This Classic episode of California’s Gold inevitably brings back memories from my childhood of traveling south along Highway 99/Interstate 5 toward the Tehachapi Mountains and seeing acres and acres of pumps working away in the fields on both sides of the road. As the years passed, the number of pumps visible from the highway grew ever smaller. And indeed, oil production has decreased since this episode first aired in 1995; the Kern Economic Development Foundation (KEDF) reported that in 2019 the entire county produced 119 million barrels of crude oil (PDF link), making it the sixth most productive county in the continental U.S. These days, the future of the oil industry holds many questions. But the history is, fortunately, well documented and is generously passed down by the volunteers at the West Kern Oil Museum.

Huell finds out how oil made Kern County great, visiting the vast Midway-Sunset Field which is the top oil-producing field in the lower 48 states and the West Kern Oil Museum in Taft, which has one of the last huge wooden derricks in existence. He then visits the site of the Lakeview Gusher, which at the turn of the century was the largest gusher in the United States. Huell’s last stop is the South Midway Producing Field of Mobil to check out how the oil industry has advanced.

*Note: Due to how this episode was digitized, this episode begins with roughly two minutes of SMPTE color bars and a black screen. Episode begins at timestamp 02:06.*

(Click on the linked image to see the video.)