Before the turn of the 20th century, asphalt was
discovered and mined. In our local newspaper, the Daily Midway
Driller, which started publication in 1910, we are told that
Jack A. Bennett was the oil well driller of the first producing
oil well on the famous 25 Hills, that hill which stands as a
sentinel overlooking the City of Taft to the south. Old timers
told about the time when Bennett struck water at a depth of
1000 feet while drilling for oil in Sections 22, 32-33. The
price of water was high as well as scarce in this barren stretch
of the valley. The water from Bennett's well being of excellent
quality for boiler purposes, the company decided to stop drilling
and payoff bennett because the water was worth more than the
oil.
Soon the Southern Pacific Railroad, later renamed
the Sunset Railway, came with tracks laid west of Bakersfield
to McKittrick and a branch south to Maricopa and finally on
north to Fellows and Shale. Midway between Maricopa and Fellows,
the railroad located Siding No 2. It was here that Taft got
its start. Siding No. 2 was a place to unload material for the
oil fields that were being developed in this area. Buildings
began to spring up, first to the south and then to the north
of the railroad tracks. Because the railroad owned the land
to the north of the tracks, they began subdividing this land
for a business district and housing.
In January 1909, the town consisted of a handful
of buildings, and it began to grow rapidly. A post office was
needed Mail was brought from Maricopa by a horse-drawn wagon.
The name of Moro was suggested for the post office, but that
name was not accepted because there was another town by this
name. By April 1909 "official authorities in Washington"
decided that "Taft" the name of our nation's president
at that time, would be the name of the new town's post office.
Moro, Moron and several other names had been suggested for a
time. However, the railroad named their depot and their subdivision
north of the railroad, Moron or Moro with an "n" added.
This created a great deal of confusion. The destination of freight
sent by railroad was Moron. The destination of mail was Taft.
And, to add to the confusion there was South Taft, which was
privately owned, and had its own post office. News articles
at the time referred to the town with two names. The railroad
continued using the name, Moron (the emphasis being on the last
syllable), for its depot until 1912.
The City and Chamber was incorporated in 1910,
after the approval of incorporation by a vote of the people
north of the railroad tracks, and they named it "Taft,"
much to the chagrin of Jamison, the owner of his settlement
of South Taft. Before long businesses began to spring up in
the downtown area and the boom was on. There was a pharmacy,
pool house, a dress shop, rooming houses, the Cox and Foster's
confectioners, Dewar's Chocolate Shop, clothing stores, a bank,
hotels,, an opera house and moving picture theatres. Leases
or oil camps on which the oil companies constructed or allowed
their employees to construct houses began to dot the area around
the oil fields.
In 1910, the famous Lakeview Gusher blew in, threatening
the countryside over an 18-month period rampage, producing an
estimated nine million barrels of oil. The oil flowed from the
well like a river, which the old timers named the "trout
stream."
Hollywood found Taft in 1912, when the motion
picture film, "Opportunity," starring Fatty Arbuckle
was filmed in Taft, using many local people as extras, and when
completed, it premiered in the C. & C. Theatre at 500 Center
Street before a packed house.
Taft's heritage and its main industry continue
to rest on Crude Oil. A large percentage of the crude oil found
in Kern County is "heave crude." Today, this heavy
crude oil is best retrieved through "thermal enhanced oil
recovery," the process of injecting steam into the ground
so that the oil will flow easily to the surface. The Taft Midway-Sunset
field in the Taft area continues to lead the lower 48 states
in oil production, and is the third leading producer in the
United States.