Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Kerman Kerman, CA

Kerman began in 1891 as a Southern Pacific Railroad watering station named Collis, in honor of railroad president Collis P. Huntington, with a single caretaker keeping the water tank full for passing steam engines.

Kerman gained early notoriety in 1892 when the train bandits Chris Evans, John Sontag and George Contant robbed a Southern Pacific train at Collis, in one of the last train robberies of the era.

In 1900 Los Angeles capitalists William G. Kerckhoff and Jacob Mansar bought about 3,027 acres from the Bank of California and promoted the land using water from the new Enterprise Canal on the Kings River.

The town was renamed Kerman in 1906 by combining the first part of Kerckhoff's name with the last part of Mansar's name, and the founders pitched the farmland to Scandinavian and German settlers in the Midwest.

Kerman incorporated on July 2, 1946, when it had a population of about 1,050 residents.

Kerman sits at the crossroads of State Route 180 and State Route 145 in Fresno County, about 15 miles west of Fresno at an elevation of 220 feet.

Kerman had a population of 16,016 in the 2020 Census, up from 13,544 in the 2010 Census, and the Census Bureau estimated it had grown to 17,553 by July 2025.

Kerman has around 5,264 households averaging 3.19 persons each.

Kerman packed about 4,902 people into each square mile in the 2020 Census, making it a compact farm city in the middle of open San Joaquin Valley farmland.