Right here in Kern … it’s difficult to believe how much has happened in Kern County over the years. Here’s a snapshot of our history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 15 million years ago: Ancient sea covers the Central Valley.<\/p>\n
50,000-15,000 years ago: The McKittrick Tar Pits, one of five natural asphalt lake areas in the world, trap hundreds of Pleistocene animals, including 43 different mammals and birds. American Indians discover several uses for the natural asphalt.<\/p>\n
About 8,000 years ago: Archaeological evidence suggests American Indians live in what is now known as Kern County, along the shores of Buena Vista Lake and in Walker Basin.<\/p>\n
About 2,000 years ago: Yokuts Indians migrate from the Willamette Valley in Oregon into the Central Valley, eventually settling in the area now known as Kern.<\/p>\n
1769: California, including present-day Kern County, comes under Spanish rule.<\/p>\n
1772: Pedro Fages becomes the first European to look upon the southern-most region of the San Joaquin Valley.<\/p>\n
April 26, 1776: Father Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garc\u00e9s comes to the area now known as Kern County, arriving in the vicinity of a Tejon Indian settlement. He stops on the site later known as Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Statue at Garces Circle<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
May 1, 1776: Father Garc\u00e9s comes upon a river he describes as crystalline, bountiful and palatable, which he names Rio de San Felipe, now known as the Kern River.<\/p>\n
July 1806: Father Jose Maria de Zalvidea and Lt. Francisco Ruiz lead an expedition into the valley and future Kern County area. Father Jose Zalvidea names the present Kern River \u201cLa Porciuncula.\u201d Tejon Pass, Tejon Creek and Tejon Canyon (tejon is Spanish for badger) were named by Lt. Francisco Ruiz.<\/p>\n
Sept. 16, 1810-Aug. 24, 1821: Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launches the Mexican War of Independence, calling for the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. Eleven years later, the Treaty of C\u00f3rdoba is signed, which makes Mexico independent and places California under Mexican control.<\/p>\n
April 22, 1822: The area later known as Kern County falls under the flag of the Republic of Mexico.<\/p>\n
1824: Mexican soldiers under Carlos Carrillo fight a ferocious battle at San Emigdio with Chumash Indian refugees from the Santa Barbara Mission.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jedediah Strong Smith<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
Feb. 1, 1827: Jedediah Strong Smith, leading a party of fur trappers, is the first American to reach Mexican California overland. His party travels north from San Gabriel Mission to enter the southern San Joaquin Valley in the area later known as Kern County.<\/p>\n
1830: Ewing Young trapping party, including Kit Carson, passes through Kern.<\/p>\n
1834: Walker\u2019s Pass, a former American Indian trail, is used by Joseph Reddeford Walker as a path through the Tehachapi Mountains. Walker\u2019s Pass is designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.<\/p>\n
Oct. 17, 1837: French fur trapper Peter Lebeck is killed by a grizzly bear in the area later known as Lebec. His companions bury him under an oak tree, the first recorded burial of a person of European ancestry in the area.<\/p>\n
1842-1846: Five Mexican land grants are established in the area later known as Kern County: Ranch San Emigdio, Ranchos Los Alamos y Agua Caliente, Rancho El Tejon, Rancho Castac, and Ranch La Liebre. In the 1850s and 1860s, the latter four land grants are combined to form the Tejon Ranch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jessie and John C. Fremont.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Kern County Museum<\/p>\n
1844: The John C. Fremont party (including Kit Carson and Alexis Godey) passes through the valley on its second expedition.<\/p>\n
1844: Elisha Stephens travels through the Central Valley, eventually settling near Bakersfield in 1861.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Edward M. Kern<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
1845: Fremont\u2019s third expedition names the Kern River for topographer Edward M. Kern.<\/p>\n
Feb. 2, 1848: Mexico cedes California to the United States with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ends the Mexican-American War.<\/p>\n
Sept. 9, 1850: California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.<\/p>\n
1851: The U.S. opens treaty negotiations with the American Indians of the San Joaquin Valley.<\/p>\n
