Old Highway 399, Part 8: Bakersfield (BR 99, CA 204)

And now, our last leg as we follow old US 399 into the City of Bakersfield. This is a town of particular interest to me, because I use it to berate my friend Kevin who grew up nearby. Despite this, Bakersfield is the major hub of the southern San Joaquin Valley, equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, and the 11th largest city in the state at 333,719 [2009].

In antiquity, the region was settled by the Yokuts Indians as far back as eight millenia, first explored in 1776 by Fr Francisco Garces on his missionary travels into Alta California. Despite the Yokuts' long standing in the area, they were driven out in just a few short years by settlers crowding the region to strike it rich after gold was found in 1851. Like much of western Kern county, Bakersfield was marsh and swamp in those days when the first white settlers attempted to farm the region, largely owing to the frequent threat of flooding from the wild Kern River. What would be future Bakersfield was actually an island in the flood plain then, christened Kern Island by the first settlers on it in 1860.

Despite early failures and the constant threat of malaria, several projects struggled mightily to make the area suitable for habitation. One of the strangest was that of Colonel Thomas Baker, a state senator, who in 1861 hatched a plan to connect Kern Lake all the way to San Francisco Bay with navigable waterway and moved to Kern Island in 1862 to make his plan a reality. Baker certainly had the chops, as a trained civil engineer, but neither had the money nor the staying power to see his project through. Still, by 1865, Baker had dammed Buena Vista Lake to control the water flow and dug several large ditches diverting water from the other local lakes and ponds, eventually reclaiming over 87,000 acres. While his bigger aim had failed, he nevertheless received patent to the lands he had reclaimed, which were called Baker's Field. Baker platted out a new community as settlers moved to the region, and the new town adopted the name Bakersfield in honour of the Colonel. His death in 1872 of typhoid fever was so wrenching to the town that all business halted until his funeral in respect; ironically, almost exactly a century after his death, the county put back over 2 billion gallons of water to recreate the marsh he had originally strangled (Part 7).

In the city's early days, settlement was slow and despite incorporating in 1873, the same year the county seat moved from Havilah (Part 5), the town eventually decided to disincorporate due to internal squabbling and sluggish growth. The modern city did not reincorporate until 1898, when the town was over four times its size at its original incorporation (2,626 from 600). Steady migration led to a stably growing population over the next several decades even as many of the city's historic buildings were ruined by aftershocks of the 7.5-magnitude 1952 Kern county quake, killing four people in the city. By 1980, the population broke 100,000 and doubled again within two decades. Today the now heavily urbanized city has struggled in the modern era with air pollution, receiving the American Lung Association's worst ozone rating in 2006 and second-most-polluted overall with regards to particulate matter. Similarly, although ever-present in popular culture, Bakersfield still contends with a sometimes negative reputation, most notably promulgated by Johnny Carson's famously derogatory Tonight Show monologues. Nevertheless, the town counts many notable natives and former residents, including former Chief Justice Earl Warren, 41st President George H. W. Bush (the Bush House still stands from when the Bushes moved to Bakersfield in 1949), Football Hall of Famer Frank Gifford and County Music Hall of Famer Merle Haggard. Its major industries remain oil and agriculture, much as they were in the town's infancy.

There are no less than two potential termini for US 399 in Bakersfield proper, prior to the 1962 US 99 freeway, of course, as we look at the 1947 ACSC map at right. For those unfamiliar with US Highway 99, this was the Golden State Highway and the northern portion of the Pacific Highway, the main arterial of the central west coast prior to Interstate 5. Its receiving highway in British Columbia is still BC 99, despite the fact that US 99 was decommissioned in stages in all three states from 1964 to 1968 as Interstate 5 was completed. California still maintains the largest piece of US 99 that the Interstate did not obliterate, 424 miles between Wheeler Ridge north of the Grapevine and Red Bluff, now today CA 99 (Oregon and Washington also have their own state 99s, and Oregon even maintains OR 99E and OR 99W), not including US 99W and US 99E in Sacramento which are not part of CA 99 now. Caltrans has persistently planned to make the freeway portions of CA 99 into a new Interstate (likely Interstate 7 or Interstate 9), most likely the section between Wheeler Ridge and Sacramento which is already largely freeway or expressway, truncating CA 99 to Sacramento. This is unlikely to happen in the near future, as there is still much of the southern CA 99 that is not Interstate-standard.

In Greenfield, just east of the end of modern CA 119, old US 399 met old US 99, which is now modern BUSINESS CA 99. After that, things get a little murky, a combination of a relatively obscure US highway and an area that is poorly mapped historically. It is reasonable to assume that, at least originally, US 399 ended at US 99 (though we lack the map evidence to prove that for sure); credence to this is given by the fact that the Taft Highway always ended at US 99. Note that this was not the end of LRN 140; LRN 140 continued south of Greenfield and then east of US 99 through Arvin to US 466 (modern CA 58). There is no evidence this was ever part of the US 399 routing, and was only ever signed as CA 223, the present highway occupying it after the 1964 renumbering.

For some reason, US 399 was then extended with US 99 on a useless multiplex into Bakersfield proper as shown on the map inset, although its exact terminus is uncertain. The most likely terminus was at the old Edison Highway-Golden State Highway junction, which no longer exists in its original form, but can be approximated; however, it is also possible, though less likely, that US 399 ended at the Garces traffic circle. All of these possible termini are useless concurrencies, and all run along LRNs 4 and 141 (we'll discuss LRN 141 when we get to it). Since we'll be on old US 99, we'll close the gap to new CA 99 at the end by clinching CA 204 while we're here. Bonus!