13 January 1847. Meeting Commodore John Stoat at Stoat's successful capture of Monterey, Fremont joined him and was appointed military commandant and civil governor by Commodore Robert Stockton arriving from Washington. This set up a stark internal battle between Fremont and General Stephen Kearney (Old Highway 395 Part 3), who arrived with his Army of the West from the south and asserted that he had the authority to establish the local civil government despite Stockton's charter. Fremont's refusal to step down culminated in his court-martial that same year in which he was found guilty of mutiny; sentenced to dismissal from the service, the penalty was commuted by President James Polk and Fremont was allowed to resign in dignity.

A civilian again, Fremont started his explorations anew but an 1848 exploration into Sacramento was even more disastrous than the one in 1843. Briefly serving in the US Senate for California 1850-1, he made his final exploration in the Rockies in 1853. Nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 1856 (losing to Buchanan), Fremont returned to the military when the Civil War broke out as a major-general. His heavy-handed administration of the Western Department in St. Louis (including imposing martial law and the arrest of known secessionists) caused his removal and transfer to the Mountain Department in the southern Appalachians. There he fought General Stonewall Jackson, but was unable to capture him, and finally in protest refused to serve further when his corps was assigned to the command of a lower-ranking officer, Maj. Gen. John Pope (whom Fremont had once commanded). Upon the end of the Civil War, Fremont eventually progressed to the governorship of Arizona from 1878-81, the last major office he would hold. Retiring from public life, he died in 1890. Here is a detailed biography.

Ridgecrest, the largest city along this route, is curious in that it contains a Business 395 that has no relationship whatsoever to a former routing of US 395. According to my maps going back to 1938, near the beginning of US 395's appearance in California, there has never been an alignment of US 395 even vaguely corresponding to where BR 395 runs now. It is unclear when this was first signed, but it seems to have been around the 1970s; we'll spend some time on it because despite not being part of historic US 395, there are some rather significant oddities about its maintenance and signage worth digging into. Ridgecrest (population 24,927 [2000]), first incorporated in 1963 out of what was then called Crumville (! -- a small local homestead), is notable for being the support city for the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, a major testing site for the US Navy and its contractors from which -- among other achievements -- the Sidewinder missile and other tactical weapons emerged. It is the US Navy's single largest land holding as of this date. The Navy has maintained a constant and reliable presence in the Ridgecrest area since 1941, when the Naval Ordnance Test Station was first established in nearby Inyokern.

US 395 in Kern county has been mostly unmolested by time except at its northern end. In addition to a reconfigured grade-separated interchange with CA 178 and BR 395, US 395 was also reconfigured to bypass Inyokern to its north, and the old settlements of Brown and Leliter to their south. The Brown and Leliter bypass was the earliest such reconfiguration, done in the late 1950s, and shifted the junction of old US 6 and US 395 several miles south of the northern county border, shown at left before and after (previously, the junction had been just west of Brown). This was followed up by the grade-separated bypass of Inyokern (modern-day Brown Rd) in 1966, and then the CA 178 interchange in 1974. As for the old US 6/US 395 merge point, this intersection -- now the modern CA 14/US 395 separation -- went through several changes until its most recent incarnation as fully grade-separated in 1993, a change that I remember as a kid when driving through here before that time for points north. This heralds the significant shifts and realignments within Inyo county, which we will talk about in the next Part.