Most people know that California was part of Mexico from 1821 to 1846. But the Mexican influence in the Central Valley didn’t end with the Bear Flag Revolt or with California joining the United States. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, the story of one of Kern County’s oldest settlements, one established by Mexican-era pioneers, the original Rio Bravo.
Years before Colonel Thomas Baker came to Kern County and founded Bakersfield, the earliest non-native settlers in the region were of Mexican descent. In the early 1840s, a group of Mexicans from Southern California migrated to Kern County. They settled along the banks of the old Kern River, just south of present day downtown Bakersfield, growing crops and raising cattle on Kern Island…