Eyewitness reports from the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake described fissures tearing open in the earth, rivers changing course, trees being swallowed up by liquefaction and solid ground rolling like waves in the ocean.
On the morning of January 9, 1857, a California rancher named John Barker led his horse to the shores of Tulare Lake, located halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Before his horse could take a drink, though, Barker was struck by a jarring nausea.
“The ground seemed to be violently swaying from east to west,” reported Barker years later. “The water splashed up to my knees; the trees whipped about, and limbs fell on and all around me … The lake commenced to roar like the ocean in a storm, and, staggering and bewildered, I vaulted into the saddle and my terrified horse started, as eager as I was to get out of the vicinity.”
The powerful earthquake lasted nearly three minutes. When Barker came out of hiding, he found the fields around the lake littered with dead fish. The water had sloshed so violently that it stranded the fish three miles inland, where they became a feast for vultures…