The opportunities afforded by the Rosedale district as an agricultural region and its adaptability to the profitable cultivation of alfalfa induced Mr. Etcheverry to invest in a tract of eighty acres in 1908 and the following year he came to the place in order to take up the task of building a house and barn, checking the land and sowing it to alfalfa. The farm lies eight and one-half miles northwest of Bakersfield and is under the Beardsley canal. During 1913 the owner sunk two wells to a depth of one hundred and five feet with water rising to within twenty-seven feet of the surface, and has since had an abundance of water, pumping bv means of an engine of fifty-horse capacity producing two hundred and fifty inches of water and thus affording adequate irrigation for the valuable property.

Of French birth and lineage, Fernando Etcheverry was born in Aldudes, Basses-Pyrenees, March 1, 1869, and was the only child of Michel and Louisa (Chabano) Etcheverry, the former still living on his farm in France, the latter being deceased. In boyhood Fernando was sent to school during the winter months and trained to help on the farm during the summer, but when sixteen, in 1885, he left France to seek a livelihood in the new world. At first he joined two aunts (Mrs. Peter Gastambide and Mrs. Domingo Gastambide), near Los Banos, Merced county, Cal., where he soon found employment as a herder of sheep, an occupation made familiar to him through earlier life in the valley extending from the Pyrenees mountains to the Bay of Biscay, a region peculiarly suited to the sheep industry. In 1890 he came from Merced county to Kern, now East Bakersfield. Making this place his headquarters, he engaged in the sheep business, ranging his flocks on the plains and in the mountains. Meantime, in 1892, he became proprietor of the Pyrenees hotel on Sumner street. After four years as a partner of F. M. Noriega, he purchased the interest of his partner and then continued alone for two years. Meanwhile he had continued an identification with the sheep industry. For eighteen months he owned a flock, but, not being able to give the sheep personal attention owing to his business interests, he sold them to ether parties. Soon afterwards he began to improve his Rosedale ranch and, having sold out his hotel interests to his former partner, Mr. Noriega, he since has devoted himself exclusively to the raising of alfalfa. He has been a useful man to his community, an upbuilder of East Bakersfield and Kern county, an earnest supporter of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in East Bakersfield and a contributor to movements for the benefit of the people. In politics he has voted with the Republican party ever since casting his first ballot. At the time of his arrival in Kern county he was unmarried and at East Bakersfield September 4, 1902, he was united with Miss Mathilda Etcheverry, also a native of Aldudes, Basses-Pyrenees, and a daughter of John and Catherine (Laxague) Etcheverry, farmers in France. They have two sons, Felix and Peter.

History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches
of the leading men and women of the county who have been
identified with its growth and development from the early days
to the present.

Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company, 1914