Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Tehachapi Tehachapi, CA

Tehachapi was founded in 1876 when the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived and incorporated on August 13, 1909; its name comes from the Kawaiisu word 'Tihachipia,' meaning 'hard climb.'

Tehachapi sits at 3,970 feet elevation in the Tehachapi Mountains between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert, and its nickname is 'The Land of Four Seasons' — the area typically collects 15 to 20 inches of snow each winter.

The Southern Pacific line through Tehachapi Pass, completed in July 1876, was the final link connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles by rail.

Just outside town, the Tehachapi Loop is a 3,779-foot railroad spiral built in 1874-76, largely by some 3,000 Chinese laborers, that gains 77 feet in elevation so that any train longer than about 3,800 feet passes over itself; it is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark and California Historical Landmark No. 508.

Around 36 freight trains a day still climb through the Tehachapi Loop, making the line one of the busiest single-track freight routes in the world and a pilgrimage site for railfans.

The Tehachapi Pass wind farm was one of the first large-scale wind farms in the United States, generating around 710 megawatts from roughly 3,400 turbines, and the nearby Alta Wind Energy Center is among the largest wind farms in the country.

On July 21, 1952, Tehachapi was struck by the magnitude 7.3 Kern County earthquake on the White Wolf Fault — the largest quake in Southern California in the 20th century at that time — which killed 12 people and heavily damaged the town and rail lines.

The original Tehachapi Valley settlement, once called Williamsburg or Tehichipa and now known as Old Town, is California Historical Landmark No. 643, recognized as the oldest settlement in the valley.

Tehachapi's 1876 railroad depot, the oldest building downtown, burned in June 2008 and was rebuilt from the original plans, reopening as a museum dedicated on June 5, 2010.

The Pacific Crest Trail passes through the Tehachapi area, and the mountain air currents make the region famous for the aerial sport of gliding.