Cummings Valley is in California's Tehachapi Mountains. Cummings Valley was settled by the

Kawaiisu The Kawaiisu (pronounced: ″ka-wai-ah-soo″) are a Native Californian ethnic group in the United States who live in the Tehachapi Valley and to the north across the Tehachapi Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada, toward Lake Isabella and Walker ...

people before the arrival of

white Americans White Americans are Americans who identify as and are perceived to be white people. This group constitutes the majority of the people in the United States. As of the 2020 Census, 61.6%, or 204,277,273 people, were white alone. This represented ...

, largely of Irish originPen In Hand: Ireland in Tehachapi — a touch of Erin
by John Hammond. ''Tehachapi News''. September 1, 2016. Accessed June 3, 2022., in the 1850s.TCCWD History
" Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District. Accessed June 3, 2022. The region's agriculture began with

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

and

dry farming Dryland farming and dry farming encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands, areas characterized by a cool wet season (which charges the soil with virtually ...

as water was not imported until 1973. This water consists of 20,000 acre-feet of water annually from the

State Water Project The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public water ...

pumped 3,425 vertical feet from the Grapevine area. These imports, including their use to recharge the natural

water basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...

have been impacted by the ongoing

climate-change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...

-caused

megadrought A megadrought (or mega-drought) is a prolonged drought lasting two decades or longer. Past megadroughts have been associated with persistent multiyear La Niña conditions (cooler than normal water temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific Oc ...

. Agriculture remains a large part of the Cummings Valley economy, including

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

s and

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...

s. Stallion Springs and the

California Correctional Institution California Correctional Institution (CCI) is a supermax state prison in the city of Tehachapi in southern California. CCI is sometimes referred to as "Tehachapi prison" or "Tehachapi".Pepper, Art, and Laurie Pepper. ''Straight Life: The Story o ...

are both located in Cummings Valley. The dominant geographical feature in Cummings Valley is Cummings Mountain to the southeast. Many portions of the valley retain their

valley oak ''Quercus lobata'', commonly called the valley oak or roble, grows into the largest of California oaks. It is endemic to California, growing in interior valleys and foothills from Siskiyou County to San Diego County. Mature specimens may attain a ...

-dominated, natural

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

state. Other

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

s in Cummings Valley include

black oak Black Oak may refer to: Places in the United States * Black Oak, Arkansas * Black Oak, Daviess County, Indiana * Black Oak, Lake County, Indiana, a neighborhood of Gary, Indiana * Black Oak, Missouri Other * Black Oak Arkansas, American band ** ...

s.Black Oaks: a higher elevation Tehachapi oak that gets all dressed up for autumn
by John Hammond. ''Tehachapi News''. October 14, 2017. Accessed June 3, 2022.

Notes

References

Geography of California Tehachapi Mountains Valleys of Kern County, California {{KernCountyCA-geo-stub