Kern County Museum

Wear your walking shoes and dress for being outside. The entire museum is outside. The main doors you walk up to from the parking lot is not the front door. Walk past the double doors and walk through the wrought iron gate. Follow the large entrance sign. Check in is at the gift shop on the left hand side right after the bathrooms. Just walk up to the window and they will slide it open.I've been to a lot of museums all over the country and have never been to a museum like this before. It's an outdoor museum that tells the history of Bakersfield using houses and buildings. People for all walks of life have donated houses and building to this museum and they have then laid out like a little town. You can walk into most of the homes and buildings. There is plexiglass will allow you view the interior of the house, but will stop you from wandering around. I took a lot more pictures, but they didn't seem to save.

I have only been to the KCM when events were happening at it. This was my first time purposefully seeking out going to the KCM. I wish I would have purchased the membership for $40 for two reasons. 1. There's so much to see we didn't get to see everything 2. It gives you access to a few other places around town, including the art museum and calm. The KCM has lots of old buildings/ homes on display, including Merle Haggard's house. They have a Bakersfield Sound area, which is dedicated to the artists that developed the sound. They have an old neon lights area. This was like a micro scale of the Vegas Neon Light Museum, but still very cool!They have a Native American history area, oil history area, mining history area, etc.It was overall very informative and a fun way to spend a few hours, for not that much money.

Today's trip to the museum was a school field trip, but I am no stranger to The Kern County Museum. Why wouldn't you want to enjoy a day at the museum. A small fee to enter if you don't have a pass. All the interesting history. It's a great walk workout, and you can bring in a lunch from wherever and enjoy it. And when the weather is beautiful out again, why not?

Kern county museum was WAY more than I was expecting!!I was pretty amazed at how big the place is! How many attractions, houses, & businesses where all there! It's amazing how much they have been able to preserve! AND EVERYTHING was just so interesting and awesome! I love history and old stuff lol.We came on a Sunday afternoon, place wasn't crowded at all.10$ for tickets, the only downside was the big green victorian house along with the tan house across from it, where not open to the public that day! And I really wanted to check out that green house lol! But really there was just SO MUCH other stuff to be seen, it wasn't that big of a deal.Wear your best walking shoes!! Because your gonna get a workout here!We stayed about 2 hours and still didn't even manage to see all there was, we decided to save some so we can come back at a later date to check out the rest!We also ran into this older gentleman who worked there a couple times throughout our trip, he kindly stopped us and gave us a little lesson about a couple of the different attractions we happened to be by at that time. He was such a sweet man, who had a lot of passion and knowledge for the history of Bakersfield, and it was nice to hear things explained in a detailed manner without having to read all the signs lol.... Because there are A LOT of signs to read!! some pretty lengthy! And ain't no one got time to be reading all that!! Lol especially when there is so much to look at! We got good at "scanning the signs" versus reading them entirely. But there is a lot of cool info on those signs!The other downside was that a lot of the buttons did not work throughout the entire place. I didn't really care for the button pushing part though so it didn't bother me that much, but for some, it might be more of a disappointment. . .And most of the houses / buildings (most, not all) do have plexiglass, so you are not allowed to fully go in and look at everything up close, but I'm sure that's part of how they keep everything preserved and in good condition. . . And to keep theft at a minimum.Still, your able to see a lot behind the plexiglass! Pretty awesome place! We will definitely be coming back!I want to find out when that green victorian house will be open and go back then! If you in need of something different to do, this is definitely it!

I remember coming to Kern County Museum years ago for a festive Cowboy Day event with cowboy & cowgirl poetry, and civil war reenactors fighting a battle.These amiable, hospitable guys in blue and grey uniforms thought that I might fit in their unit as a Samurai since the U.S. forced Japan to open its ports in 1853 when the vast U.S. whaling industry needed Japan to serve as a supply depot for its ships catching whales all over the world until petroleum replaced whale oil. Remember, Herman Melville's Moby Dick.  Kern County Museum proper is still not open due to Covid so the indoor exhibits can not be viewed. The history of the region where the oil and the petroleum industry took a prominent role will have to be explored for another day. The outdoor exhibits featuring homes from elegant Victorian to depression era dust bowl hovels & 19th century log cabins. Plenty of 19th & early 20th century hotel, hospital, drug store, courthouse, jails with only buckets for toilets, and other buildings dedicated to various trades of that era. There is a section dedicated to mid 20th century neon signs of former businesses that are now gone. Huge oil derricks & pumps, steam locomotive which have a dystopian steampunk look of the Victorian era. I felt like a voyeur peeking into windows, space in between bars, slats, going up & down stairs. It takes a minimum of 90 minutes to view it all at a more leisurely pace reading explanatory notes. About one hour if you rush through. Good way to see historical Kern County buildings concentrated in one park like setting.  $10 admission fee.

Thank You to all the Hard working staff! You continue to provide younger generations the History that is so important.

Came for the sunday swap meet. Charming setting with a wide range of vendors. Love the collection of historic buldings (kinda like a tiny Greenfield Village) and an exhibit of the Bakersfield Sound as a bonus!

Could be great for young (5-12 yo) kids, but very run down and dusty. I guess it was awesome 20 years back.

We went to safe Halloween last night and it was trash. The worstexperience ever. The line was extremely long and we got there before it opened in an appropriate amount of time. There were maybe 10 stops and most were very underwhelming. They gave minimal candy and more pamphlets than anything. The decorations were underwhelming. Crowd management was not there. No security in the parking lots but had 10 security not managing the line very well. They had only 2 lines for about 500-600 people. I'm so upset. My kids were even over it.

This was super rad, they have a children's center, a playground and lots of historic buildings where you can see how people lived and worked. Lots of fun for kids