When oil was discovered along the the Kern River bank in 1899 near Bakersfield, Calif., thousands of fortune seekers, oil companies and railroads rushed to the state, setting up fields up and down the coast.
Calif. Field Goes from Rush To Reflection of Global Limits Article | BAKERSFIELD, Calif. In May 1899, a pair of oil prospectors wielding picks and shovels dug into a bank of the Kern River where some gooey liquid had seeped to the surface. About 45 feet down, they hit oil, and when the local newspaper printed the news, it set off an oil rush that swept up hundred...