1851: Gold is discovered along the Kern River and, in 1853, at Greenhorn Gulch on Greenhorn Mountain.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Campers at Keyesville.<\/p>\n
Casey Christie\/The Californian<\/p>\n
1853: The town of Keyesville is founded, named for Richard Keys.<\/p>\n
1853: Major Aneas B. Gordon is granted a franchise to operate a ferry across the Kern River on the Los Angeles-Stockton road. The ferry\u2019s location is called Gordon’s Ferry.<\/p>\n
August-September 1853: Lt. Robert S. Williamson and Lt. John B. Parke conduct a railroad survey of the area. Geologist William Blake, a member of the survey party, discovers marine vertebrate fossils at what is later known as Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed along the Kern River.<\/p>\n
Sept. 2, 1853: Edward Fitzgerald Beale, superintendent of Indian Affairs in California, arrives at Tejon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sheep at Tejon Ranch<\/p>\n
Courtesy Tejon Ranch<\/p>\n
1853: First sheep raised in Kern County, on Tejon Ranch.<\/p>\n
1853: The Sebastian Indian Reservation is established by Beale on 75,000 acres at Tejon Pass. The reservation houses 500 to 2,000 American Indians from 1853 to 1864.<\/p>\n
1853-55: People seeking their fortune come to the Kern River in the southern Sierra Nevada, sparking a gold rush in the area.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Re-enactor Bob Zaricor, portraying fort Gunnery Sgt. McCleave, leads ceeremonial cannon volley during Fort Tejon\u2019s 150th anniversary celebration in 2004. The 35th annual AmericanCivil War Re-enactment will be Juune 2.<\/p>\n
californian file<\/p>\n
Aug. 10, 1854: Fort Tejon is established as the headquarters of the First Dragoons, U.S. Army, to protect the residents of the nearby Indian reservation and suppress stock rustling.<\/p>\n
1855: First attempts to organize Kern County, proposed as Buena Vista County.<\/p>\n
Jan. 9, 1857: A 7.9-magnitude earthquake strikes the Fort Tejon area, killing two people. The surface of the earth is ruptured along the San Andreas Fault for approximately 225 miles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Voyager’s first non-stop unrefueled flight around the world, Dec. 23, 1986.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Air Force Test Center History Office<\/p>\n
March 11, 1857: The first post office in the area is established at Keyesville.<\/p>\n
1858: A telegraph line is built to Fort Tejon from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
October 1858-April 1861: The Overland Mail Company, or Butterfield Line, begins operations through the area now known as Kern County.<\/p>\n
1859: Durham cattle are introduced to the area.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It wasn’t much, but Christian Bohna called this shack home.<\/p>\n
Photo courtesy of Chris Brewer<\/p>\n
1860: Christian Bohna is the first to settle at Kern Island on the future site of Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
October 1860: Telegraph service from Los Angeles to San Francisco through Fort Tejon begins.<\/p>\n
1861: The Big Blue Mine is discovered by Lovely Rogers, sparking an influx of people to Whiskey Flat near the present town of Kernville.<\/p>\n
June 15, 1861: The last military troops, including the Camel Corps, leave Fort Tejon.<\/p>\n
1862: Mining begins on Piute Mountain.<\/p>\n
1862: Kern River flood destroys mining operations along the Kern River, as well as the settlement at Kern Island started by Bohna in 1860.<\/p>\n
1862: Harvey S. Skiles grows the area\u2019s first cotton.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Kern River flows through Kernville after a light snow in the mountains, north of town.<\/p>\n
Casey Christie \/ The Californian<\/p>\n
1863: The town of Whiskey Flat is established (also called Williamsburg). The town\u2019s name is changed to Kernville in 1864.<\/p>\n
April 1863: Keyesville Massacre. During the Owens Valley Indian War, settlers and a detachment of the 2nd California Volunteer Cavalry under Captain Moses A. McLaughlin kill 35 Tubatulabal Indians, Kawaiisu and Owens Valley Paiute men for cattle rustling. The U.S. Army attack occurs on the upper Kern River about 10 miles from Keyesville.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Col. Thomas Baker, for whom Bakersfield is named<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
Sept. 10, 1863: Col. Thomas Baker and his family arrive at Kern Island and move into the former Bohna home. Baker begins reclaiming the swamplands in the area. In two years, he plants 10 acres of alfalfa in an area roughly bordered by present-day 14th and 17th streets and K and P streets in what came to be known as Baker\u2019s Field.<\/p>\n
