Reefer City is a ghost town in

Kern County Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield. Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California, Metropolitan statistical area. The county sp ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It was located south-southwest of Mojave, at an elevation of 2762 feet (842 m). Reefer City still appeared on maps as late as 1947. Reefer City was established in June 1936 by Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa, formerly Gold Fields of South Africa Limited, a company founded and based in London, after a

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

lode was discovered on Soledad Mountain near Mojave. The company purchased

refrigerator car A refrigerator car (or "reefer") is a refrigerated boxcar (U.S.), a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars (co ...

s, known colloquially as "reefers", from the Southern Pacific Railroad to house the miners. After the mine closed in 1942, the community housed military personnel from Edwards Air Force Base until the 1960s. In 1971, Reefer City was purchased and demolished by a salvage company.

References

Former settlements in Kern County, California Former populated places in California Populated places established in 1933 Populated places disestablished in 1971 {{KernCountyCA-geo-stub