There is gold in these mountains.
Tucked into the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains and surrounded by vast pine forests, Javila was once a bustling mining town, where crushing plants crushed rock from the area’s mines and prospectors struck for gold in the late 19th century.
In its heyday, the town’s main street featured bars, dance halls, hotels and casinos. According to Los Angeles Times archives, townspeople witnessed midday shootouts, wanted murders and stagecoach robberies, and they also bet gold dust on horse races.
But for nearly a century, long after the gold rush died down, Hawera was considered a ghost town with only about 150 residents. When fire swept through the town on July 26, only the foundations of most of the historic buildings remained.
The Borel Fire had burned nearly 60,000 acres as of Friday, destroying some of Hawera’s last remnants in just 24 hours, including a replica courthouse that had been in use for decades. Create a small roadside museum.
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Roy Fluhart, whose ancestors settled the area around the Great Depression, sought to preserve the town’s rich history. As president of the Hawera Historical Society, he and his relatives help manage the courthouse using historical documents and photos, antique mining tools and other artifacts from the area’s past.
“We lost everything,” Fruhart said. “Sadly, the museum used to be an archive and now it’s lost. Son of a Gun. … We really didn’t have time to get anything out.
It wasn’t just the town’s history that was lost.
Wearing the same clothes he wore to escape, Hawera resident Bo Barnett talks about escaping the Borel fire. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Beau Barnett’s house was destroyed and he managed to escape with his dog and the clothes he was wearing. Barnett’s wife died a month ago and he expressed regret that he didn’t have time to collect her ashes.
“Fire rained down on us,” Barnett said, his eyes filling with tears. “I’m not sure what I was driving. My tires melted on the road. That’s bad.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who spent much of his childhood in the sparsely populated mining community of Dutch Flat in Placer County, lamented the loss of a gold rush community on Tuesday. Wearing aviator sunglasses and a baseball cap, he toured the wreckage of Hawila, walked to the remains of the town museum and pulled a novelty Uncle Sam coin bank from the charred ruins.
After the fire, California Governor Gavin Newsom visited Hawera and discovered an artifact among the ruins of the courthouse museum.
“Towns have been wiped off the map – places, ways of life, traditions,” Newsom said at a news conference. “That’s really what it’s about. At the end of the day, it’s about people, it’s about history, it’s about memory.
In recent years, devastating wildfires have devastated some of California’s gold mining towns, erasing the history of one of America’s most important eras in the 19th century. Hawera joins the ranks of small communities such as Paradise and Greenville that have seen an influx of prospectors, a subsequent exodus and, more recently, devastation.
Havila attributes its origins to Asbury Harpending, a Kentuckian who plotted to seize California and its gold to support the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 1864, outraged after being convicted of treason, Harpending ventured to the Clear Creek area of present-day Kern County. He discovered gold and named the area Havilah, after a gold-rich land in the Book of Genesis.
Although Harpending had no land rights, he established a massive mining camp and sold land to incoming miners in what many believe could be a second gold rush. In 1866, Hawera became the seat of the newly formed Kern County, a title it held for eight years until Bakersfield became the principal city. He only stayed for two years, but made a fortune: $800,000.
“I was literally raised from absolute poverty to possess nearly a million dollars,” Harpending wrote in his autobiography. “I discovered a great mining claim and founded a prosperous town. If the question of paternity is filed in court, a jury may be satisfied that I am the father of Kern County.
A 1905 Los Angeles Times article details a shoot reminiscent of Wild West movies.
(Los Angeles Times archives/news.com)
As gold became increasingly difficult to find, people abandoned Hawera and its buildings fell into disrepair. Those who remain seek to honor the community’s mining and pioneer heritage. In 1966, to commemorate the centenary of Hawera’s founding, residents completed construction of a replica courthouse. They later built a replica of the town schoolhouse that doubled as a community center.
Historic markers along Caliente-Bodfish Road indicate buildings that once stood: barbershop, blacksmith, Grand Inn and stables. Large plaques also pay tribute to historical events, such as Kern County’s last stagecoach robbery in 1869, when a gunman made off with $1,700 worth of coins and gold bars.
Wesley Kutzner, a historical society member and Fruhart’s uncle, helped build the replica courthouse along with his parents and other locals. Although the historical society cannot afford fire insurance, Kutzner said he is determined to clean up the property and rebuild it, just as the community did nearly 60 years ago.
“The plan is to rebuild,” Kutzner said. “This is going to be a community effort. It’s going to be a hard road home, but we’re going to get it done.
Sean Rains is one resident planning to rebuild. Two years ago, he left Bakersfield and moved to Hawera with his girlfriend and pit bull, seeking the tranquility of the mountains. Raines, a miner and countertop maker, was one of the few who held out hope of finding buried treasure in Hawera.
In his front yard, Raines placed a shaker and other equipment to sift the soil for gold particles.
It “doesn’t make us rich,” he said, but he did find some.
“They say it’s everywhere,” Raines said. “It’s just a matter of whether it’s enough to make it worth your time.”
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1. Sean Rains moved to Hawera two years ago and started panning for gold in a shaker in his front yard. 2. Roadside scene in Hawera. 3. Melted film canisters lying on the floor of Hawera Museum are just some of the artifacts lost in the Borel fire.
Raines was also recruited into the historical society. He read an old letter in which a sheriff said the town’s only pastimes were stagecoach robberies and horse races. Another recalled how pioneers used ropes to drag wagons through the mountains.
The historical society recently installed a water pipe in the replica schoolhouse. Because Raines lived nearby, he was asked to help defend the school building if a fire broke out.
“I gave them my word,” he said.
So when Raines saw the fire cresting the hill behind his home and quickly descending into the valley, he rushed next door to start the schoolhouse’s water pump. He sprayed water on the building, dousing the embers under the front porch.
He eventually turned his attention to his one-story house, dousing it until the trees in his yard caught fire. He, his girlfriend and their dog sped away in his pickup truck.
“He was licking our heels on the way out here,” Raines recalled. “It was right above us. The wind in that thing was crazy, blowing from different directions. It was sucking branches out of the trees. The whole mountain was swallowed up.
The next morning, Rains returned to town and walked along the Caliente-Bodfish road to see the ruins of Hawera.
Pine and oak trees in the valley were scorched and much of the area was covered in white ash. Raines’ two-bedroom house burned to the ground and its cobblestone foundation was gutted. Two of the cars he restored were charred husks. His two all-terrain vehicles were reduced to skeletons.
The schoolhouse survived.
Hawera School Building – After the Fire.
