1776: On April 26, Franciscan friar Francisco Garces became the first white man to stand on the present site of Bakersfield.
1827: A 17-man expedition led by Jedediah Smith entered the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, marking the first entry into the area by American explorers from the East.
1834: Capt. Joseph Reddeford Walker arrived to discover what later became Walker Pass, linking the mountains of Kern County to the desert.
1846: On his third expedition to the coast, “Pathfinder” John C. Fremont brought along his topographer, Edward M. Kern, the man for whom a county, city and river would be named.
1848: With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the war between the United States and Mexico, California became a U.S. territory.
1848: On the morning of Jan. 24, gold was discovered at Coloma on the south fork of the American River, luring fortune seekers from around the world.
1850: California became part of the Union on Sept. 9, when President Millard Fillmore signed Congress’ bill.
1852: Edward Fitzgerald Beale was appointed in March as superintendent of Indian affairs for California and Nevada.
1853: The first recorded discovery of gold in Kern County was at a rugged area of Greenhorn Gulch, about a mile northwest of the upper Kern River.
1854: Beale established Fort Tejon on Aug. 10 to provide protection for the Indians and to make safer the travel through the nearby pass.
1860: Christian Bohna arrived to become the first permanent settler at Kern Island, the site of the future city of Bakersfield.
1863: Col. Thomas Baker and his family arrived at Kern Island to begin reclamation of swampland from which Bakersfield would evolve.
1865: The first large-scale cotton production was attempted by brothers Solomon and Philo Jewett at their Rio Bravo ranch.
1866: On April 21, the state Legislature created the county of Kern with Havilah as the county seat.
1868: The first public post office was opened at the settlement then known as Kern Island.
1869: By April, the population of Bakersfield had grown to 600.
1872: The first commercial oil activity began in the old Buena Vista district.
1872: Col. Baker was stricken with typhoid and pneumonia; he died Nov. 24.
1874: Bakersfield displaced Havilah as the county seat.
1874: Bakersfield citizens, looking forward to the arrival of the railroad, vote to incorporate the community as a city.
1874: On Nov. 8, the Southern Pacific Railroad reached its station at Sumner, later to be known as Kern and eventually east Bakersfield. Bakersfield leaders were aghast, having hoped the railroad would be built through the middle of their city.
1875: A significant earthquake, the first to be noted by the area’s white settlers, rattled the young city.
1876: Bakersfield, plagued by sanitation and financial problems and a marshal of dubious reputation, was disincorporated.
1883: Bakersfield completed its first water system, with an octagonal tower.
1884: Bakersfield’s first Black colonists settled on the rural outskirts.
1886: Alfred Harrell, later to become editor and publisher of The Bakersfield Californian, was first elected as county superintendent of schools.
1888: As the result of an agreement reached after litigation between Kern agriculture interests over water rights, the Riparian Water Right Law of California was established.
1889: On July 7, fire devastated 15 city blocks of Bakersfield, leaving 1,500 residents homeless.
1890: The Kern County Land Co. was established by James Ben Ali Haggin and Lloyd Tevis.
1893: February rains swelled the Kern River and flooded much of Bakersfield.
1893: Kern County Union High School opened its doors for the first time.
1893: The part of the city previously known as Sumner and known today as east Bakersfield, was incorporated under the name of Kern, or Kern City, as it was called.
1897: Alfred Harrell, at age 34, purchased The Bakersfield Californian.
1898: Bakersfield permanently incorporated on Jan. 11 by a vote of 387 to 197.
1898: A July 9 fire nearly blotted out the city of Kern.
1899: A significant new oil field was born with the successful digging of the first oil well near Bakersfield along the Kern River 7 miles northeast of the city.
1900: Bakersfield’s population increased to 4,836; Beale Memorial Library was built; free postal delivery started with two carriers.
1903: The Kern County Board of Trade was established with Alphonse Weill as its first president.
1903: Bakersfield’s most famous Wild West shootout: The killing of outlaw Jim McKinney at a Chinese joss house.
1904: Truxtun Beale donated the clock tower to the city in memory of his mother, Mary Edwards Beale.
1904: The Kern River oil field became the state’s most productive oil field with 175 million barrels per year; the first automobile was sold in the city.
1909: The consolidation of Bakersfield and Kern City was approved, merging Bakersfield and east Bakersfield.
1910: Oildale (formerly Waits) was founded; street paving first took place.
1910: Accelerated activity in the oil industry was primarily responsible for rapid population growth to 12,727 residents. The Lakeview No. 1 Gusher experienced its famed blowout.
1912: Yen Ming, a leading potato grower in Bakersfield, started the first school for Chinese students. Ming Avenue was later to be named in his honor.
1913: The “13th grade” was added in the form of Bakersfield (Junior) College. It shared the campus with Kern County Union High School, later to be designated Bakersfield High School.
1914: The Kern County Farm Bureau was established.
1915: A city charter was formally adopted by the City Council.
1917: The city experienced its first major draft registration (7,150 in one day on June 5); first local draftees left for duty Sept. 9.
1918: Liberty Memorial burial plot was established in Union Cemetery for World War I soldiers (3,676 served from Kern; 36 killed in action); first cotton was baled on a commercial scale.
1919: Local saloons had their biggest night ever on June 30 (because Prohibition began July 1); Kern County elected Grace Storey Dorris, the first woman to serve in the state Assembly.
1920: The highway was paved from Bakersfield to the Grapevine, bringing the total number of paved miles in the county to 302.
1920: The city’s population, according to the U.S. census, was 18,638. The total number of registered automobiles in the county was 12,697.
1925: The first Kern County Fair was held.
1927: Area cotton growers formed the California Cotton Cooperative Association, known today as the Bakersfield-based Calcot Ltd.
