Mountain Meadows, CA

Mountain Meadows is a Kern County unincorporated community and census-designated place in the Tehachapi Mountains, with 303 residents in the 2020 census. The CDP covers about four square miles at an elevation above 4,000 feet, within the wider Tehachapi area that includes Golden Hills, Alpine Forest, Keene, and Stallion Springs. There is no incorporated downtown; the local map is made up of private roads, mountain homes, open ground, and long drives to Tehachapi schools and services. Kern County’s sheriff’s office treats Mountain Meadows as part of its Tehachapi response area.

Road maintenance is the clearest piece of local civic history. The Mountain Meadows Community Services District was formed in 1970 to maintain neighborhood roads, drainage inlets, and street signs; after a period of inactivity, it reorganized in the early 1990s and continues to center its work on the road network. That detail tells you how the place functions: residents share a named mountain settlement without a city government, and the district carries the practical work of keeping its streets usable. Mountain Meadows is a California mountain community defined by elevation, private roads, and a small service district.