A Q&A sit-down with Kern County Museum’s Executive Director
Published: Feb. 21, 2026
If you want to understand Kern County, spend an hour with the executive director of the Kern County Museum. Born in Lubbock, Texas, raised in Oildale, educated at UC Santa Barbara on a music scholarship, and forged through decades as a teacher, high school principal, and school superintendent, Mike McCoy is equal parts redneck cowboy and Shakespearean theater kid—and he’ll be the first to tell you so. When he’s not walking the museum grounds, you might find him somewhere in Qatar or Asia running a consulting business that accredits international schools. Think of what the health department does for restaurants, but for entire school systems.
After 25 years in the Sacramento area, love brought McCoy back to Bakersfield—his wife loves this place too much to leave—and what was supposed to be a six-month interim gig running the museum turned into an eight-year labor of love across 16 acres, 70 historic structures, and a growing colony of rescue cats that people keep tossing over the fence. He takes them all in, gets them fixed, and feeds them every morning, because that’s the kind of place this is, and that’s the kind of man he is.
We sat down with McCoy at the museum, disabled cats scratching at the office door, workers texting him mid-sentence, and a 19th-century jury table between us, to talk about Kern County’s soul.
How did you end up as executive director of the Kern County Museum?
I was sitting on the board, actually getting ready to retire as a school superintendent. The museum had gone through five directors in four years, guys with master’s degrees in museum science, and none of them lasted a year. A lot of it was adapting to Kern County. So the chairman of the board asked if I’d step in, even if just for six months while they found someone. I applied, and here I am eight years later.
What did you find when you first took over?
On my first day, I got in the golf cart and drove around the property. Broken windows, duct tape on glass, potholes, bathrooms out of order, a faded sign out front. As a school superintendent, what I called “curb appeal” was everything to me; if there’s graffiti and dead grass, it made me angry. My schools were always beautiful. So I just started fixing stuff. We’ve gone through the whole place now—70 structures, 16 acres. New roofs, new plumbing, painting, landscaping. It’s been a little war, but we’ve rebuilt this place.
What’s Kern County Museum about?
It’s about people. Take this table right here—it came from the 1876 courthouse on Truxtun Avenue. It was a jury table. So yes, we have objects, but every one of them tells a human story. And the biggest story of Kern County is immigration. Everybody who came here was an immigrant. Italian, Basque, Mexican, Chinese, Jewish, African American—we have a house on the property for each of those groups. And then there were the Dust Bowl immigrants, like my father. He came to California in the 1930s with $22 in his jeans, a fifth-grade education, and picked oranges. Slept in his car. Worked all day, came back bone-tired, and thought he was rich. That’s the story of Kern County.
Tell us about the “three gold rushes.”
The first was actual gold, up in the mountains. When that died down, the second gold rush was agriculture—people drained the swamps, started farming, and got rich. Some of the wealthiest people in our town are farmers. They fly from farm to farm in airplanes, that’s how big their operations are. Then the third gold rush, around 1900, was oil—black gold. That one’s peculiar to our county. Other parts of California don’t have the oil we do. So three gold rushes built this place, and all these different people came from different countries, different religions, different languages, and they settled here.
Tell us more about the exhibits that reflect our community.
We have a Jewish house, a Chinese temple, two Mexican houses, three Basque exhibits, and we just opened a brand-new Italian Heritage Farmhouse. If you were a cowboy or vaquero in 1876, we have an adobe house that shows what your life looked like. The pioneer village has a doctor’s office, a dentist, a drugstore, a hat shop, even an undertaker’s place with a mannequin—I always tell kids, “Don’t look in that window,” and then I walk away. They go running around screaming.
Tell us about the Lori Brock Discovery Center.
That’s our children’s museum, and it has its own mission—it’s all hands-on, tactile learning for kids. There’s a steam room with little local businesses set up so kids can play and explore. But the story behind it is really something. There was a beautiful young girl, Lori Brock, just finishing college. She was coming over the Grapevine with her boyfriend, and she was killed in a car accident. Her family donated the money in the 1970s to build the children’s museum in her memory. If you walk in, there’s a picture of her right there. So every birthday party, every field trip, every little kid running around doing art in there—that all goes back to this one family’s love for their daughter. It’s a big part of who we are.
How many people visit the museum each year?
We have about 180,000 people come through every year, and 20,000 of those are children. A big part of my job is making sure the next generation knows our history.
What’s new at the museum for 2026?
The Italian Heritage Farmhouse and a new children’s garden just opened. And our neon sign collection has really grown—three years ago we had eight signs, now we have 40, and they all light up. Each one is from Kern County and tells the story of a family or business. On May 1st, we’re hosting “Get Lit,” a celebration of the neon collection with Mexican food, margaritas, and all the signs blazing. Neon signs are expensive, though—between taking one down, restoring it, repainting, and rewiring the neon, a single sign can cost $15,000 to $20,000.
We have to ask—tell us about the cats.
People throw cats over the fence. They just show up, and then I feed them. We have another guy who comes in and feeds them too. Every cat you see on the property has been fixed and neutered. We didn’t bring any of them here, but we’re being responsible about it. They’ve kind of become part of the place now. You can hear them on the other side of that door right now—they want to hear their daddy’s voice.
Kern County Museum is located at 3801 Chester Avenue in Bakersfield. For hours, events, and information about the upcoming “Get Lit” neon celebration on May 1st, visit the museum’s website or follow them on social media.
Kern Magazine’s Signature Questions
What do you love about your community?
The lack of pretension. I have a PhD from the University of California, and I don’t play that card. Here, you don’t need any papers. There’s a joke that if anybody drives by you in a dirty white pickup and waves, wave back—they’re a millionaire. That’s Kern County. Our fanciest restaurants are on the worst streets in town. It’s a no-frills, hardworking place, and I love that about it.
Where do you eat local?
Oh, you have to write these down. Number one, Luigi’s—but you have to get there by 11 a.m. or you’re not getting a table. And dress up. Five U.S. presidents have eaten there; there’s a picture of Reagan with spaghetti. Number two, Woolworth’s—closed Sunday and Monday, but dinner there is epic. Don’t eat for two days before you go. Number three, Mexicali downtown. Then the 24th Street Cafe—they’ve been on every food network show, and there’s a picture of John F. Kennedy eating breakfast there. After that, Arizona Cafe for breakfast—machaca and eggs—and Happy Jack’s for hamburgers and pie. I don’t eat pie, but I eat pie when I go there.
When you want to get out of town, where do you go?
Kernville and the mountains—I used to fish a lot up there, and it’s like another world. Then the coast. Everybody in Bakersfield ends up in Pismo. If you go to the pier, you’ll see Kern County people everywhere. My brother lives in Los Osos, so the central coast is one of our happy places. And then my wife and I love France—we’ve stayed in apartments in Paris. That’s our jam.
If you want to hear more from Mike McCoy check out the video below.
