https://mla.hcommons.org/members/gilbertpgia/activity/ Activity feed for Gilbert Peter Gia. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:53:59 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 105d6ca31644c6d9a71eca5a429311b5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1922462/ Fri, 11 Jul 2025 00:44:18 -0400 0 94f9223a9382d12e81a4fa0bbdde086a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1908455/ Fri, 10 Jan 2025 01:58:55 -0500 0 f383aeb65d6531402c0764e90f837a63 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1908453/ Fri, 10 Jan 2025 01:47:24 -0500 0 962df97c1367f29788512c673a1d533f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1896021/ Mon, 12 Aug 2024 04:00:24 -0400 Civil engineer Don Suverkrop recalls Hopper Machine Works in Bakersfield, California (1900-1980) and his early engineering work in oil and agriculture and during the Cold War.

]]> 0 c2651fe3deb347320729200c5920b374 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895989/ Sun, 11 Aug 2024 17:08:47 -0400 Civil engineer Don Suverkrop recalls Hopper Machine Works in Bakersfield, California (1900-1980) and his early engineering work in oil and agriculture and during the Cold War.

]]> 0 b2ed7f3c67694a2443f9e1da68f788b9 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895727/ Thu, 08 Aug 2024 03:00:27 -0400 Agriculture, Oil, and War,—The demand for oilfield repair and parts spelled opportunity for early mechanical types like Frank Hopper, Sr. The story of Hopper’s Machine Works traces back to 1899 when oilmen Canfield & Chanslor were shipping 70,000 barrels of crude a month from Coalinga. They also operated Bakersfield Iron Works, which was a f…[Read more]

]]> 0 0e04a89d5389d75ac1e820e8c5f2d937 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895726/ Thu, 08 Aug 2024 03:00:02 -0400 Agriculture, Oil, and War,—The demand for oilfield repair and parts spelled opportunity for early mechanical types like Frank Hopper, Sr. The story of Hopper’s Machine Works traces back to 1899 when oilmen Canfield & Chanslor were shipping 70,000 barrels of crude a month from Coalinga. They also operated Bakersfield Iron Works, which was a f…[Read more]

]]> 0 e476242120973835e1cb9041b6242fad https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895712/ Wed, 07 Aug 2024 22:50:18 -0400 Agriculture, Oil, and War,—The demand for oilfield repair and parts spelled opportunity for early mechanical types like Frank Hopper, Sr. The story of Hopper’s Machine Works traces back to 1899 when oilmen Canfield & Chanslor were shipping 70,000 barrels of crude a month from Coalinga. They also operated Bakersfield Iron Works, which was a f…[Read more]

]]> 0 1b0b6688f388d5c2600b955140d5773b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895266/ Thu, 01 Aug 2024 03:00:06 -0400 In 1935, Kern County Boy Scouts took possession of 168-acres on the Kern River east of Bakersfield, California, 25 of them wooded, a nine-hole golf course, several outbuildings, a commodious lodge with hardwood floors, an impressive fireplace, kitchen, library, hospital room, game room, dormitory, and an apartment for a caretaker. The sale…[Read more]

]]> 0 85009e1478c7f1c2b6c56e2b0c743d1f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1895259/ Wed, 31 Jul 2024 22:07:41 -0400 In 1935, Kern County Boy Scouts took possession of 168-acres on the Kern River east of Bakersfield, California, 25 of them wooded, a nine-hole golf course, several outbuildings, a commodious lodge with hardwood floors, an impressive fireplace, kitchen, library, hospital room, game room, dormitory, and an apartment for a caretaker. The sale…[Read more]

]]> 0 68c02e14cb34129afaaaa6ffa9bc09a5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891773/ Mon, 15 Jul 2024 03:00:38 -0400 Union Avenue Plunge opened in May 1916, and a local newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian, wrote that it was the largest concrete swimming pool in the West. The background on how it came about starts with John E. Roberts who arrived in California in 1895 in his early twenties and went to work for the Southern Pacific. In 1912 he bought 40…[Read more]

]]> 0 f3ca45ac23eed3969178a5e81fa8e022 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891769/ Mon, 15 Jul 2024 03:00:34 -0400 Union Avenue Plunge opened in May 1916, and a local newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian, wrote that it was the largest concrete swimming pool in the West. The background on how it came about starts with John E. Roberts who arrived in California in 1895 in his early twenties and went to work for the Southern Pacific. In 1912 he bought 40…[Read more]

