Bakersfield Wedding

 - Total (1/1/2006)  - Density

311,824 843.4/km

Latitude Longitude

3521'26' N 1191'54' W

The Yokuts Indians were the first people to settle in the San Joaquin Valley, some 8000 years ago. One source cites the English transliteration of the Yokuts place name for the Bakersfield area as Woy Loo. In 1776, the Spanish missionary Father Francisco Garcs was the first European to reach the area. In 1851, gold was discovered in the Kern River in the southern Sierra mountains, and, in 1865, the first discovery of oil was made in the valley. The Bakersfield area, a tule reed infested malarial swamp, was first known as Kern Island to the handful of pioneers who built log cabins there in 1860. The area was subject to flooding from the Kern River delta, which occupied what is now the downtown area.