Wonder Acres, Kern County, California

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Wonder Acres is a settlement in the western Mojave Desert, within eastern Kern County, southern California, in the United States.

Mojave Desert desert in southwestern United States

The Mojave Desert is an arid rain-shadow desert and the driest desert in North America. It is in the southwestern United States, primarily within southeastern California and southern Nevada, and it occupies 47,877 sq mi (124,000 km2). Very small areas also extend into Utah and Arizona. Its boundaries are generally noted by the presence of Joshua trees, which are native only to the Mojave Desert and are considered an indicator species, and it is believed to support an additional 1,750 to 2,000 species of plants. The central part of the desert is sparsely populated, while its peripheries support large communities such as Las Vegas, Barstow, Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, and St. George.

Kern County, California County in California, United States

Kern County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 839,631. Its county seat is Bakersfield.

California State of the United States of America

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 8.8 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second most populous, after New York. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Contents

It is located northeast of the city of Mojave, on California State Route 14 at the intersection with California City Boulevard. It is 5 miles (8.0 km) west of California City, and 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Cache Creek.

Mojave, California Census designated place in California, United States

Mojave is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kern County, California, United States. Mojave is located 50 miles (80 km) east of Bakersfield, at an elevation of 2,762 feet (842 m). The town is located in the southwestern region of the Mojave Desert, below and east of Oak Creek Pass and the Tehachapi Mountains.

California State Route 14 highway in California

State Route 14 is a north–south state highway in the U.S. state of California, largely in the Mojave Desert. The southern portion of the highway is signed as the Antelope Valley Freeway. The route connects Interstate 5 on the border of the city of Santa Clarita to the north and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Granada Hills and Sylmar to the south, with U.S. Route 395 (US 395) near Inyokern. Legislatively, the route extends south of I-5 to SR 1 in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles; however, the portion south of the junction with I-5 has not been constructed. The southern part of the constructed route is a busy commuter freeway serving and connecting the cities of Santa Clarita, Palmdale, and Lancaster with the rest of the Greater Los Angeles area. The northern portion, from Vincent to US 395, is legislatively named the Aerospace Highway, as the highway serves Edwards Air Force Base, once one of the primary landing strips for NASA's Space Shuttle. This section is rural, following the line between the hot Mojave desert and the forming Sierra Nevada mountain range. Most of SR 14 is loosely paralleled by a main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, used for the Antelope Valley Line of the Metrolink commuter rail system as well as a connection between Los Angeles and the Central Valley via Tehachapi Pass.

California City, California City in California in the United States

California City is a city incorporated in 1965 in the northern Antelope Valley in Kern County, California, 65 miles (105 km) southwest of Death Valley National Park. The population was 14,120 at the 2010 census. Covering 203.631 square miles (527.40 km2), the city is the third largest city in the state by area.

History

The development began when a Mr. Wonder drilled for oil (ca. 1950) and found water. He then subdivided the land into five-acre (2.0 ha) lots, supplied them with piped water, and sold them.

In the 1960s Robert W. Shaneyfelt made the settlement name well known when he painted the name of the settlement on the community water tank on California City Boulevard.

The main street in Wonder Acres is named "Janice Street". Margaret Shaneyfelt was primarily responsible for negotiating with the affected parties to arrive with this as an agreeable compromise.

Services

Wonder Acres is served by the Mojave Post Office, and is most closely associated with Mojave for services.

Its area code is 760, the same as nearby California City. During most of the latter 20th century, Wonder Acres was in the Mojave Unified School District, and the Tehachapi Cemetery District.

See also

Coordinates: 35°07′45″N118°06′56″W / 35.12925°N 118.11543°W / 35.12925; -118.11543

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.


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