Welcome To Bakersfield SAFeDATA

In 1863, former Iowa militia member and former California state senator Colonel Thomas Baker moved into the Kern Island area to champion the cause of land reclamation. He settled into a tule-reed thatched log cabin near existing Truxtun Avenue and R Street. Baker, who had experience as a surveyor and was reputed to be one of the few government officials not corrupted by big business, was recommended to survey and lay out the town of Visalia in the late 1850s. He was also known for his hospitality.

As more families moved to the area, Baker subsidized development out of his own pocket. He constructed public sawmills, helped other pioneers drain their land, and surveyed the land. Baker was asked to plot out a new town after a flood of the Kern River rerouted the river channel to the N. At the founding ceremony in 1869, residents surprised Baker by naming the town Bakersfield, in his honor.

The town continued to grow and reached a populus of about 801 by 1880, and 2,626 by 1890. In 1900, its populus was approximately 4,836. The town continued to grow despite major floods in 1867 and 1893, and fires in 1889 and 1919. In September 2007, populus has been estimated at 780,711.

In the 1930s, the Great Plains drought and dust storms (commonly called the Dust Bowl) precipitated a large influx of refugees from Arkansas and Oklahoma, who mostly found work in the agriculture and oil industries. The overwhelming number of refugees caused considerable social strife. After WW2, the city`s populus grew slowly and steadily.

On July 21, 1952 an earthquake struck at 4:52 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. The earthquake, which was felt from San Francisco to the Mexican border, annihilated the nearby communities of Tehachapi and Arvin. The earthquake’s destructive force also bent cotton fields into U shapes, slid a shoulder of the Tehachapi Mountains across all four lanes of the Ridge Route, collapsed a water tower generating a flash flood, and annihilated the railroad tunnels in the mountain chain. Luckily, Bakersfield was spared, experiencing minor architectural damage without loss of life. The earthquake measured 7.3 on the Richter Scale.

Aftershocks, for the next month, had become normal to Bakersfield residents, until at 3:42 p.m August 22 a 6.5 earthquake struck directly under the town`s epicenter in the most built up area of the Southern San Joaquin Valley. The town did have some good fortune, however, as the quake struck late on a Friday afternoon when businesses were already closed down or beginning to close down. Four people died in the aftershock, and many of the town`s historic structures were lastingly lost.