Badger is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located in

Tulare County Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lake ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

at an elevation of 3,038 feet. It has a population of 140. The zip code is 93603 and the

area code 559 Area codes 559 and 357 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan for the central San Joaquin Valley in central California. The numbering plan area includes the counties of Fresno, Madera, Kings, and Tulare, an area largely c ...

. It is normally reached by California State Route 245. It is in the Cutler-Orosi Unified School District; High-school-aged

student A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution, or more generally, a person who takes a special interest in a subject. In the United Kingdom and most The Commonwealth, commonwealth countries, a "student" attends ...

s who live in Badger must ride a

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

for about to attend school.

Government

In the

California State Legislature The California State Legislature is the bicameral state legislature of the U.S. state of California, consisting of the California State Assembly (lower house with 80 members) and the California State Senate (upper house with 40 members). ...

, Badger is the 12th Senate District, represented by Republican Shannon Grove and in the 32nd Assembly District, represented by Republican Vince Fong. In the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

, Badger is in California's vacant 20th Congressional District, previously represented by the former Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy resigned from Congress after his removal as Speaker of the House on October 3rd, 2023.

Popular culture

Badger was featured in an early 1970s

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

commercial in which it is claimed that a Visalia McDonald's served the entire population of the town for . The population was 15 at the time of filming this commercial.

History

In the 1970s and the 1980s, the controversial organization

Synanon Synanon, originally known as Tender Loving Care, was a new religious movement founded in 1958 by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in Santa Monica, California, United States. Originally established as a drug rehabilitation program, Synanon develop ...

operated a residential compound on nearby Dry Creek Road. Badger was in the national news in October 1978 when the

Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

served a search warrant at this site in connection with a deliberate

rattlesnake Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that form the genus, genera ''Crotalus'' and ''Sistrurus'' of the subfamily Crotalinae (the pit vipers). All rattlesnakes are vipers. Rattlesnakes are predators that live in a wide array of habitats, hunting sm ...

attack on attorney Paul Morantz who was critical of the organization. An African-American Muslim community named Baladullah occupied the former Synanon site from 1989 through 2002. In 2020, the local newspaper reported that the former compound of the cult will become vacation rentals.

References

External links

* Unincorporated communities in Tulare County, California Unincorporated communities in California {{TulareCountyCA-geo-stub