West Kern Oil Museum, Taft

About West Kern Oil Museum

The West Kern Oil Museum, located near Highway 33 and Wood Street in Taft, documents the city's history and the petroleum industry through indoor and outdoor exhibits maintained entirely by volunteers. Visitors explore galleries tracing local history from Native Americans 7,500 years ago through the early oil pioneers and their families to the present day. The grounds replicate an old-time oil company camp with a vintage office, shops, equipment, a fire house, a tent house, a shotgun house, a transportation building, a tool house, a library, and a gift shop. The museum also features a cookhouse and displays the machinery and tools of an early oil field. Exhibit galleries cover topics including Native Americans, Early History, and the Boomtown period of 1918. The museum serves those interested in regional heritage, petroleum history, and the development of Taft.