The beginning of the end for oil in California

“EVERY ONE OF those wells has a name and a personality,” says Mike McCoy, the director of the Kern County Museum. He is standing on a bluff overlooking Bakersfield, Kern’s biggest city, and pointing towards the oilfield below. “It’s like going to a dance and there’s a bunch of pretty girls, and every one of them is different.” That one is where so-and-so cut his finger off. Over there is where he contemplated getting married. When Mr McCoy was younger, the roughnecks called him “Sunshine” for his golden locks. Now a baseball cap covers his grey. His father (“Tex”) spent a career on the pipelines, having moved here back in the days when Texans flocked to California, rather than vice versa.