1769
California, including present-day Kern County, comes under Spanish rule.

1776
Father Francisco Tomas Hermenegildo Garcés comes to the area now known as Kern County, arriving in the vicinity of a Tejon Indian settlement, later named Bakersfield.

1776
Father Garcés comes upon a river he describes as crystalline, bountiful and palatable, which he names Rio de San Felipe, now known as the Kern River.

1806
Father Jose Maria de Zalvidea and Lt. Francisco Ruiz lead an expedition into the valley and future Kern County area. Father Jose Zalvidea names the present Kern River “La Porciuncula.” Tejon Pass, Tejon Creek and Tejon Canyon (tejon is Spanish for badger) were named by Lt. Francisco Ruiz.

1821
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest, launches the Mexican War of Independence, calling for the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. Eleven years later, the Treaty of Córdoba is signed, which makes Mexico independent and places California under Mexican control.

1827
Jedediah Strong Smith, leading a party of fur trappers, is the first American to reach Mexican California overland. His party travels north from San Gabriel Mission to enter the southern San Joaquin Valley in the area later known as Kern County.

1834
Walker’s Pass, a former American Indian trail, is used by Joseph Reddeford Walker as a path through the Tehachapi Mountains. Walker’s Pass is designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

1842-1846
Five Mexican land grants are established in the area later known as Kern County: Ranch San Emigdio, Ranchos Los Alamos Y Agua Caliente, Rancho El Tejon, Rancho Castac, and Ranch La Liebre. In the 1850s and 1860s, the latter four land grants are combined to form the Tejon Ranch.

1844
The John C. Fremont party (including Kit Carson and Alexis Godey) passes through the valley on its second expedition.

1844
Elisha Stephens travels through the Central Valley, eventually settling near Bakersfield in 1861.

1845
Fremont’s third expedition names the Kern River for topographer Edward M. Kern.

1848
Mexico cedes California to the United States with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ends the Mexican-American War.

1850
California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.

1851
The U.S. opens treaty negotiations with the American Indians of the San Joaquin Valley.

1851
Gold is discovered along the Kern River and, in 1853, at Greenhorn Gulch on Greenhorn Mountain.

1853
The town of Keyesville is founded, named for Richard Keys.

1853
Major Aneas B. Gordon is granted a franchise to operate a ferry across the Kern River on the Los Angeles-Stockton road. The ferry’s location is called Gordon's Ferry.

1853
Lt. Robert S. Williamson and Lt. John B. Parke conduct a railroad survey of the area. Geologist William Blake, a member of the survey party, discovers marine vertebrate fossils at what is later known as Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed along the Kern River.

1853
Edward Fitzgerald Beale, superintendent of Indian Affairs in California, arrives at Tejon.

1853
The first sheep are raised in Kern County, on the Tejon Ranch.

1853
The Sebastian Indian Reservation is established by Beale on 75,000 acres at Tejon Pass. The reservation houses 500 to 2,000 American Indians from 1853 to 1864.

1853-55
People seeking their fortune come to the Kern River in the southern Sierra Nevada, sparking a gold rush in the area.

1854
Fort Tejon is established as the headquarters of the First Dragoons, U.S. Army, to protect the residents of the nearby Indian reservation and suppress stock rustling.

1855
The first attempts are made to organize Kern County as Buena Vista County.

1857
The first post office in the area is established at Keyesville.

1858
A telegraph line is built to Fort Tejon from Los Angeles.

1861
The Overland Mail Company, or Butterfield Line, begins operations through the area now known as Kern County.

1859
Durham cattle are introduced to the area.

1860
Christian Bohna is the first to settle at Kern Island on the future site of Bakersfield.

1860
Telegraph service from Los Angeles to San Francisco through Fort Tejon begins.

1861
The Big Blue Mine is discovered by Lovely Rogers, sparking an influx of people to Whiskey Flat near the present town of Kernville.

