Historic Buzzard’s Roost
When I was a boy I used to walk with my older sister Margie (Class of 60’) each school day from my home on Lana Street at the north end of Lamont, down past the Lamont School to the beauty salon my sister worked at, just south of the Village Theater. I’d hang out there until time to go to school. One of the things I still recall from those days was that there was a remnant of what had once been a larger grove of Eucalyptus trees just behind the Lamont Lumber yard. The lumber yard stood on the corner of Main and Gail Marie where the Fastrip mini-mart has since been built and remains today. Up until the time the Cornet Store was built, kids coming home from Myrtle Avenue School toward Main Street could still see a few of those old trees.
A lot of people from this area are familiar with the Turkey Vultures that roost each season out along Stockdale Highway in the ‘Old Stockdale’ area of Bakersfield. However, they don’t know, or perhaps just don’t recall that the Vultures also had another area in the south valley they liked to frequent. You see, each year when the Turkey Vultures migrated through the Arvin-Lamont area, they would roost there in the Eucalyptus and one could see them sunning themselves early each morning during that time. My walks with my sister were about 1961 or 1962 and I recall even then seeing the occasional smattering of two or three of these critters roosting and sunning there.
In time I went off to Mountain View School, and somewhere during those years the last of the Eucalyptus trees were cut out as the area filled in with shops and homes. I drove down there today and went down the street behind the County Fair Market. It was pretty much as I recall it the last time I was there more than 30 years ago. The Cornet store is now an AutoZone and the area behind it is fenced in; there were no groves of Eucalyptus trees. I don’t recall the last time I saw a flight of migrating Turkey Vultures lower than 500 feet as they passed through Lamont. They may still roost somewhere in the area, but the historic Buzzard’s Roost noted by local historians, is long gone.
Now what’s the historical significance of all of this other than an aging Arvin High School alum remembering scenes from his childhood? The significance is that back in the early 20th century, surveyors, travelers, and residents in the area noted this location and it became a landmark people used as a meeting place. Others used it as a reference point (i.e., “…meet me at the slough two miles west of Buzzard’s Roost”.) Just as “The Weedpatch” two miles south was well known, so too was Buzzard’s Roost in its day. Many of you saw it as children, as I did, but may never have known its importance to early pioneers to the area until now.