Here are some fun facts about Bakersfield. Feel free to casually drop them into your next cocktail party conversation:
• It's the 9th largest city in California and the 51st largest city in the United States.
• Bakersfield is the 8th most conservative city in the nation.
• 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
• At its founding ceremony in 1869, it was named Bakersfield to honor Colonel Thomas Baker. The area's name changed from Kern Island to Baker's Field.
• Bakersfield is one of the sunniest cities in the U.S. (just behind Yuma, Arizona and Palm Springs, California).
• According to the 2010 census, there were 347,483 people, 83,441 households, and 60,995 families residing in Bakersfield.
• It is estimated by local officials that Bakersfield and its outlying suburbs will reach a population of over one million people by 2020.
• Bakersfield has more jails than colleges.
• Bakersfield is home to the largest carrot producing operations in the world.
• Every year during the summer, Bakersfield hosts the Lowrider National in the Kern County Fairgrounds.
• 125th largest television market on the nation.
• In addition to Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, Bakersfield was the birthplace of rock groups Korn and RIOT!
• Bakersfield is a Sister City to Minsk, Belarus.
• For three months in 1949, George H.W. Bush and his family, including George W. Bush lived in East Bakersfield.
• Famous residents include: Brandon Cruz, who played "Eddie" on "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and is a recovering addict, Prussian Blue, famous White Nationalists, Rodolfo Cadena- Rudy "Cheyenne" Cadena, one of the founders of the Mexican Mafia and Justin Berry, former teenage webcam pornographer.
• The movie The Running Man opens with the Bakersfield Food Riots, where Arnold Schwarzenegger's character is framed as "The Butcher of Bakersfield."
• Cast Away, starring Tom Hanks, has a porta-potty outhouse wall that says Bakersfield on the side.
• Any reference to Bakersfield by the writer Stephen King usually does not end up in a positive light.