1861
The last military troops, including the Camel Corps, leave Fort Tejon.

1862
Mining begins on Piute Mountain.

1862
Harvey S. Skiles grows the area’s first cotton.

1863
The town of Whiskey Flat is established (also called Williamsburg). The town’s name is changed to Kernville in 1864.

1863
Col. Thomas Baker and his family arrive at Kern Island and move into the former Bohna home. Baker begins reclaiming the swamplands in the area. In two years, he plants 10 acres of alfalfa in an area roughly bordered by present-day 14th and 17th streets and K and P streets in what came to be known as Baker’s Field.

1864
Gold is discovered at Havilah in the southern Sierra Nevada.

1864
Thomas H. Barnes plants the first alfalfa.

1864
The Buena Vista Oil Refinery incorporates.

1864
Fort Tejon is abandoned by the U.S. Army and becomes part of Beale's Tejon Ranch.

1865
Mead and Clark Company begins stage service between Havilah and Visalia. Philo and Solomon Jewett build the first store in Bakersfield and raise the county’s first commercial crop of cotton on their ranch.

1866
Kern County is incorporated, having been formed from the southern portion of Tulare County and parts of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. The first county seat is in Havilah.

1866
The first county hospital is established, at Havilah.

1866
The first walnut grove is planted in Kern County.

1866
The Board of Supervisors forms the first school districts, at Havilah and Linns Valley.

1866
Kern County’s first newspaper, the Havilah Courier, begins publication.

1868
A post office is established and named after Baker in the area formerly known as Kern Island. George B. Chester is appointed Bakersfield’s first postmaster.

1870
J.B. Haggin organizes the Kern County Land Company.

1871
Construction of the Kern Island Canal begins.

1872
Baker dies of typhoid and pneumonia in Bakersfield.

1873
The first county hospital opens in Bakersfield.

1874
The county seat is moved to Bakersfield.

1874
Construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad to Sumner, now known as east Bakersfield, is completed. Passenger service on the railroad begins the following day.

1875
The Southern Pacific Railroad completes construction of the railroad tracks east to the town of Caliente.

1875
Calloway Canal construction begins.

1875
The Kern Island Canal Company begins distribution of water through its ditch system in Bakersfield.

1876
New county courthouse is completed in Bakersfield.

1876
The Southern Pacific Railroad line through the Tehachapi Mountains, including the engineering marvel known as the Tehachapi Loop, is completed.

1877
First oil wells are drilled in county, near McKittrick.

1877
Congress passes the Desert Land Act to encourage and promote the economic development of the arid and semi-arid lands in the western states.

1879
The Bakersfield Courier-Californian becomes The Californian.

1880
Commercial apple growing begins in Tehachapi.

1883
The Bakersfield Water Company begins operating Bakersfield's first water system, including an octagonal water storage tower at 17th Street and Chester Avenue.

1888
The Bakersfield Telephone Exchange is established. By the following year, there are 29 phones in service in Bakersfield.

1889
The first public gas lighting is used in Bakersfield.

1889
Rosedale Colony is founded.

1890
The first electric lighting in Bakersfield is produced in a plant built by the Bakersfield Gas Company.

1891
Capt. John Barker is the first to use local natural gas for domestic purposes, on his Rio Bravo Ranch near the Kern River.

1892
The first commercial vineyard in Kern County is established at Delano.

1893
Kern County High School opens.

1894
The Kern River power transmission line to Los Angeles is completed.

1895
The Yellow Aster Mine is established at Rand Mountain. The Rand Mining District is established and the town of Randsburg founded.

1897
Superintendent of Schools Alfred Harrell purchases The Daily Californian and, in 1907, renames it The Bakersfield Californian.

1898
The second incorporation of Bakersfield takes place.

1898
The arrival of the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad in Bakersfield (later Santa Fe Railroad) is celebrated with a parade in downtown Bakersfield. The first regular passenger train leaves Bakersfield on June 1.

