KernLife.com

Who built Kern County? Who made it the unique place in America it has become? Buck Owens and Merle Haggard get their share of credit and blame, but Bakersfield and the southern San Joaquin Valley have produced plenty of other notable...

1776: On April 26, Franciscan friar Francisco Garces became the first-known European to stand on the present site of Bakersfield. 1827: A 17-man expedition led by Jedediah Smith entered the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley,...

Tomo-Kahni State Historic Park: Tomo-Kahni, or Winter Village, is a historic Kawaiisu American Indian village site. Nestled atop a ridge in the Tehachapi Mountains, and overlooking the beautiful Tehachapi Valley, the site offered...

Like most boys who grew up in the 1940s and '50s watching Hollywood stars Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Tom Mix ride into the sunset, Eddie Pogue wanted to be a cowboy. Eddie Pogue, a collector of cowboy memorabilia, shows off his rare...

The Tehachapi Loop is without a doubt one of the great engineering feats of the nineteenth century. Viewing area located on Woodford-Tehachapi Road approximately 8 miles west of Tehachapi. The line derives its name from the circuitous...

Colonel Thomas Baker, senator, assemblyman, Colonel of the Iowa Territorial Militia, Receiver for the United States Land Office, developer, lawyer, surveyor, statesman, and entrepreneur. These are some of the titles which Baker could lay...

TIME   July 21, 1952 / 4:52 am, PDT LOCATION   35° 00' N, 119° 02' W 37 km (23 miles) south of Bakersfield MAGNITUDE   MW7.5 The largest earthquake in southern California since the Fort Tejon...

The Discovery Well of Kern River Oilfield is a little known tourist attraction that you can try to find on your next visit to Bakersfield. Most people that live in Bakersfield are unaware of this historic landmark (California State...

The Bakersfield Historic Preservation Commission selected these sites to highlight the city's downtown area heritage. Historic preservation aims to link a community's past to its present to create a sense of continuity between them....

They came seeking a better life for their families and with visions of mines overflowing with gold. Basques who emigrated from Europe found their treasure, not in prospecting for gold, but in raising sheep and lambs in the verdant fields...

Buck Owens' Crystal Palace is a concert hall that houses a bronze Buck Owens statue, display cases packed with Buck Owens platinum albums, and a 1973 Pontiac Granville convertible signed by Elvis, perched above the bar. Buck Owens...

The Yokuts Indians were the first people to settle in the San Joaquin Valley, roughly 8,000 years ago.  A few Valley Yokuts remain, Tachi being the most prominent tribe.

 Below is a list of the State Historical Landmarks for Kern County.  This data is provided by the Office of Historic Preservation - California Department of Parks and Recreation and is also available in the California...

The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly-produced, string orchestra-laden Nashville Sound, which was...

Amazing online interactive map of Bakersfield's lost treasured landmarks. You are sure to hear of the "Sun. Fun. Play. Stay." sign if you live here! Click here to visit the map.