Bakersfield’s Sumner train station again is fighting for its life. It’s a fight worth winning.
Meeting this month, City Council members agreed to extend only until June the city’s lease of the long-closed Union Pacific train station at Sumner and Baker streets in east Bakersfield.
The iconic building, which opened in 1889, has been the focus of historic preservation advocates and economic development proponents for decades.
But investors have not stepped forward with plans and money to renovate and repurpose the building that once served as a regional transportation hub and the crucible of a century of family and community memories.
Efforts to bring new life to the station have been strained by the railroad’s desire to demolish it, and the city’s cost of securing and maintaining it.
Since 2021, the city has leased the closed station from the railroad to stave off its demolition. Over the past five years the city has paid $140,000 — or about $28,000 a year — for the station’s security and maintenance.
Some on the council argued that enough is enough. Enough time has passed, with no investor stepping forward. Enough tax dollars have been spent. It’s time to pull the plug on redevelopment dreams.
At a recent meeting, Ward 6 Councilman Zack Bashirtash agreed historic preservation is important, but insisted the city has more pressing financial needs.
Councilman Andrae Gonzales, whose Ward 2 includes the station, argues that abandoning the building will continue a pattern of disinvestment that has plagued east Bakersfield.
“It is so frustrating because, since I was a little boy, I’ve only witnessed a steady decline of east Bakersfield, of Old Town Kern,” Gonzales said, insisting that the city cannot simply write off the best opportunity it has to revitalize and reinvest in Old Town Kern. “We’re talking about an asset, a historic asset, but it’s not just about conserving history, it’s also about creating an economic catalyst, an anchor, so that we can spur future economic growth throughout Baker Street.”
To put the funding question into perspective, consider that the city’s entire 2025-26 budget is about $853 million. Spending about $28,000 a year to lease, secure and maintain the building won’t break the city’s piggy bank.
Bakersfield has lost a lot of historical buildings over the years. Some were destroyed by natural events, and others from neglect and to accommodate “progress.” But the Sumner station is not just an old historic building. It is history.
Just days after it opened in 1889, nearly 200 buildings were destroyed and 1,500 people left homeless in the Great Bakersfield Fire. The station played a key role in relief and rebuilding efforts. Nine years later, the station itself survived the Great Kern City/Sumner Fire. In 1952, it was one of the few commercial buildings to survive the devastating 1952 Bakersfield earthquake.
Through two World Wars, and the Korean and Vietnam wars, mothers and wives kissed their young sons and husbands goodbye as they boarded trains at that station. The famous and infamous walked across its platform as they passed through Bakersfield. A photo shows President Truman speaking to a Bakersfield crowd from the back of a train during the 1948 campaign. Until passenger service was discontinued in 1970, family and community memories were made within the station’s walls.
Kern County Museum Executive Director Mike McCoy, who recently toured the now-closed station, told The Californian he has visited many restored stations in Europe, Asia and across the nation.
“We can do this,” he said.
But it will require good-faith negotiations between the city and Union Pacific Railroad, with a sincere, shared goal of preserving the old station.
The council giving station preservationists just a few weeks’ reprieve before the city’s current lease expires is not helpful. Extend the station lease at least another year. Spend that year negotiating terms with the railroad that will entice investors to participate in revitalizing the historic station and east Bakersfield.