Taft is a city in western Kern County, California, located in the heart of the county's historic oil country southwest of Bakersfield. As of the most recent estimates, the city had a population of about 7,100, spread across a landscape of rolling hills, working oil fields, and residential streets that still carry the character of a boomtown that settled into a stable small city. Taft owes its existence and identity to petroleum. The surrounding Midway-Sunset Oil Field became one of the most productive fields in California, and Taft grew as a company town where drillers, tool dressers, and roustabouts settled with their families and developed new techniques for extraction. That legacy is celebrated at the West Kern Oil Museum, which preserves equipment, a historic wooden derrick, and a re-created 1930s boomtown, and at the Taft Oilworker Monument, unveiled in 2010 to honor the laborers who built the industry. The nearby Lakeview Gusher site recalls one of the most dramatic oil events in American history. Education has long been central to the city. Taft College, established in 1922, grew into a respected community college known for workforce training in energy, health care, and industrial technology, while the Taft City School District dates to 1909 and Taft Union High School serves the area's older students. A large private correctional institution, the Taft Correctional Institution, also operates south of town and contributes to the local economy. Taft functions today as a close-knit, family-oriented community with a sparse suburban feel. Most residents own their homes, parks are plentiful, and life moves at a pace tied to the rhythms of the oil fields and the surrounding ranch country. Its position roughly 40 minutes from Bakersfield gives residents access to a larger city while keeping them rooted in one of California's most distinctive industrial landscapes.