Mural-size portraits taken from Trout's honky-tonk in 2017 have been recovered

Feb. 16—Several 6-foot-tall portraits missing since the closure of Trout's Oildale honky-tonk in 2017 have been recovered and are coming home to Bakersfield.

But there's still no trace of the missing Trout's sign.

It all started nearly six years ago when Allan Thomas Rockwell, the longtime operator of Trout's Nightclub in Oildale, told his followers on Facebook that the iconic Trout's sign had been taken down for restoration.

Rockwell — and the sign — soon disappeared. The building went through foreclosure and languished for years.

It was destroyed by fire last April, one month after Rockwell was sentenced in Tuolumne County to two years in jail for stealing thousands of dollars from his elderly, disabled uncle.

But the Trout's sign wasn't the only treasure that went missing in 2017. So had 10 original mural-size portraits of heroes of the Bakersfield Sound, portraits that had been loaned to Rockwell by longtime Bakersfield artist Patti Doolittle.

"I thought, 'Oh, I'm never going to see them again,'" Doolittle, now 80, said last week from her home in Pompano Beach, Fla., where she moved a few years ago and continues to paint.

But Doolittle did see the portraits again — last week when friends from Kern County drove the recovered art work all the way from Bakersfield to Florida.

Doolittle was overjoyed.

"It was like getting my children back," she told The Californian.

Area resident Anna Reading-Carey was among the Bakersfield contingent that helped recover the paintings after one of her contacts in the Sonora area let her know that the artwork had been found.

"The garage was full of stuff that Rockwell had put in there," she said.

They even found the ashes of Rockwell's uncle's deceased wife, which had disappeared sometime after Rockwell agreed to become a caretaker for the uncle, Patrick "Rick" Oliver.

Tuolumne County Assistant District Attorney Eric Hovatter told The Californian after Rockwell's conviction that Oliver moved to Sonora in 2010. After Rockwell left Bakersfield, he began living in a home in the area owned by an elderly Bakersfield woman, the county prosecutor said.

"The uncle did find his wife's ashes there," said Reading-Carey.

It was also Reading-Carey who found Doolittle living in Florida. When she reached her by phone, Doolittle told her Rockwell did not buy the paintings from her. They were on loan.

"She was so excited that we were able to recover the paintings," Reading-Carey said.

Di Sharman, co-founder of Citizens Preserving History, a nonprofit that spearheaded the effort to move country music icon Merle Haggard's childhood boxcar home from Oildale to the Kern County Museum, helped retrieve the paintings from Tuolumne County, and along with her husband, Mark, delivered all 10 portraits to Doolittle on the East Coast.

"They've been through a lot," Sharman said of the paintings. "Some have small tears in them."

In addition, the canvases were carelessly stored and were exposed to a lot of dust.

"Patti was thrilled when her paintings recently resurfaced," Sharman said.

Fortunately, Doolittle's artist husband, Marvin Steel, also happens to be a professional painting restorationist, Sharman said.

"He has volunteered to restore all the paintings before Patti returns them to the people of Bakersfield," Sharman said.

That's right, Doolittle plans to donate all 10 of the paintings to Citizens Preserving History in the hope that they can find a place where the art can be seen and enjoyed.

"They have a spirit," Sharman said of the portraits. "They are the spirit of our early musical pioneers."

Reporter Steven Mayer can be reached at 661-395-7353. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter: @semayerTBC