1899
The Discovery of Kern River Oilfield takes place.

1900
An electric system is established in Bakersfield.

1900
The Midway Oilfield is discovered.

1900
Tehachapi News begins publication.

1900
The first track is laid for an electric streetcar system in Bakersfield.

1900
Free postal delivery begins in Bakersfield with two mail carriers.

1900
The dedication of the Beale Memorial Library, the first free library in Kern County, is held in downtown Bakersfield.

1901
Standard Oil Company begins construction on the first oil pipeline in the county. The pipeline, extending from the Kern River field north of Bakersfield to Point Richmond near the San Francisco Bay, is completed in 1902.

1902
The first automobile, a 1902 1-cylinder Oldsmobile, is brought to Kern County by Joe Ferris of Caliente.

1903
Killing of notorious gunman James McKinney in Bakersfield.

1904
Beale Clock Tower is built in Bakersfield.

1905
Construction begins on the Kern River Canyon Highway.

1906
The first automobile garage in Bakersfield opens. The Bakersfield Garage is owned and operated by E.J. Erb.

1908
Construction begins on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a 233-mile long water conveyance system. More than 4,000 laborers tunnel through earth and rock to divert water from the Owens River along a path through eastern Kern County to a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley. The aqueduct is dedicated on Nov. 15, 1913.

1908
Earl Warren, future chief justice of the United States, graduates from Kern County High School.

1909
The Buena Vista Oilfield is discovered.

1910
The Town of Oildale, originally called Waits, is founded.

1911
Electric power service becomes available to rural parts of Kern County.

1911
The Belridge Oilfield is discovered.

1911
California passes women’s suffrage.

1913
Bakersfield Junior College is established.

1913
Barney Oldfield breaks the world’s record in a Christie race car, setting a speed record for one mile on a dirt track at the Kern County Fair Association race track.

1914
Silas Christopherson becomes the first to pilot a plane across the Tehachapi Mountains to Los Angeles.

1915
Construction of an unpaved road for automobile traffic from Bakersfield to Los Angeles across the Ridge Route is completed.

1917
The first major draft registration for World War I takes place in Kern County, with 7,150 men enlisting in one day. The first draftees leave Kern County for duty on Sept. 9. Eventually, 3,676 men from Kern County serve in the military during World War I.

1919
Grace Storey Dorris is the first woman elected to the California State Assembly by Kern County voters.

1924
The Kern County Woolgrowers’ Association is founded.

1924
The first steel derrick used to drill for oil is constructed in Kern County.

1925
Kern County purchases 200 acres northwest of Bakersfield to build an airport, later named Meadows Field after Cecil Meadows.

1926
The first airmail flight through Kern County stops in Bakersfield en route from Los Angeles to Seattle.

1927
Henry Eggers, a local merchant, buys the first air-conditioning unit, for his clothing store from the Pioneer Mercantile Company.

1928
The first automatic traffic signals in the county are installed on Chester Avenue.

1929
Kern River Park opens. In 1947 it is renamed in honor of Kern County Supervisor John O. Hart.

1929
Bakersfield’s Hippodrome Theatre is the first movie house in Bakersfield to screen a motion picture with sound.

1931
The first television in Kern County is demonstrated at Weill's Department Store.

1932
Bakersfield television station W6XAH makes its first successful broadcast.

1934-42
A gold mining boom strikes in the Rosamond and Mojave areas.

1935-40
The height of the Dust Bowl migration occurs, bringing thousands of people to Kern County.

1937
The Shafter Federal Migratory Camp (also known as the Shafter Farm Worker’s Camp), the second migratory camp in Kern County, is built two miles north of Shafter to house Dust Bowl migrants.

1939
Controversy over John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” prompts county supervisors to ban the book from Kern County libraries.

1941
Kern County Museum is established.

1943
The first aircraft factory in Kern County is built in Bakersfield. The Lockheed-Vega Corp. produces parts for military aircraft.

