Biography : Chris Brewer, Historian, Author, Publisher

Chris Brewer is the great, great grandson of Colonel Thomas Baker, founder of Bakersfield California. He has owned and operated Vintage Resources, an historic preservation specialty firm for the last 22 years, working with Section 106 and CEQA compliance. Mr. Brewer is qualified under the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings and is a registered Professional Historian through the California Council for the Promotion of History, (CCPH.) Mr. Brewer specializes in historical research of bridges, waterways, settlement and general history of the San Joaquin Valley and California.

Mr. Brewer is an Architectural Historian for the California Department of Transportation, Cultural Resources Branch, District 6, Fresno, California. He holds a BA and a MPA from California State University Bakersfield.

Mr. Brewer and his wife Sally live in Exeter and own and operate Book Garden and Exeter Flower Company. Book Garden is a retail bookstore with an extensive section on local and California history. The Brewers also own and operate a citrus ranch in Exeter.

He owns and operates Bear State Books in Exeter, specializing in the publication of local history. The newest book from Bear State Books is Ron Hughart’s The Place Beyond the Dust Bowl, a story of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in California as the child of parents from the Dust Bowl. Bear State Books will be publishing several of the works of historian Frank F. Latta during the next few years, including Saga of El Tejon, Death Valley 49ers, a new edition of the Handbook of Yokuts Indians, Black Gold in the Joaquin. and Joaquin Murrieta and his Horse Gangs. Latta’s Dalton Gang Days, California Indian Folklore, and Handbook of Yokuts Indians are already in print by Bear State Books.

Mr. Brewer is the author of a number of books, including the Bakersfield and Kern Picture Album, 1986, 2002; Bakersfield's Photographic Past, 1998, 2002; The Golden Years of Memorial Hospital at Exeter, 1998; Exeter's Photographic Past, 1998; Southern San Joaquin Valley Scenes, 1999; and Historic Kern County, 2001. He has several book projects for 2003 including the Kern County Picture Album; Bakersfield, Stories of the Past; and the Tulare County Picture Album. His most current book project, Historic Tulare County, is due for publication in October 2003.