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Colonel Baker surveyed and designed many new towns in the east and through this experience gained knowledge that narrow streets and town circles are not the way to lay out a young city.
A horse and wagon couldn’t even turn around in most early western towns After witnessing the congestion narrow streets caused to many cities in the east he gave Bakersfield very wide streets so it had room to grow.
In early Bakersfield, roads into town all led to the city’s center of business. The Old Immigrant road ran near Colonel Baker’s field, which was near 19th and N streets. After the town was layed out with street names, Chester Avenue became the main drag north and south so it evolved into the highway through town.
The Beale Clock Tower was built in the center of Chester Avenue in 1904. Many townspeople were critical of this placement and as the through traffic of automobiles increased in number, traffic congestion on Chester increased yearly. In 1928, Chester Avenue, through Bakersfield, was made California State Highway 99.
By the late-1920s, state and city planners began searching for a way of relocating State Highway 99 around town and off Chester Avenue.
A traffic circle was decided as the means to interchange highway and city traffic smoothly. It took years to prod the state and Santa Fe Railroad to build the underpass at Truxtun and Union Avenue, but it was finished in 1935, which allowed State Highway 99 traffic to detour to the north of town and meet the newly finished traffic circle on North Chester Avenue.
After these projects were completed and traffic was cruising around the new traffic circle, people began to complain of the project’s bare appearance.
First, lawn was planted and there was talk of transplanting some large palm trees, but everyone had their own idea of how to beautify the circle so the subject was argued for years.
The city manager’s idea of beautification was to build a large, mission style service station-garage inside the circle. The income from the business would pay the maintenance on the landscaping of the property, he explained, but after considering the traffic congestion this idea would create, the idea was scrapped.
The next year the city discussed erecting a full size oil derrick in the center of the circle, fully illuminated by flood lights. Those in favor stressed Kern’s ties to oil; those against noted that there were hundreds of derricks already dotting the local landscape.
City engineer Joe Holfelter drew up plans for a massive 200-foot-wide fountain. This would have been a spectacular display for traffic passing through Bakersfield. The fountain was designed to spray 124 jets of water in a 40-foot halo while four center jets shot 75 feet high. The entire water show was illuminated from underwater with multi-colored lights, constantly displaying a changing rainbow of colors.
“The Living Fountain” would have been spectacular, but the $10,000 price tag and projected maintenance railroaded the project. A lawn and a few hedges were all the circle gained in four years until finally a thrifty solution presented itself to the planning commission.
John Palo-Kangas, a famous sculptor, working for the Works Public Administration Federal Arts Projects, was commissioned to carve a block of Indiana limestone into the statue we see today. So, on May 7, 1939, Bakersfield gained a treasured icon, Father Francisco Garces, thanks to the Works Project Administration of the Great Depression. The funds to erect the statue were raised by the Kern County Historical Society and other civic organizations.