]]> 0 0396ceda01033adf67059198bf8d41b3 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891746/ Sun, 14 Jul 2024 22:54:23 -0400 Union Avenue Plunge opened in May 1916, and a local newspaper, the Bakersfield Californian, wrote that it was the largest concrete swimming pool in the West. The background on how it came about starts with John E. Roberts who arrived in California in 1895 in his early twenties and went to work for the Southern Pacific. In 1912 he bought 40…[Read more]

]]> 0 e16ef36abb99f9cac46b6447310e25d4 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891432/ Tue, 09 Jul 2024 21:19:28 -0400 In the California state election of September 4, 1862 voters returned 22 senators to Sacramento. Four of them were called Breckenridge Democrats because they vociferously challenged the US government’s demand for obedience from the states. Senator Thomas Baker, the founder of Bakersfield, was one of the Breckenridge Democrats. President L…[Read more]

]]> 0 3643433f95fe6f64c7691321988ed20a https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891312/ Mon, 08 Jul 2024 22:24:33 -0400 This is Suverkrop’s story of how he went to war, what happened, and how he survived. He wrote, “My army career started with my enlistment at Sacramento followed by a bus ride to the Presidio at Monterey for induction and medical shots. A fast train then took me south to Camp Roberts and 17-weeks of Army basic training with Company D. The emphasis…[Read more]

]]> 0 536861adb02d80786a43331f3155d994 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891216/ Mon, 08 Jul 2024 02:22:06 -0400 0 373b9343bc5b3eac556837de77f7bbe5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891208/ Sun, 07 Jul 2024 21:43:38 -0400 Kern County hospital administer Buckreus was accused sedition even though he had served as a Bakersfield fire chief, Kern County corner-public administrator, and steward of Kern County Hospital. In May 1918 he uttered something about German soldiers while at a patriotic meeting and because the country was at war, Bakersfield had little tolerance…[Read more]

]]> 0 7ec9f98fc013d3341a88018d0af548f7 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1891126/ Sat, 06 Jul 2024 17:32:59 -0400 Interview with President of Creative Engineering Don Suverkrop who holds 35 US patents in the fields of construction, agricultural, and mining. Suverkrop describes his first encounter with of Radio Shack Model 1 and how computers grew his civil engineering business.

]]> 0 b33f59120d0c6e18d6ee524fde504df4 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1882547/ Mon, 08 Apr 2024 15:41:21 -0400 A broad view of the early formation, challenges, and support for school development in the rural town of Bakersfield at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Architectural design, crime, and excellent and incompetent teachers described.

]]> 0 70ea042ef8ee9ab273e84a4e475acc62 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1859216/ Thu, 21 Sep 2023 17:38:05 -0400 Progress of the Peace Day movement in Bakersfield, California schools in the second decade of the 1900’s

]]> 0 7f8ee1ced558f349e37126034a827b46 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1854847/ Mon, 14 Aug 2023 21:40:03 -0400 Exactly when Barker opened Barker Springs is not known, but by the early 1890s it had become a recreational destination. For several Sundays in May 1891 a driver known as “Papa Newman” operated a 10-mile-round-trip, one-dollar excursion from Arlington Hotel at 19th and Chester in Bakersfield to “Fabulous Barker Springs.” On the Fourth of July 1891…[Read more]

]]> 0 0c466b4790b2a2624d337be05b23b42b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1830089/ Tue, 17 Jan 2023 03:27:45 -0500 Descriptions of Mills often went like this: “He just stumps around from one saloon to another, and at the end of the month he draws his $76.” [$2100 today] . Mills carried a badge and a large pistol and also packed a large ego.

