Kern County

Assurances that a “highly efficient hybrid cooling system” will keep a proposed AI data center from sucking up all the water in the already overdrafted Indian Wells Valley fell flat with residents who’ve bombarded the state with negative comments on the proposal.

California now has eight ICE detention centers. Two opened since President Trump took office in 2025, with both operating in former state prisons.

Environmentalists question how regulators will keep tabs on oil well incidents after Gov. Gavin Newsom amended state law to increase production following a three-year moratorium on new drilling permits.

The first non-native settlers in the Bakersfield area were from Mexico, in the area known as Rio Bravo, or Old Panama.

Archibald Brabazon Sparrow Acheson, the 4th Earl of Gosford, was a member of the British House of Lords and played an important role in the coronation of Edward the VII in 1901. He also owned a large farm near Bakersfield.

Located near the Grapevine in Kern County, this pueblo became a rancho in the Mexican-era and is the oldest Western settlement in the southern San Joaquin Valley.

County islands are unincorporated areas surrounded by land that is part of an incorporated city. These "islands" often lack city-level infrastructure and services.

Today's Stockdale Country Club began as the Tevis family estate, and was named for a Tevis relative, Sir Edmund Stockdale, the Lord Mayor of London.

James Ben Ali Haggin made a fortune in the Gold Rush, before acquiring a huge swath of Kern County.

California Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff visited the newest and largest ICE detention center in the state, a former prison in Kern County. CoreCivic operates this site.