The Kern River was named after artist and topographer Edward Kern, who accompanied John C. Fremont on his 1845 expedition. They camped at what was a fork of two rivers, now the middle of Lake Isabella. An 1858 gold rush led to the formation of a town briefly called Rogersville, then Williamsburg, which was in 1863 renamed Whiskey Flat after a bar opened. In 1864, the town was renamed Kernville.
Passages that mention Kernville, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present1914 · page 61Read the page →
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from the long continued rains, and there a dozen homeless neighbors gathered and were made as welcome as flowers in February. ■ The trees (live trees, not dead driftwood) which were washed down by the flood strewed a strip of country a mile wide through Kernville, and from the point of Panorama heights past Bakersfield they spread over the ground all the way to Bellevue and the old Barnes settlement, a distance of ten miles or more. Colonel Baker built a saw mill to cut the logs on the townsite into lumber, and Myron Harmon tried the same plan up in Kern-
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History of Kern County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present1914 · page 162Read the page →
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Many plans are discussed for building a railroad to Ventura and a meeting is held to consider a railroad to Kernville. None of these plans have yet materialized. October 17 — Dr. George C. Pardee speaks in Bakersfield. Governor Gage speaks at the opera house. A hot political campaign, both state and county, is in progress.
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History of Kern County California1914 · page 162Read the page →
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Many plans are discussed for building a railroad to Ventura and a meeting is held to consider a railroad to Kernville. None of these plans have yet materialized. October 17—Dr. George C. Pardee speaks in Bakersfield, Governor.
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (6), Wikipedia, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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