Kern County Museum, History museum in Bakersfield, United States

Kern County Museum is an outdoor history museum in Bakersfield, California, bringing together more than 50 restored historic buildings on a large open-air site. The structures span different periods of local history and are furnished with original objects, so visitors can walk through the rooms and look at them up close.

The museum was founded in 1941 to gather objects from the early settlement of the region and the California Gold Rush. Over the following decades, more buildings were added, including structures moved from other parts of Kern County to keep them from being lost.

The museum shows tools and machines once used in the oil and farming industries of Kern County, giving a concrete sense of how people here made their living. Visitors can stand in a recreated oil field setting and get a feel for what a typical workday in the region might have looked like.

Comfortable shoes are a good idea since the site is spread out and visiting the buildings involves a fair amount of walking. A visit can be split into two sections: the historic homes and town buildings first, then the agricultural and oil industry area.

The Beale Memorial Clock Tower on the front lawn was first built in 1904 at the intersection of 17th Street and Chester Avenue. It was destroyed in the 1952 earthquake and rebuilt at the museum in 1964. It is the only structure on the grounds that was reconstructed rather than moved.