24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Oildale, CA

Oildale is an unincorporated census-designated place in Kern County, located directly across the Kern River from Bakersfield, about 3.5 miles north-northwest of its downtown — it is a community, not an incorporated city.

The settlement began as a farming community called Northside, founded in 1875 on fertile soil left by the great Kern River flood of 1868, and was also known as Waits.

Oildale was formally founded in 1909 when Samuel Dickinson subdivided his land, and its first post office opened in 1916.

Oil was discovered in the area in 1899, and Oildale grew up beside the enormous Kern River Oil Field, which at the end of 2006 had 9,183 active wells — more than any other California oil field except Midway-Sunset.

Most of the original U-2 spy planes flown out of Groom Lake were secretly built at a plant in Oildale disguised as a tire factory, just west of Meadows Field Airport on Norris Road.

The 2020 census counted 36,135 residents in Oildale, up from 32,684 in 2010.

Oildale has roughly 13,000 households averaging about 2.8 people each, and only about 40% of its homes are owner-occupied.

Oildale's residents fought annexation by Bakersfield for years to stay unincorporated and keep their own identity; their post office closed on October 1, 1954, and the community has used a Bakersfield mailing address ever since.

Country music legends Merle Haggard and Buck Owens both came from Oildale, as did NASCAR champion Kevin Harvick and Korn lead singer Jonathan Davis.

Oildale carries a strong Dust Bowl heritage — National Archives photographs show its Depression-era "tent village" camps that housed migrant agricultural workers.