Famoso (
Spanish for "Famous") 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 ...
in
Kern County
Kern County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield, California, Bakersfield.
Kern County compris ...
,
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 ...
.
It is located on
Poso Creek south-southeast of
McFarland,
at an elevation of .
Famoso is located at the junction of
State Route 99 and the eastern terminus of
State Route 46. The town is famous for its nut groves and especially the race track - Auto Club Famoso Raceway (
Famoso Raceway
The Famoso Bakersfield Raceway dragstrip is located in McFarland, California just north of Bakersfield, California, and is known historically as the home to the annual March Meet, also known as the U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships.
The strip, loc ...
).
History
The Spottiswood post office opened in 1888, changed its name to Famoso in 1895, closed for a period in 1919, moved in 1940, and closed for good in 1946.
The name Poso was bestowed by the
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...
when it reached the site in the 1870s.
Famoso is a
Spanish word meaning "famous" or "celebrated".
Early in its history, the city of Famoso was named Poso, California. This name conflicted with the community of
Pozo along the
Butterfield Overland Mail
Butterfield Overland Mail (officially Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service in ...
stagecoach route in
San Luis Obispo County and officials in
Washington renamed it Spottiswood. The residents later requested the name to be changed to Famoso, meaning "famous" in Spanish.
[David W. Kean, ''Wide Places in the California Roads: The encyclopedia of California's small towns and the roads that lead to them'' (Volume 1 of 4: Southern California Counties), p. 65] The route of an early irrigation project, the Pozo Canal, is visible from aerial photos of this area.
Poso Creek flows to the northwest, passing immediately north of town.
Geography
The eastward continuation of SR 46, Famoso Woody Road, leads into the
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
foothills, passing through the
Mount Poso Oil Field on the way. The westward continuation leads to the city of
Paso Robles, California in
San Luis Obispo County.
The
ZIP Code is 93250, and the community is inside
area code 661
Area code 661 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in the U.S. state of California. The numbering plan area comprises the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley and the far northern part of the Los Angeles metrop ...
.
References
Unincorporated communities in Kern County, California
Unincorporated communities in California
{{KernCountyCA-geo-stub