1864: Gold is discovered at Havilah in the southern Sierra Nevada.<\/p>\n
1864: Thomas H. Barnes plants the first alfalfa.<\/p>\n
February 1864: The Buena Vista Oil Refinery incorporates. The refinery operates in the Temblor area. Four thousand gallons of illuminating oil are recovered by 1867.<\/p>\n
Sept. 11, 1864: Fort Tejon is abandoned by the U.S. Army and becomes part of Beale’s Tejon Ranch.<\/p>\n
1865: Mead and Clark Company begins stage service between Havilah and Visalia.<\/p>\n
1865: Philo and Solomon Jewett build the first store in Bakersfield and raise the county\u2019s first commercial crop of cotton on their ranch.<\/p>\n
April 2, 1866: Kern County is incorporated, having been formed from the southern portion of Tulare County and parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. The first county seat is in Havilah.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kern County’s first sheriff, William B. Ross.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Kern County Museum<\/p>\n
1866: The first county marriage is recorded: Sheriff William B. Ross and Mrs. Martha Skiles.<\/p>\n
1866: Peter Gardett, born in Germany, becomes the first naturalized citizen of Kern County.<\/p>\n
1866: The first county hospital is established, at Havilah.<\/p>\n
1866: The first walnut grove is planted in Kern County.<\/p>\n
1866: The Board of Supervisors forms the first school districts, at Havilah and Linns Valley.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The first Havilah Weekly Courier.<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
Aug. 18, 1866: Kern County\u2019s first newspaper, the Havilah Courier, begins publication.<\/p>\n
Aug. 28, 1868: A post office is established and named after Baker in the area formerly known as Kern Island. George B. Chester is appointed Bakersfield\u2019s first postmaster.<\/p>\n
1870: J.B. Haggin organizes the Kern County Land Company.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kern River and Kern Island Canal by Carleton Watkins, circa 1888.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Kern County Museum<\/p>\n
May 27, 1871: Construction of the Kern Island Canal begins.<\/p>\n
Nov. 24, 1872: Baker dies of typhoid and pneumonia in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1873: First county hospital opens in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
February 1874: The county seat is moved to Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
Nov. 9, 1874: Construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Sumner, now known as east Bakersfield, is completed. Passenger service on the railroad begins the following day.<\/p>\n
April 26, 1875: The Southern Pacific Railroad completes construction of the railroad tracks east to the town of Caliente.<\/p>\n
1875: Calloway Canal construction begins.<\/p>\n
May 1875: The Kern Island Canal Company begins distribution of water through its ditch system in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1876: New county courthouse is completed in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A train snakes through the Tehachapi Mountains just east of the Tehachapi Loop off of Highway 58.<\/p>\n
THE BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN<\/p>\n
July 10, 1876: The Southern Pacific Railroad line through the Tehachapi Mountains, including the engineering marvel known as the Tehachapi Loop, is completed.<\/p>\n
1877: First oil wells are drilled in county, near McKittrick.<\/p>\n
March 3, 1877: Congress passes the Desert Land Act to encourage and promote the economic development of the arid and semi-arid lands in the western states.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Bakersfield Californian building in 1926.<\/p>\n
Photo courtesy of the Kern County Museum<\/p>\n
1879: Bakersfield Courier-Californian becomes The Californian.<\/p>\n
1880: Commercial apple growing begins in Tehachapi.<\/p>\n
Sept. 2, 1880: The Water Wars begin with a lawsuit over water rights among Henry Miller and Charles Lux and James Haggin, Lloyd Tevis and Billy Carr. The dispute over water among the interested parties continues until an agreement is reached on July 28, 1888.<\/p>\n
Oct. 11, 1883: The Bakersfield Water Company begins operating Bakersfield’s first water system, including an octagonal water storage tower at 17th Street and Chester Avenue.<\/p>\n
