Taft Heights, CA

Taft Heights began as Boust City, named for oilman E. J. Boust, and the old name tells you what put this Kern County place on the map. The settlement sits just west-southwest of Taft, in the oil country around the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. A Kern County school history places Boust City among the early clusters of saloons, hotels, brothels, and other businesses that formed around the oil economy. The name later changed to Taft Heights, but the oil-town beginning remains the useful local shorthand. Today it is a compact census-designated place, with Taft immediately to the east and the broader petroleum landscape still close by.