Newberry Springs celebrates 50 years of community service

BARSTOW • Fifty years ago today, the people of Newberry Springs got their own government.

On Dec. 15, 1958, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution recognizing the Newberry Springs Community Services District, after the people of Newberry Springs voted 88 to 47 in favor of forming the district as their local government.

The CSD now runs the Newberry Springs Fire Department and handles parks and recreation, street lighting and other local issues.

“I think it’s good for the community because it allows us to basically govern ourselves in things that are important to us,” CSD board of directors Chairwoman Sandra Brittian said. “In other words, we don’t want San Bernardino County coming up here telling us what kind of tree we can put in our yard.”

The CSD worked with concerned citizens to fight off a composting facility proposed by Nursery Products, LLC, and opposed by Newberry Springs residents, Brittian said. The facility is now slated for construction in Hinkley.

The Newberry Springs Community Center was built from the ground up by volunteer community labor, Brittian said. The frame of the building was finished in 1956, but wasn’t until two years later, when the CSD was formed, that the inside was completed, said Newberry Springs resident Ardene Weeks, who has lived in the community since 1952.

The community had raised the money to build the community center through Canasta games, dances, and bake sales, and they built it with their own hands, but they didn’t have enough funding to fit out the inside with items like a sink, stove and refrigerator, Weeks said.

The revenue that would come in through a CSD through property taxes and grants was one motivating factor for getting it started. Another important motivation was the lack of an emergency services provider anywhere in the vicinity, Weeks and Brittian said.

Weeks and fellow long-time Newberry resident Bill Smith recalled that in the days before the CSD and the Newberry Springs Fire Department were formed, the area’s fire protection came from Hesperia, and the only telephone in town was a wooden phone on the wall of the general store.

“Your house burned before you got any help,” Weeks said.

Around the time the CSD and the fire department were formed, telephones came to Newberry, and city dwellers began moving to the area to retire, Smith recalled.

The volunteer fire department started with just a few men, Weeks said, including her husband, Billy Weeks, who later acted as chief for 25 years. The first engine was an old school bus with its top cut off and a water tank installed in the back.

Now the department has about 20 firefighters and its equipment includes two engines, two water tenders and two rescue vehicles, as well as jaws of life for vehicle extrications and automated external defibrillators, said Assistant Chief Steve Miller.

The CSD will celebrate its birthday Tuesday night after its regularly scheduled board meeting, which begins at 6 p.m.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or asewell@desertdispatch.com

Newberry Springs Angel Tree

It’s the time of year, once again, when Newberry Springs residents pool their resources to give dozens of kids a merrier Christmas. As part of the Angel Tree tradition, now in its fifth year, names of local children   whose families may not be able to afford Christmas gifts are hung on a tree at the community center.

Community members take a name, buy a present for the child, and drop it off either at the Newberry Springs Community Services District office at 30884 Newberry Road or at Deel Plumbing 44544 National Trails Highway, Newberry Springs.

In the week before Christmas, the Newberry Springs Fire Department will load a fire engine with gifts and distribute them to the children throughout Newberry Springs, Daggett, and Yermo. The event is a collaboration between the Newberry Springs Chamber of Commerce and the fire department.

For more information, call the CSD at 760-257-3613 or the Newberry Springs Chamber of Commerce at 257-1072.

Source: Sandra Brittian, CSD chairwoman