When I told my Californian friends that I was heading to Bakersfield for a long weekend, the overwhelming response was “why?”. How about the fact that the Bakersfield Sound redefined country music and the city’s musical roots run deep with live music everywhere. There is a tradition of Basque food in Bakersfield that runs back to the gold rush and there are still a handful of old Basque restaurants around serving up quite a feast. Beyond that, the race tracks, public art, a great history museum and friendly people everywhere you go make Bakersfield a great destination. Why go to Bakersfield? Why wouldn’t you want to go?
The area around Bakersfield was once Yowlumne Indian land and they called their village here Woilu. In 1776, the intrepid Spanish missionary Francisco Garcés passed through the area on his travels. It wasn’t really until the Gold Rush that people of European decent really started making their way into this part of the San Juaquin Valley, and they came in droves. One of these new settlers was an Ohioan named Thomas Baker who built a farm on the Kern River and Baker’s Field became a stopover for travelers. Bakersfield was incorporated in 1873 and became the county seat the following year.
During the Dust Bowl era, thousands of Texans and Oklahomans flooded into the area and brought their brand of country music with them. In the 1950s, when the Nashville Sound was doing its best to bring a pop sound to country music and appeal to the masses, it was in the honkytonks of Bakersfield that musicians started to push back. The “Bakersfield Sound” is what we call this response today and Buck Owens and Merle Haggard brought that sound to the world.
I had a great time in Bakersfield. I liked the cool bars downtown like Guthrie’s Alley, where a diverse crowd always seemed on hand to drink and shoot pool. I loved the live music everywhere I went. The Kern County History Museum was phenomenal, having brought old buildings from all over the county and assembled and restored them at a central site. The Bakersfield speedway was a great experience and my stomach is still full when I think of the delicious Basque food I enjoyed in town. I had an absolute blast and can’t wait to return to Bakersfield in the future. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Bakersfield, California.
Birmingham is Alabama’s most populous city, and was, from its very beginning, an industrial town. Founded in the wake of the Civil War, Birmingham got its name from its British cousin, the UK’s industrial center. One of the only places in the world where large amounts of iron-ore, coal and limestone are all naturally present, Birmingham was destined to become a steel town. The city would become a major producer of rail lines and rail cars and a major railroad hub itself. As the steel industry grew, so to did the town as some of the South’s earliest skyscrapers were built. Birmingham grew so fast during the Industrial Revolution and was so well suited to emerging industries that it became known as “The Magic City”. For many of the same reasons, the Great Depression hit Birmingham particularly hard, and with its residents fighting for work animosity grew, especially along racial lines. Birmingham would rebound during and after World War II, but as the Civil Rights Movement took hold, it became a primary battleground in the cause. It was obviously where Dr. Martin Luther King wrote his Letter From a Birmingham Jail, and police violence against peaceful protesters garnered international media coverage. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four young girls, was one of the final straws that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and had many newspapers refer to Birmingham as “Bombingham” or “The Tragic City”. Today, Birmingham is a mid-sized but somewhat sleepy city. There are some beautiful old buildings and plenty of modern ones too. Birmingham has taken ownership of its role in the Civil Rights Movement with the excellent Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and a number of signs and statues around the city. With a great Minor League Baseball stadium, a vibrant University district and some excellent breweries, live music venues and restaurants, Birmingham is definitely a city on the rise. I really enjoyed my stay in town, and would definitely recommend you visit, especially in the spring when baseball is in the air and the flowers are in bloom. Enjoy these photos I took during my stay in The Magic City.
I had no expectations when I pulled into downtown Monroe, Louisiana last week. I had really never heard anything about it, good or bad. It was the biggest town in northeast Louisiana, but that was about the extent of my knowledge as I headed into town. Sometimes it is great when you go into a place blind, because you can see it completely unhindered by preconceived notions of what it should look like. I was impressed the moment I hit downtown by the beautiful classically industrial architecture and the lovely riverfront park and bridge. It helped that it was a gorgeous evening, but my camera and I were kept busy for hours as I wandered the streets, with amazing shots around every corner. I really had a great time taking these photos, even though it was really quiet as I wandered the streets. At one point, I was taking a photo on a street corner and a police car was stopped at the light. The officer rolled down his window and said something along the lines of “just taking photos of beautiful downtown Monroe?”. I replied “yes, I am” to which he just laughed and laughed. The light turned green, and I could still hear him laughing as he drove off into the evening. I wish I had called after him and given him my card so he could see these photos. Maybe it takes an outsider to see the real beauty in a place, and maybe that’s what makes me the right person to shoot these kinds of photos. I know he found it hilarious, but I loved my short stay in Monroe. It is truly a diamond in the rough of northeastern Louisiana.
