When you think of “Earls” in Bakersfield, you probably think of former governor and Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren. But what about another kind of Earl? Think less downtown Bakersfield, more Downton Abbey. The local connection to the Earl of Gosford, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
The Kern County Land Company made a business marketing small farms to the second or third sons of the British aristocracy. These so-called “remittance men” were blocked from inheriting their family estates, and were instead provided a monthly stipend from their family to go away to some far off location, like Kern County. Some 250 of them eventually came to settle near Bakersfield.
But Kern County Land Company agent Samuel W. Ferguson also landed a much bigger British investor: Archibald Brabazon Sparrow Acheson, the 4th Earl of Gosford. He was a member of the House of Lords, held the title of Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and played an important role in the coronation of Edward the VII in 1901.
Around 1891, the Earl bought an entire section of land, 640 acres southwest of Bakersfield. He planted grapevines, peaches and pears, apparently as an absentee farmer. The next year, a rail line was built from Bakersfield, running due west, adjacent to the Gosford Ranch. The first station on the line was named in the Earl’s honor.
But the farm wasn’t successful. According to Mike McCoy of the Kern County Museum, the Earl reportedly tried to have Ferguson arrested in London. The land eventually went back to the Kern County Land Company, but the name Gosford Road still graces the map of Bakersfield to this day.