1884: The Kern County Land Company recruits the first African-American settlers to come to Bakersfield and work on a one-year contract picking cotton on a company farm south of town.<\/p>\n
Oct. 1, 1888: The Bakersfield Telephone Exchange is established. By the following year, there are 29 phones in service in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1889: The first public gas lighting is used in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1889: Rosedale Colony is founded.<\/p>\n
July 7, 1889: Bakersfield’s worst fire consumes the downtown area, destroying approximately 200 buildings on 15 blocks in three hours.<\/p>\n
1890: The first electric lighting in Bakersfield is produced in a plant built by the Bakersfield Gas Company.<\/p>\n
April 2, 1891: Capt. John Barker is the first to use local natural gas for domestic purposes, on his Rio Bravo Ranch near the Kern River.<\/p>\n
1892: The first commercial vineyard in Kern County is established at Delano.<\/p>\n
Jan. 9, 1893: Kern County High School opens.<\/p>\n
1894: The Kern River power transmission line to Los Angeles is completed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Hoist House of the Yellow Aster Mine, the major gold producing mine in the Rand Mining District, circa 1898.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Rand Desert Museum<\/p>\n
1895: The Yellow Aster Mine is established at Rand Mountain. The Rand Mining District is established and the town of Randsburg is founded.<\/p>\n
Nov 16, 1896: Renowned opera singer Lawrence Tibbett is born in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Alfred Harrell<\/p>\n
File photo<\/p>\n
1897: Superintendent of Schools Alfred Harrell purchases The Daily Californian and, in 1907, renames it The Bakersfield Californian.<\/p>\n
Jan. 11, 1898: Second incorporation of Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
May 27, 1898: The arrival of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad in Bakersfield (later Santa Fe Railroad) is celebrated with a parade in downtown Bakersfield. The first regular passenger train leaves Bakersfield on June 1.<\/p>\n
1899: Discovery of Kern River Oilfield.<\/p>\n
1900: An electric system is established in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1900: Midway Oilfield is discovered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tehachapi News building<\/p>\n
Nick Smirnoff \/ For Tehachapi News<\/p>\n
1900: Tehachapi News begins publication.<\/p>\n
April 26, 1900: The first track is laid for an electric streetcar system in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
May 1, 1900: Free postal delivery begins in Bakersfield with two mail carriers.<\/p>\n
June 2, 1900: The dedication of the Beale Memorial Library, the first free library in Kern County, is held in downtown Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
January 1901: Standard Oil Company begins construction on the first oil pipeline in the county. The pipeline, extending from the Kern River field north of Bakersfield to Point Richmond near the San Francisco Bay, is completed in 1902.<\/p>\n
1902: The first automobile, a 1902 1-cylinder Oldsmobile, is brought to Kern County by Joe Ferris of Caliente.<\/p>\n
1902: Independent Oil Producers Agency incorporates.<\/p>\n
1903: Killing of notorious gunman James McKinney in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1904: The first automobile, a 2-cylinder Logan, is sold in Bakersfield by Hillman Arms, manager of Bakersfield Cyclery, to Mr. McDonald.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Truxtun Beale donated the Beale Memorial Clock Tower to Bakersfield in honor of his mother, Mary Edwards Beale, in 1904. The brick tower stood in the intersection of 17th Street and Chester Avenue for 48 years until the 1952 earthquake and aftershocks damaged it, and the structure was taken down. A replica was built on the Kern County Museum grounds on North Chester Avenue in 1964.<\/p>\n
n\/a<\/p>\n
1904: Beale Clock Tower is built in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
1905: Construction begins on the Kern River Canyon Highway.<\/p>\n
1906: The first automobile garage in Bakersfield opens. The Bakersfield Garage is owned and operated by E.J. Erb.<\/p>\n
1908: Construction begins on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a 233-mile long water conveyance system. More than 4,000 laborers tunnel through earth and rock to divert water from the Owens River along a path through eastern Kern County to a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley. The aqueduct is dedicated on Nov. 15, 1913.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gov. Earl Warren presents a new Buick sedan to retiring BHS football coach Dwight “Goldie” Griffith in 1948. Courtesy of the BHS archives<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