]]> 0 9a010193c238e30dc38433c43b01b0c6 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1818577/ Tue, 25 Oct 2022 02:25:28 -0400 In the 1980s Tonight Show host Johnny Carson dropped B-bombs on Bakersfield,
but by that time newspapers had long bruised the town’s image. The scolding about summer heat, tar-and-feathering, vigilante hangings, rigged town elections, and an expanding red-light district. A local newspaper wrote, in 1882, “This town, or its name rather, has bec…[Read more]

]]> 0 296672f829b41cb9eb1db38eea80303c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1815275/ Sat, 24 Sep 2022 16:28:59 -0400 Visitors once crowded the park, treasured it, and supported it. Some say a rowdy element took over the park in the late 1950s, but others say the park’s demise was caused by bigger paychecks, the advent of television, Disneyland, and Magic Mountain. Connie Basbis Pappas answered best when she said, “It was a peaceful place, the train was slow, a…[Read more]

]]> 0 7d1a9b74e7efeb10ca748415948b74de https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1794798/ Mon, 19 Sep 2022 19:58:59 -0400 For sixty years segregation of Chinese in Bakersfield had been nearly complete, and it continued even into death.
Some local historians wrote that in the 1870s a Chinese cemetery was near today’s Terrace Way, but that burying place was not originally Chinese.

]]> 0 4e5902c25ecc4d76edd229ec5ab8b527 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1794789/ Mon, 19 Sep 2022 19:15:23 -0400 In the summer of 1901 Mrs. George Hinkle entered a Bakersfield saloon to beg her husband to come home, and the next day when her neighbors found out he had beat her, Hinkle came close to being tar-and-feathered. It probably reminded Bakersfield of a similar incident that happened in May of 1890 when a lawyer was actually tarred and feathered.

]]> 0 e26d54fbf3225c7656d84f1c99226e38 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1783771/ Fri, 10 Jun 2022 14:51:13 -0400 Henry Alexander Jastro directed the course of Kern County politics for twenty-five years. Nothing moved without his blessing,

]]> 0 545daa1481424838b73afa6824902e98 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1783620/ Thu, 09 Jun 2022 02:26:16 -0400 History of brewing and beer sales in Bakersfield, California 1866-1920

]]> 0 91b5f91e76f068e1960bf37eb6af64ed https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1749092/ Thu, 12 Aug 2021 15:28:03 -0400 0 5c6e39e9c76488da404c8c5679141c44 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1640758/ Thu, 23 May 2019 02:10:29 -0400 About Bakersfield, California Chinese-American businessman Earl Wong and his nightclub as told from the perspective of musician Carlyle Nelson who played there, wrote about it in his autobiography, and described it in conversations with Gilbert Gia.

]]> 0 badef3333fb0b3fcaa4b6c42c2ecce88 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1634907/ Tue, 12 Mar 2019 01:41:58 -0400 This account follows the public and private life of Marie Brignaudy in the male-dominated world of Bakersfield vice, 1905-1933. Included are descriptions of her hotel, saloon, and cribs and examples of the cooperative and adversarial relationships she had with the Kern County Board of Supervisors, the Bakersfield City Council, and Bakersfield’s v…[Read more]

]]> 0 d32b808bf52985e1208b3b5eaf8e973f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1627397/ Sat, 29 Dec 2018 16:13:42 -0500 0 66728ec03edd56e2f3f3462c5dadb496 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1616177/ Wed, 22 Aug 2018 16:14:26 -0400 0 bc396860b4e1ce1ff5a4e8551b51fb37 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1588057/ Sun, 12 Nov 2017 01:53:13 -0500 The letters of Isabella Ann Smith Suverkrop (1819-1903) and Edward Albert Suverkrop (1814-1895) provide an intimate glimpse into family life and society in America and Scotland of more than 150 years ago. Gold Rush California and Civil War Washington, DC, are included.

]]> 0 ee04b45bbcb7ab92548806737a7970ff https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1585168/ Fri, 20 Oct 2017 21:26:22 -0400 A history of Kern County jails from the county’s creation in 1866 until the removal of the county’s main jail that had been compromised in the earthquake of 1952.

]]> 0 9289c958a41880a1e53d627fab3e2cab https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1578570/ Fri, 11 Aug 2017 21:41:36 -0400 0 9bfa2e0dd3a8099ccff1afecfc3f3e8b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1578535/ Fri, 11 Aug 2017 15:27:03 -0400 A history of publicly-financed dormitories for high-school-age boys and girls and the school’s care of them at Bakersfield in Kern County Californian.

]]> 0 13269e4eac9f6368eb471a41d57373b1 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1578324/ Thu, 10 Aug 2017 01:00:19 -0400 Traces the history of municipal solid-waste disposal at Bakersfield California from 1872-1992

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