i have a wonderful document that is actually signed by my great, great grandfather, colonel thomas bakerd it's on a slip of paper which is what they used back then because paper was scarce. and it's actually a loan note. colonel baker, $500 in gold for one of his little projects. he had a lot of little projects going on. that's how bakersfield got started. this was in 1872, but it's one of the very, very few documents that exists with the signature of colonel thomas baker. now, in this file we have some very interesting things. this might be of interest to you. this is a picture of st. paul's episcopal church, the inside of it, of course. and it shows the pews and the altar. the interesting story on this is the altar was purchased by mrs. lloyd tevis from the church where president mckinley last prayed prior to being shot and assassinated. and this was the altar, and it was brought to bakersfield by mrs. lloyd tevis. and be this is a photograph of the outside of the church, and you can see how quaint this little church was. there are lots of very interesting pretty much national, nationa

steve thomas baker is the namesake of bakersfield california. he was a pioneer that came from iowa and across the prairies in 1850. went to the capital of california which is volusia california in those days and went to beautiful area called for creeks which is now vice area and heard of an area called kern island which was the former name of bakersfield and in 1862 he came to kern island via vote because in 1862 we had the great flood of 1862. it rained for 40 days, 40 nights. it flooded all the way from canada to mexico. colonel baker was an entrepreneur. he was a merchant and most people came to california in a teen 49 for gold but he'd came for merchandise and he was looking for a place to farm. he was looking for a place to build a store. he just likes people. he liked creating a community and so he went to phoenicia and went to buy sale yet but they didn't naturally want him. when he came to kern island he realized this was going to be a city that would be important in southern california and he decided to make this his home. when he came