May 1908: Earl Warren, future chief justice of the United States, graduates from Kern County High School.<\/p>\n
1909: First air flight in Kern County in a balloon. First parachute jump in county by professor Ted Richards.<\/p>\n
1909: Buena Vista Oilfield is discovered.<\/p>\n
Jan. 30, 1910: The first Air Meet is held in Bakersfield at Hudnut Park. The first male airplane pilot in Kern County is Charles K. Hamilton, flying in a Curtiss biplane.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Lakeview gusher of the Midway-Sunset Oil Field flowed out of control for 18 months, producing an estimated 9 million barrels of oil.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Kern County Museum<\/p>\n
March 15, 1910: The Lakeview Gusher No. 1, originally a gas well, erupts when drilling reaches a depth of 2,440 feet. Pressurized oil spills into the well casing, causing a massive blowout and oil geyser. Oil flows from the well for 18 months, spilling 9 million barrels of oil.<\/p>\n
1910: Town of Oildale, originally called Waits, is founded.<\/p>\n
1911: Electric power service becomes available to rural parts of Kern County.<\/p>\n
1911: Belridge Oilfield is discovered.<\/p>\n
Oct. 10, 1911: California passes women\u2019s suffrage. Four days later, Sybil Chenoweth is the first woman to register to vote in Kern County.<\/p>\n
1913: Bakersfield Junior College is established. The first class consists of 20 students from Kern County High School.<\/p>\n
April 27, 1913: Barney Oldfield breaks the world record in a Christie race car, setting a speed record for one mile on a dirt track at the Kern County Fair Association race track.<\/p>\n
Feb 16, 1914: Silas Christopherson becomes the first to pilot a plane across the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ridge Route between Los Angeles and Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
October 1915: Construction of an unpaved road for automobile traffic from Bakersfield to Los Angeles across the Ridge Route is completed.<\/p>\n
June 5, 1917: The first major draft registration for World War I takes place in Kern County, with 7,150 men enlisting in one day. The first draftees leave Kern County for duty on Sept. 9. Eventually, 3,676 men from Kern County serve in the military during World War I.<\/p>\n
Dec. 11, 1917: The first woman pilot to fly over Kern County is Katherine Stinson on a non-stop flight from San Diego to San Francisco. Stinson is the fourth woman in the U.S. to obtain a pilot\u2019s certificate.<\/p>\n
1919: Grace Storey Dorris is the first woman elected to the California State Assembly by Kern County voters.<\/p>\n
Sept. 12, 1921-Nov. 2, 1921: Oil workers on Kern County\u2019s west side strike.<\/p>\n
1924: The Kern County Woolgrowers\u2019 Association is founded.<\/p>\n
1924: The first steel derrick used to drill for oil is constructed in Kern County.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A passenger jet is refueled at Meadows Field in this file photo.<\/p>\n
The Californian<\/p>\n
July 1925: Kern County purchases 200 acres northwest of Bakersfield to build an airport, later named Meadows Field after Cecil Meadows.<\/p>\n
Sept. 15, 1926: The first airmail flight through Kern County stops in Bakersfield en route from Los Angeles to Seattle. The plane is greeted by 10,000 people.<\/p>\n
1927: Henry Eggers, a local merchant, buys the first air-conditioning unit, for his clothing store from the Pioneer Mercantile Company.<\/p>\n
August 1928: The first automatic traffic signals in the county are installed on Chester Avenue.<\/p>\n
1929: Kern River Park opens. In 1947 it is renamed in honor of Kern County Supervisor John O. Hart.<\/p>\n
April 28, 1929: Bakersfield\u2019s Hippodrome Theatre is the first movie house in Bakersfield to screen a motion picture with sound. The film is titled \u201cThe Ghost Talks.\u201d<\/p>\n
1931: The first television in Kern County is demonstrated at Weill’s Department Store.<\/p>\n
Jan. 6, 1932: Bakersfield television station W6XAH makes its first successful broadcast.<\/p>\n
1933: Cotton pickers in the San Joaquin Valley strike for better wages in California, recognition of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union, and an end to contract labor.<\/p>\n
1934-42: A gold mining boom strikes in the Rosamond and Mojave areas.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Sunset Labor Camp, when it first was built in 1936.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Library of Congress <\/p>\n