1928: Automatic traffic signals made their debut on Chester Avenue.
1930: Bakersfield’s population was recorded at 26,015.
1931: Amelia Earhart stopped at Kern County Airport on a flight from Oakland to Los Angeles.
1932: The Schamblin brothers, owners of Pioneer Mercantile Co., produced one of the first telecasts west of the Mississippi River.
1933: The U.S. Army Air Corps began using the present site of Edwards Air Force Base for bombing and gunnery training.
1934: The first major migration of dirt farmers from the southern Plains states of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and elsewhere began; by the end of the decade, the Dust Bowl exodus had swollen the population of Kern County to near unmanageable numbers.
1941: Sam Lynn Ball Park opened, bringing California League professional baseball to Bakersfield for the first time.
1945: Elmer Houchin purchased a 300-acre site north of 24th Street from the Kern County Land Co. and developed Westchester.
1946: The Bakersfield Indians baseball team took the field for the first time as a farm club for the Cleveland Indians.
1948: Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey to win the presidency — and deprive Bakersfield’s Earl Warren of the vice presidency.
1949: The Bakersfield sign (actually a foot bridge) was erected over Union Avenue, linking halves of the Bakersfield Motor Inn.
1950: The Kern River spilled its banks, flooding parts of the city, particularly the newly formed district of Westchester.
1951: Buck Owens moved to Bakersfield, eventually taking a job as guitar player at the Blackboard saloon for the Orange Blossom Playboys.
1952: On the afternoon of Aug. 22, a powerful earthquake hit Bakersfield. The face of the city would be changed forever.
1953: Two dams on the Kern River were completed to form Isabella Lake, ending the threat of flooding in Bakersfield.
1953: Earl Warren was named 14th chief justice of the United States.
1953: The city’s first television station, KAFY-TV, beamed its signal through the Central Valley.
1956: Bakersfield College’s first separate campus opened on Panorama Drive.
1965: The conversion and relocation of Highway 99, now entirely a freeway through Bakersfield, was completed.
1965: Buck Owens, Bonnie Owens, Billy Mize, Kaye Adams and a newcomer named Merle Haggard led a near-sweep for Bakersfield performers at the inaugural Academy of Country Music Awards in Los Angeles.
1967: Valley Plaza, the city’s first major indoor shopping center, opened at Highway 99 and Ming Road.
1970: The city’s first four-year education institution, California State College, Bakersfield, opened; it was later redesignated California State University, Bakersfield.
1970: NFL Hall of Fame running back Frank Gifford, a former star at Bakersfield High School, began his long run as a commentator on TV’s “Monday Night Football.”
1977: A severe dust storm Dec. 20-21 left Bakersfield looking, according to pilots, like an atomic bomb had hit the city.
1978: The wettest year on record since 1889 (11.73 inches).
1980: Mary K. Shell, a former columnist and political activist, was elected first female mayor.
1988: East Hills Mall, the city’s second major shopping center, opened in east Bakersfield.
1990: Record low temperature (19 degrees) hit the city Dec. 23-24.
1993: A devastating, valleywide seven-year drought ended.
1993: The Cal State Bakersfield basketball team finished 33-0 to win its first national Division II championship.
1993: The Bakersfield Business Conference brought three former U.S. presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush) to the same podium.
1994: The refurbished Fox Theater, built in 1930, reopened to much celebration.
1995: The Holiday Inn Select Hotel opened next to the Bakersfield Convention Center, ending a decade of frustration over stalled construction.
1996: The Marketplace shopping center and Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace both opened.
1997: The U.S. government sold its share of Elk Hills oil field to Occidental Petroleum.
1998: The city celebrated 100 years since its second incorporation.
1998: The city of Bakersfield opened its arena, Centennial Garden (later renamed Rabobank Arena, and now known as Mechanics Bank Arena), with a performance by comedian Bill Cosby.
1999: On Jan. 25, 3 to 6 inches of snow blanketed Bakersfield, the city’s largest recorded snowfall of the century.
2002: Former Stockdale High quarterback David Carr was the first player chosen in the NFL draft.
2005: Bakersfield’s housing market soared. Resale prices rose 41 percent in the first quarter of 2005 from the previous year.
2005: U.S. Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, got $722 million for local transportation projects folded into the massive Transportation Equity Act.
2006: Country music legend Buck Owens died at 77. His ex-wife, Bonnie, died at 76.
2006: Heat waves, including 15 consecutive triple-digit days, contributed to the deaths of 20 people.
2006: Rep. Bill Thomas announced his retirement from Congress after 28 years in office.
2007: The housing market crashed. Kern County experienced triple the national rate of foreclosures.
2010: Kristin Perry, who grew up in Bakersfield, became 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: The historic Padre Hotel reopened in downtown Bakersfield.
2012: The Bakersfield homebuilding market rebounded, with tracts left unfinished in 2007 buzzing with construction in the second half of the year.
2013: The Westside Parkway — Bakersfield's first new freeway in 37 years — opened in August.
2013: Kern County experienced its first school shooting on Jan. 10. Bryan Oliver, 16, entered a Taft Union High School classroom armed with a shotgun and shot classmate Bowe Cleveland in the chest, causing serious injuries. Oliver later pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
2014: U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, is elected House majority leader, making him arguably the most powerful legislator ever from the San Joaquin Valley.
2015: In the fourth year of a historic drought, state and local officials impose the strictest-ever water conservation mandates here.
2023: Rep. Kevin McCarthy is elected speaker of the House after an arduous 15-vote process.
2023: The city celebrated 125 years since its second incorporation.
— From Bakersfield Californian archives, the Kern County Museum and local government websites