1943
Former Bakersfield resident Earl Warren takes office as governor of California. Warren goes on to be the first California governor elected to three terms and to be chief justice of the United States.

1943
The Naval Ordnance Test Station, now known as Naval Air Weapons Station, is established at China Lake.

1945
During World War II, German and Japanese prisoners of war are interned at camps near Shafter and Lamont. They work on area farms.

1945
Bakersfield’s first drive-in movie theater, South Chester Drive-In, opens.

1946
The Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) is established.

1947
Chuck Yeager, flying the Bell X-1 at an altitude of 45,000 feet, becomes the first man to break the sound barrier. He lands at Muroc Army Air Field.

1949
41st U.S. President George H.W. Bush lives in a home at 2101 Monterey St. in Bakersfield with his wife, Barbara, and first child, George W. Bush (43rd U.S. president).

1950
Muroc Army Air Field is renamed Edwards Air Force Base after Capt. Glen W. Edwards.

1953
The Isabella Dam is completed.

1954
Uranium is discovered in 1954 in the Sierra Nevada of Kern County along the Kern River, approximately 30 miles northeast of Bakersfield. Two mines, the Kergon and Miracle, make small shipments in 1954 and 1955.

1956
The Assembly Plant “Unit 80” at Oildale begins manufacturing the Lockheed U-2, a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the U.S. Air Force and previously flown by the CIA.

1961
The United States’ first Aerospace Research Pilot School is established at Edwards Air Force Base. The first class has five graduates.

1962
Bakersfield Civic Auditorium is completed.

1962
Major Robert M. White, piloting the North American X-15, sets an altitude record of 314,750 feet (more than 59 miles) at Edwards Air Force Base. This flight qualifies White for astronaut status.

1965
The Delano Grape Strike begins when members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage, walk off the farms of area table-grape growers. One week after the strike begins, the National Farmworkers Association, led by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and Richard Chavez, joins the strike. Eventually the two groups merge, forming the United Farm Workers of America. The strike and boycott last more than five years.

California City is incorporated.

1968
California State College, Bakersfield, is established by the California State Legislature. A groundbreaking ceremony for the new college is held on April 11, 1969. The first classes are held in September 1970.

1969
Red Rock Canyon is established as a state park.

1972
The first flight of the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, a twin-engine tactical fighter, takes place at Edwards Air Force Base. It is among the most successful jet fighters, with more than 100 aerial combat victories and no losses in dogfights.

1976
The NASA flight research facility at Edwards Air Force Base is named after Dr. Hugh L. Dryden. In 2014, it’s renamed Armstrong Flight Research Center after Neil Armstrong.

1981
The maiden flight of the space shuttle Columbia ends with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base after a 54-hour flight.

1988
The space shuttle Discovery lands at Edwards Air Force Base, marking the first successful flight of the space shuttle since the Challenger disaster on Jan. 28, 1986.

1993
The Bakersfield Business Conference brings three former U.S. presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush) to the same podium.

1993
United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez dies.

1998
The City of Bakersfield opens its arena, Centennial Garden (now Rabobank Arena).

2004
SpaceShipOne, a suborbital air-launched spaceplane, completes the first manned private spaceflight. That same year, it wins the $10 million Ansari X Prize. The spacecraft is developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, a joint venture between Paul Allen and Scaled Composites, Burt Rutan's aviation company.

2005
Congressman Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, gets $722 million for local transportation projects folded into the massive Transportation Equity Act.

2010
Kristin Perry, who grew up in Bakersfield, becomes a central figure in the legal challenge to Proposition 8, the 2008 constitutional amendment passed by California voters to ban same-sex marriage. Courts later legalize gay marriage in the state and nation.

2010
Historic Padre Hotel reopens in downtown Bakersfield.

2014
Bakersfield Congressman Kevin McCarthy is elected House majority leader, making him arguably the most powerful legislator ever from the San Joaquin Valley.