"The night Prohibition was enacted in 1919, there were 13 saloons and only two churches in Tehachapi, and the church people said the town had gone to hell. Now there's about two bars and 30 churches in Tehachapi, and the drinking people say the town has gone to hell."

– Herbert Nelson Force

Herb Force, one of the first and most dedicated historians in Tehachapi, made this observation in the 1970s.