Dec. 12, 1935: The Arvin Federal Migratory Camp (better known as Sunset Labor Camp) opens near Arvin.<\/p>\n
1935-40: The height of the Dust Bowl migration occurs, bringing thousands of people to Kern County.<\/p>\n
April 6, 1937: Merle Haggard is born to James and Flossie Haggard at Kern General Hospital in Bakersfield.<\/p>\n
July 1937: The Shafter Federal Migratory Camp (also known as the Shafter Farm Worker\u2019s Camp), the second migratory camp in Kern County, is built two miles north of Shafter to house Dust Bowl migrants.<\/p>\n
1938: East Bakersfield High School, Bakersfield\u2019s second high school, opens.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Picketers march at the courthouse in 1939 to protest the Board of Supervisors’ decision to ban “The Grapes of Wrath.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
Aug. 21, 1939: Controversy over John Steinbeck\u2019s \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath\u201d prompts county supervisors to ban the book from Kern County libraries.<\/p>\n
April 2, 1940: Eleanor Roosevelt visits Kern County\u2019s federal migratory labor camps.<\/p>\n
1941: Mary Holman is appointed the first Bakersfield Police Department policewoman.<\/p>\n
1941: Kern County Museum is established.<\/p>\n
February-March 1942: Japanese citizens of Kern County are rounded up by the federal government for relocation after the Japanese bombing at Pearl Harbor. Detainees are held at the DiGiorgio farms at Arvin and Delano.<\/p>\n
July 1942: Kern County\u2019s first Women\u2019s Army Auxiliary Corps recruit, Mrs. Dorothy Beardsley Johnson, is accepted.<\/p>\n
Oct. 2, 1942: Robert M. Stanley pilots the first U.S. jet flight, in the XP-59A, at Muroc Dry Lake.<\/p>\n
1942-46: The large-scale growing of guayule on Arvin- and Lamont-area farms for use as a substitute for rubber during World War II occurs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This photo was taken in the 1940s of Lockheed Aircraft Factory employees. The factory was located on what is now Pegasus. Elma Wilson is pictured in the middle.<\/p>\n
Courtesy Doris Ross<\/p>\n
1943: The first aircraft factory in Kern County is built in Bakersfield. The Lockheed-Vega Corp. produces parts for military aircraft.<\/p>\n
Jan. 4, 1943: Former Bakersfield resident Earl Warren takes office as governor of California. Warren goes on to be the first California governor elected to three terms and to be chief justice of the United States.<\/p>\n
Nov. 8, 1943: The Naval Ordnance Test Station, now known as Naval Air Weapons Station, is established at China Lake.<\/p>\n
1945: During World War II, German and Japanese prisoners of war are interned at camps near Shafter and Lamont. They work on area farms.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
South Chester Drive-In movie opening night ad.<\/p>\n
TBC<\/p>\n
Aug. 15, 1945: Bakersfield\u2019s first drive-in movie theater, South Chester Drive-In, opens.<\/p>\n
Oct. 14, 1946: The Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) is established.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On Oct. 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, flying the Bell X-1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet. It all happened in eastern Kern County at a military installation that would later come to be known as Edwards Air Force Base.<\/p>\n
Handout photo<\/p>\n
Oct. 14, 1947: Chuck Yeager, flying the Bell X-1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet, becomes the first man to break the sound barrier. He lands at Muroc Army Air Field.<\/p>\n
May 29, 1948: Groundbreaking for Isabella Dam is held by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.<\/p>\n
June 1948: Professional football player and sportscaster Frank Gifford graduates from Bakersfield High School.<\/p>\n
June-September 1949: 41st U.S. President George H.W. Bush lives in a home at 2101 Monterey St. in Bakersfield with his wife, Barbara, and first child, George W. Bush (43rd U.S. president).<\/p>\n
Jan. 27, 1950: Muroc Army Air Field is renamed Edwards Air Force Base after Capt. Glen W. Edwards.<\/p>\n
July 24, 1950: Private Clifford Donald Townsend of Bakersfield is killed in action in Korea. He\u2019s the first soldier from Kern County to die in the war.<\/p>\n
July 21, 1952: A 7.3-magnitude earthquake strikes Kern County with the epicenter along the White Wolf Fault near Wheeler Ridge. Twelve people are killed and 18 injured.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The 1952 earthquake caused extensive damage to Congregation B\u2019Nai Jacob.<\/p>\n