Photograph of Arvin Federal Government Camp — Photograph by Bobak Ha'Eri, CC BY 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Weedpatch Camp

Built in 1936. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. 12 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1914.

From the record

“Arvin Federal Government Camp, also known as the Weedpatch Camp or Sunset Labor Camp, was built by the Farm Security Administration south of Bakersfield, California, in 1936 to house migrant workers during the Great Depression. The National Register of Historic Places placed several of its historic buildings on the registry on January 22, 1996.”
Wikipedia article Arvin Federal Government Camp, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 23 National Register listings published here for Kern County · listed in 1996 · category: Building · built in 1936, by Works Progress Administration.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 3 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. 8305 Sunset Blvd., Bakersfield, 93307
When was it listed? January 1996
Category. building
Census division. Arvin-Lamont
When was it built? 1936
Architect. Works Progress Administration
National Register reference number. 95001554 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1914 to 1978

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 64 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Weedpatch Camp, surveyed 1978

Topographic sheet covering Weedpatch Camp, surveyed 1914

Fires near this property

98 since 2005

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 98 fires within 5 miles of Weedpatch Camp between 2005 and 2020, burning about 136 acres in total. None started naturally. 17 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	50
Arson/incendiarism	17
Equipment and vehicle use	12
Misuse of fire by a minor	10
Smoking	5
Debris and open burning	4

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
7 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
6 September 2007	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
30 September 2006	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
30 September 2006	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
26 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
25 September 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
21 September 2006	Debris and open burning	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
20 September 2005	Debris and open burning	under an acre	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named

Every fire recorded in Kern County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Weedpatch Camp: 3 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
County Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Dougherty Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unnamed Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Kern County

