Badger is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

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 Lakes. ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

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

area code 559 Area code 559 is a California telephone area code that was split from area code 209 on November 14, 1998. It covers the central San Joaquin Valley in central California, serving the counties of Fresno, Madera, Kings, and Tulare—an area large ...

. It is normally reached by

California State Route 245 State Route 245 (SR 245) is a north–south state highway in the U.S. state of California that runs from near Exeter to near Kings Canyon National Park. It connects State Route 198 in Tulare County to State Route 180 in Fresno County. It run ...

. 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. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementar ...

s who live in Badger must ride a

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

for about to attend school.

Government

In the

California State Legislature The California State Legislature is a bicameral state legislature consisting of a lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members; and an upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members. Both houses of the Legisla ...

, Badger is in , and in . In the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

, Badger is in

Popular culture

Badger was featured in an early 1970s

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

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 is a US-founded social organization created by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in 1958 in Santa Monica, California, United States. It is currently active in Germany. Originally established as a drug rehabilitation program, by the early ...

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 Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...

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

rattlesnake Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that form the 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 small anim ...

attack on attorney

Paul Morantz Paul Robert Morantz (August 16, 1945 – October 23, 2022) was an American attorney and investigative journalist. He was known for taking legal cases alleging brainwashing by cults, self-help groups and for sexual misconduct by psychotherapist ...

who was critical of the organization. An African-American Muslim community named

Baladullah Baladullah was an African-American Muslim enclave in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. It was founded in the mid-1990s, inspired by Shaykh Gilani, and closed in 2002. History The parcel which became Baladulla was once part of a pro ...

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