By Susan Wiggins
Mayor
California City, 1962
A Page of History
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Three years into its infancy in 1962, Nat K. Mendelsohn – president of California City Development Company, and main visionary for the desert city of California City – declared that much growth and improvements were indeed taking place there.
I found a news release in my mother Marion Deaver’s files, along with part of a brochure for the city listing all of its potential.
Mendelsohn said that there were 10,000 residents and property owners in the three-year-old community in February of 1962. Many of those were non-resident property owners, and the actual population of the area was much smaller.
In the closing days of 1961, the community was to begin receiving phone services from the California Interstate Telephone Company, with a new exchange to be established in the area.
Three years earlier the community was a “vast spread of land given over to cotton growing and sheep raising,” according to the press release. “It is now under progressive development as an 82,000-acre modern planned community accommodating industrial, residential and recreational needs.”
Lots were sold individually and built upon all over the city. Some homes were located all by themselves on streets with nothing else on them. The area was divided into the First Community, which saw the most growth, the Second Community, which now includes Silver Saddle, and, at that time, the Third Community. Development was to take place accordingly.
Mendelsohn claimed that California City, “Is moving ahead with increasing momentum and must take its place eventually among the important inland cities of Southern California in stride with the state’s population growth and its economic expansion.”
Mendelsohn had a vision for the community that included trees and green belts that were along “100 miles of surfaced streets in the community.”
He added in his report that 15,000 trees had already been established in parks and along the many streets creating green belts throughout the city.
Other growth included “a complete food market augmented by a clothing store, a nursery and general hardware establishment, barber and beauty shop, and a tap room.” Mendelsohn’s report stated that the businesses were “open and doing business as a nucleus of a steadily growing shopping center.”
The community’s first church was under construction beginning in December of 1961. Construction of the par 3 golf course with night lighting was completed and was a part of a “million dollar” park project complete with a lake with a 2 ½ mile shoreline.
A Kern County Library was established, and fire and police protection was provided at that time by Kern County, as well.
Mendelsohn’s selling points for the community included adequate water. He cited the M and R Ranch from which the city was created, and said that there were nine wells, which were rated at 15 million gallons daily. “Sufficient to serve a city of some 50,000 residents.”
As for industrial growth, the Los Angeles-based developer listed growth in nearby Mojave, since there had been none thus far in the community.
These included Texas Aluminum Company, Purdy Company, United Carbon, and the growth of what was then known as Kern County Airport #7. (Now known as the Mojave Air and Spaceport.)
At that time the community was governed by Kern County and the California City Community Services District. It is now a thriving city of over 10,000 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary as an incorporated city.
Its growing pains were more severe and slower than anticipated by Mendelsohn, but non-the-less the city grew into what it is today.
Many of its residents work in nearby Edwards AFB, Mojave Spaceport, Rio Tinto Minerals in Boron, and commute to the Antelope Valley and beyond.
The city now has three schools, including a new high school; students no longer have to commute to Mojave to attend school.
Critics of the planned community never believed it would amount to anything, but those early residents and business owners, who were the true pioneers, helped prove them wrong.