Storms near this property

48 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bakersfield, the town this property stands in, in 48 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 14 flood, 11 heavy rain, 5 hail, 4 wildfire. The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 1997	Wildfire	Bakersfield	1 hurt, $400,000	Two homes destroyed and 4000 acres of grassland were burned.
May 1998	Lightning	Bakersfield	1 hurt	While on the phone an office manager was mildly electrocuted due to a nearby lightning strike and the resulting electrical surge through the phone line.
January 2011	Flood	Bakersfield	$12,700,000	Kern County estimated damage from the storms of December 17th to January 2nd at 12.7 million dollars.
February 1998	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	$12,500,000	no account filed
June 2001	Wildfire	Bakersfield	$565,000	The Democrat Wildfire was ignited by unknown cause and burned 550 acres before being contained with no fatalities or structures lost. The cost to contain was $565K.
May 1998	Flash Flood	Bakersfield	$250,000	no account filed
March 1997	Flood	Bakersfield	$150,000	no account filed
June 2002	Wildfire	Bakersfield	$110,000	The Rocky Fire originated from unknown causes and burned 498 acres. No structures were lost nor were there any fatalities or injuries.
May 1998	Flood	Bakersfield	$100,000	no account filed
June 2003	Wildfire	Bakersfield	$55,000	The Shallock Fire was of human origin and burned about 564 acres before containment. No structure was lost nor were injuries or fatalities reported.
February 2010	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	$50,000	Local media reported 1 foot deep water due to heavy rainfall at Airport Dr just north of State Rd. Three vehicles encountered the deep water and become stuck. Street flooding also reported on Fairfax Rd at Brundage Ave.
March 1997	Lightning	Bakersfield	$50,000	no account filed
February 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Bakersfield	$35,000	A large tree was uprooted and totaled a car due to thunderstorm winds. Location was at Jenkins and Rosedale.
November 2002	Flood	Bakersfield	$23,000	no account filed
February 1997	Tornado (F0)	Bakersfield	$10,000	no account filed
March 2012	Flood	Bakersfield	$6,000	California highway patrol reported flooding on Michelle Avenue at Shawn Street.
April 1999	Tornado (F0)	Bakersfield	$3,000	With strong gradient wind and some convective activity, a cold air funnel touched down briefly in Southeast Bakersfield near Pacheco Road and Kaiser Court. A few small trees were downed along with damage to a small shed.
February 2023	Flood	Bakersfield	-	California Highway Patrol reported all lanes of eastbound SR 178 at Union Ave in Bakersfield were flooded. Several vehicles hydroplaned.
January 2018	Flood	Bakersfield	-	Pictures indicating roadway flooding in downtown Bakersfield near the intersection on Union Ave. and Truxton Ave. were received on Facebook and Twitter.
January 2018	Flood	Bakersfield	-	Pictures indicating roadway flooding on 23rd St. in downtown Bakersfield were received on Facebook and Twitter.
January 2018	Flood	Bakersfield	-	Pictures indicating the courthouse parking lot in Bakersfield was flooded were received on Facebook and Twitter.
January 2015	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	Rainfall amounts of 0.5 to 1 inch in 24 hours over the Kern county produced ponding of water/flooding on roadways in the south end of the San Joaquin Valley, in and south of Bakersfield. The flooded areas included part of Highway 99 between Rosedale Highway and Olive Drive in Bakersfield and Highway 119 near Buena Vista.
February 2015	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	Rainfall amounts of 0.4 to 0.85 inches reported across the City of Bakersfield, including 0.52 inches at Meadows Field Airport. Rainfall resulted in ponding of water on roadways.
November 2014	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	Roadway flooding due to heavy rain. Estimated rainfall 0.75 inches.
October 2014	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	Roadway flooding due to heavy rain. Estimated rainfall 0.75 inches.
November 2013	Flood	Bakersfield	-	Law enforcement reported flooding at Tulare St and Columbus St.
November 2013	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	Downtown Bakersfield had heavy rain with a total of 0.45 inches reported by local media outlets.
October 2004	Funnel Cloud	Bakersfield	-	Several spotter reports seem to indicate a funnel cloud passed over Bakersfield from the WNW early in the afternoon of the 20th.
July 2001	Flash Flood	Bakersfield	-	Spotter reports confirmed radar imagery that thunderstorm activity, from the Mexican Monsoon, brought very heavy rain to areas north of Bakersfield in the foothills on the western face of the Southern Sierra Nevada. Drainage ditches all filled on mountain roads with creeks rapidly rising to full. Rainfall rates reached 1.5-2.0"/hour in the area approximately 10 miles north of Bakersfield to 23 miles east of Delano in Kern County. In the 24 hour period ending at 5 PM PDT on the 6th, Valley floor rain amounts included 0.07" at Madera, Visalia 0.01", Porterville 0.08", with an unofficial report of up to 2" of rain between 1530-1700 PDT 10 miles north of Bakersfield to the Tulare County line.
January 1999	Funnel Cloud	Bakersfield	-	Trained spotter reported two funnels at this location.
April 1998	Flood	Bakersfield	-	While rains have stopped and temperatures climbed to near normal for a period in late April, the winter and spring's above normal rainfall/snowfall is resulting in not only rainfall runoff, some snowmelt contributions, but "springing" into the South Valley stream group of Caliente, Tejoh, sycomore, El Paso, and San Emigdio Creeks at the rate of 120CFS. Damage was sustained on roads and property with water collecting in low-lying areas, such as the ancient Kern Lake bed. As of late April 2,000 acres of farmland was under water in the South San Joaquin Valley in the area southeast of Bakersfield. As of April 27th the snowpack water content in the Southern Sierra Nevada was 190% of normal. From the Kern County Ag Commissioner's Office, data indicates that 75,000 to 100,000 acres of cotton may not be planted in Kern County due to the wet and cool field conditions.
February 1998	Flash Flood	Bakersfield	-	Heavy rainfall led to runoff and water over State Highway 166...a road typically affected by this type of runoff scenario.
March 1998	Hail	Bakersfield	-	As reported by California Highway Patrol between Laval Road and the scales on Interstate-5 at the base of the grapevine. 40-50 cars pulled over to wait for the storm to diminish.
December 1995	Hail	East Bakersfield	-	The SVR issued based on radar information, as previously described, for the period from 1519 PST until 1600 PST did provide some lead time. Additional one-inch hail was reported at 1530 PST in East Bakersfield by Kern County Emergency Management to NWSO San Joaquin Valley.
March 2005	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
December 2005	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
December 2003	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
March 2001	Lightning	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
March 2001	Flood	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
November 2001	Flood	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
April 2000	High Wind	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
September 1998	Lightning	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
May 1998	Heavy Rain	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
March 1998	Flood	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
February 1997	Hail	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
March 1997	Hail	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
November 1996	Tornado (F0)	Bakersfield	-	no account filed
October 1996	Hail	Bakersfield	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Kern County

Maps showing this location

12 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1914 USGS Caliente quadrangle1:125000 - 7 printings
1930 USGS Weed Patch quadrangle1:31680
1933 USGS Weed Patch quadrangle1:31680 - 3 printings
1948 USGS Bakersfield quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1955 USGS Bakersfield quadrangle1:250000
1955 USGS Weed Patch quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1956 USGS Bakersfield quadrangle1:250000
1960 USGS Bakersfield quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1962 USGS Bakersfield quadrangle1:250000 - 4 printings
1966 USGS Bakersfield quadrangle1:250000
1978 USGS Tehachapi quadrangle1:100000
1992 USGS Weed Patch quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 95001554 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Kern County	All 23 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.