Bakersfield

About Bakersfield

Bakersfield takes its name from Colonel Thomas Baker, who settled near the Kern River in the 1860s and let travelers rest their animals in his field, known as Baker's field. The town became the seat of Kern County in 1874. Oil was struck along the Kern River in 1899, and together with the rich farmland of the southern San Joaquin Valley it turned Bakersfield into a center of oil and agriculture.

In the 1930s families escaping the Dust Bowl settled here, and their music grew into the Bakersfield Sound, a raw honky-tonk style made famous by Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Basque shepherds also left their mark, and Basque family-style restaurants are still a local tradition. Downtown keeps the 1930 Fox Theater and the 1928 Padre Hotel.

Visitors come for music at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, local history at the Kern County Museum and its pioneer village, and native wildlife at the California Living Museum. The Kern River Parkway offers miles of riverside trail, Hart Park sits beside the river, and the Kern River canyon and the Sierra Nevada foothills are a short drive away.