The story
Read it all →How Rosedale came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Rosedale.
Rosedale was founded in 1891 as a colony of English farmers. A post office operated at Rosedale from 1891 to 1913.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
C−History
History · Rosedale
Rosedale’s post office opened in 1891
More historic than 16% of U.S. towns · #553 of 847 in California. What drives it
Most of Rosedale was built recently: 1% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 2001. Below: maps from 1930 on and the census since 1990.
1891first post office
0on the National Register
1%homes built before 1940
1famous people
Quick answers
How Rosedale began
When was Rosedale founded?
1891
The Rosedale post office opened in 1891, the earliest record of the town by name.
First census: 4,673 in 19902020 census: 18,639135 years
How historic is Rosedale?
C−
What drives the grade ↓More historic than 16% of U.S. towns, on its age, its old homes and the National Register.
Founding year: the first Rosedale post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
History grade
What drives Rosedale’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Rosedale is more historic than 16% of U.S. towns, #553 of 847 in California. Its age holds the grade up; its share of homes from before 1940 pulls it down.
C−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Rosedale’s overall grade.
Founding era1891, from the first post office: founded 1850–1899, an older era than 37% of U.S. townsC+Homes built before 19401.1% of homes (±1.0) · typical CA town 3.4% · U.S. 8.4%DNational RegisterNo listings counted · typical CA town 0.0 per 10,000 · U.S. 2.4C
All U.S. towns we grade (21,289)Ahead of 16%
NewerOlder
California towns of 2,500+ (847)Ahead of 35%
Few California towns list much on the Register (a typical California town has 0.0 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Rosedale’s 0.0 sits below most of its state (31% of California towns have fewer) while its 0 listings outnumber those of 23% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from D to C−. The pre-1940 share (±1.0 points) is firm at this size. The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Rosedale’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
★ What stands out · Help out
Start Rosedale’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Rosedale’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.From the old history books
What they wrote about Rosedale in 1914
Passages that mention Rosedale, 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 187Read the page →
Read the text
shipping point and headquarters for the Miller & Lux ranches; Shafter, where the Kern County Land Company is just opening a townsite in connection with a subdivision of 7000 acres now being placed on the market ; Rosedale, which was founded as the community center of Rosedale colony in 1889 and which is now holding its own with a country store, a school house and two churches, and Edison, which is the chief center of the new citrus industry just beginning on the mesa east of Bakersfield. At present Edison is only a little group of residences with a school house and a railroad
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
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 970Read the page →
Read the text
ern California Home Missionary Society in 1904, and later of the State Conference, he has helped mould the work of his own denomination. Requested to take the supervision of congregational work throughout his own county, which then had, besides the church at Bakersfield, another at Rosedale and a schoolhouse appointment at Wasco, he has seen seven Congregational churches organized and four of these come to self-support and acquire good properties. These are East Bakersfield, Oil Center, Panama, Greenfield, Mc- Kittrick, Mountain View and Maricopa. When the total number had
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Rosedale, 1891 to 1970
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
By decade
No old photos in the archives yet
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
Add from your albumOn the map
Rosedale on the map, 1930 to 1968
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Rosedale. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1930Rosedale sheet · 1:31,680U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Rosedale.
People over time
Rosedale, census by census
Grew from 4,673 people in 1990 to 18,639 in 2020, 3 times over.
4 censuses, 1990–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Rosedale’s Wikipedia page.
Places that used to be
Lost post offices, old corners and places now gone
Rosedale had its own post office from 1891 to 1913.
Rosedale
18901960today
Hamlets and corners on the map
Calders Corner
Gone or out of use
Greeley Oil FieldoilfieldJoe Gottlieb Field AirportairportPalm SchoolschoolRosedale Oil Fieldoilfield
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Questions about Rosedale’s history
What year was Rosedale founded?
The Rosedale post office opened in 1891, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Rosedale rank for history?
Rosedale is more historic than 16% of U.S. towns, #553 of 847 in California. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
How old are the homes in Rosedale?
1% of Rosedale’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±1.0 points), against a typical 3.4% for a California town; the median home was built in 2001.
Memory lane
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Start a conversation
Sources
Where this page comes from
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).
From Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via 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.