Bancroftiana, Number 122 Spring 2003: A Family Affair

A Family Affair

At the end of April, 2002, Jamy and Charles Faulhaber traveled down to Bakersfield to participate in the presentation of Following the Cattle King: A Lifetime of Agriculture, Water Management, and Water Conservation in California’s Central Valley, the oral history of George W. Nickel, Jr.

George Nickel (left) receives a copy of his oral history transcript from Jamy Faulhaber, April, 2002.

This was truly a family affair for a variety of reasons. In the first place, George Nickel is the great-grandson of Henry Miller, one of the towering figures of California’s nineteenth-century history as the owner of the Miller & Lux cattle empire, at its height over a million acres of range and farmland in California, Nevada, and Oregon. George was responsible for placing the extensive Miller & Lux archives in Bancroft almost forty years ago. They have proved to be a gold mine for scholars ever since, most recently for David Igler, whose Industrial Cowboys : Miller & Lux and the Transformation of the Far West, 1850-1920, was published last year by the University of California Press.

This was a family affair from Bancroft’s side as well, since Jamy Faulhaber, Charles’s wife, served as a pro bono interviewer for the oral history. The project started in 1997, when George came to Bancroft to use his greatgrandfather’s papers and we suggested that he might be a good subject for an oral history, given his family background and his extensive knowledge of water issues in California. George finally agreed in 1998, provided that Jamy would serve as the interviewer because of her own familiarity with his family and with water issues. Jamy’s father, Harold O’Banion, and George served together on the State Reclamation Board under Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown during the 60s; and Jamy frequently accompanied them on their trips to Board meetings in Sacramento. George would fly his own plane from Bakersfield, pick Jamy and her father up at the Dos Palos air strip, near Los Banos in the San Joaquin Valley, and then go on to Sacramento. On those trips Jamy would learn a great deal about California water issues, especially flood control, as George and her father discussed the the board’s agenda.

The oral history interviews, conducted over a period of three years, from 1998 to 2001, were held at the Nickels’ Rio Bravo Ranch near Bakersfield, as well as during vacations in Lake Tahoe or on the beach in Carpinteria. In addition to George’s oral history, it also includes an interview with his wife Adele (Dodo) Nickel and interviews with three of George’s oldest friends, Dr. Benson Roe, William Parrott, and Douglas Moody.

After tracing George’s family background and early years growing up on the Peninsula and at UC Berkeley, the oral history focuses on George’s early career with Miller & Lux, the legal issues involved in breaking the Henry Miller Trust, flood control, water rights, and land development in the San Joaquin Valley, the development of Buena Vista Lake and Rio Bravo in Bakersfield, George’s service on the State Reclamation Board (1959-66), and environmental issues on the Kern River. George has been a key player in some of the most significant developments affecting Bakersfield (including his successful plan to double the size of the city) and the San Joaquin Valley; and the oral history provides fascinating insights into the politics and economics of water and land development in California.

Copies are available ($65) from the Regional Oral History Office, University of California, Berkeley 486 The Bancroft Library #6000, Berkeley, CA 94720- 6000 (checks should be made payable to UC Regents).

—Jamy Faulhaber