Bakersfield Basic Data

Bakersfield
—  City  —
City of Bakersfield
Downtown Bakersfield with City Hall and Police Headquarters at left and Hall of Records at right
Flag Seal
Nickname(s): California's Country Music Capital,B-Town,Bakers,Bako,
Location of Bakersfield, California
Coordinates: 35°22′24″N 119°01′07″W / 35.37333°N 119.01861°W / 35.37333; -119.01861 Coordinates: 35°22′24″N 119°01′07″W / 35.37333°N 119.01861°W / 35.37333; -119.01861
Country	United States
State	California
County	Kern
Founded	1869
Government
- Type	Council-Manager
- Mayor	Harvey Hall
- City Manager	Alan Tandy
- Finance Director	Nelson Smith
- City Clerk	Pamela A. McCarthy
Area
- City	140.53 sq mi (296.3 km)
- Land	139.23 sq mi (292.9 km)
- Water	1.3 sq mi (3.4 km)  1.14%
Elevation	408 ft (123 m)
Population (January 1, 2008)
- City	333,819
- Density	2,184.4/sq mi (843.4/km)
- Metro	827,173
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
- Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)
ZIP code	93301 - 93314
Area code(s)	661
FIPS code	06-03526
GNIS feature ID	1652668
Website	www.bakersfieldcity.us

Photos of Bakersfield and surrounding area

Bakersfield History

Archaeological evidence indicates the presence of small hunter-gatherer bands in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley dating to at least eight thousand years ago. The Yokuts Indians lived in Lodges along the branches of the Kern River Delta and hunted antelope, tule elk, deer, grizzly bear, fish, and game birds. In 1776, the Spanish missionary Father Francisco Garcés became the first European to explore the area. Owing to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the region, however, the Yokuts were spared intensive contact until the 1820s when Mexican settlers began to settle the area. Following the discovery of gold in California in 1848, settlers flooded into the San Joaquin Valley and carried out a campaign to drive the Yokuts off their land. In his December 20, 1849 Inaugural Address, the first governor of California Peter Hardeman Burnett remarked "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected". Between the years of 1851-1854, the total amount of claims submitted to State of California Comptroller for Expeditions against the Indians (by militias) was $1,293,179.20. As a consequence of 18 unratified (and highly controversial) treaties between California Indians and the United States government, the Yokuts were removed from their lands and a reservation system was eventually established for them. A few surviving groups can be found in area rancherias and reservations.

In 1851, gold was discovered along the Kern River in the southern Sierra Nevada, and in 1865, oil was discovered in the valley. The Bakersfield area, once a tule-reed-covered marshland, was first known as Kern Island to the handful of pioneers who built log cabins there in 1860. The area was subject to flooding from the Kern River, which occupied what is now the downtown area, and experienced outbreaks of malaria.

Founding

The old Southern Pacific Railroad dept currently lies abandoned in Old Town Kern; it was abandoned in the 1970s. Old Town Kern is located primarily around Baker Street, near the former town of Sumner. It competed to be the commercial downtown, eventually losing to the present location west of Old Town.

At its founding ceremony in 1869, the town was named Bakersfield in honor of Colonel Thomas Baker. The California Gold Rush brought him to California, and he moved to the banks of the Kern River in 1863. In 1862 disastrous floods had swept away the settlement founded there in 1860 by the German-born Christian Bohna, and the area's name changed from Kern Island to Baker's Field.

By 1870, with a population of 600, Bakersfield was becoming the principal town in Kern County. In 1873 it was officially incorporated as a city, by 1874 it officially replaced the dying town of Havilah as the county seat. By 1880, the town had a population of 801, and by 1890, it had a population of 2,626. Migration from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Southern California brought new residents, who were mostly employed by the oil industry. By 1980, Bakersfield's population was about 105,000. During the next 20 years, Bakersfield's population exploded and surpassed 250,000 by 2000. Bakersfield is now one of the major cities of California.

1952 earthquake

The First Baptist Church building, which survived the 1952 earthquake and is now a commercial use structure, is one of several building in Bakersfield listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

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, destroyed 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 creating a flash flood, and destroyed the railroad tunnels in the mountain chain. Bakersfield was spared, experiencing minor architectural damage without loss of life. The earthquake measured 7.3 on the Richter Scale.

A large aftershock occurred on July 29, and did minor architectural damage, but raised fears that the flow of the Friant-Kern Canal could be dangerously altered, potentially flooding the city and surrounding areas.

Aftershocks, for the next month, had become normal to Bakersfield residents, until August 22 at 3:42 p.m. a 5.8 earthquake struck directly under the town's center in the most densely populated 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 permanently lost.

City Information

Never Married	(27.0%)
Married	(54.5%)
Separated (Married)	(2.5%)
Widowed	(5.3%)
Divorced	(10.8%)
Races
White Non-Hispanic	(51.1%)
Hispanic	(32.5%)
Other race	(18.7%)
Black	(9.2%)
Two or more races	(4.4%)
American Indian	(2.5%)
Ancestries
German	(10.3%)
Irish	(7.7%)
English	(7.1%)
United States	(5.6%)
Italian	(3.0%)
French	(2.1%)
Schooling
High School	(75.9%)
Bachelors	(19.3%)
Graduates	(6.4%)