Shafter Research Station

Shafter Research Station is a cotton research farm near Shafter in Kern County, California. The nominated district covers about 17.5 acres of the 77-acre site. It contains the earliest buildings, including an adobe administration and fiber laboratory and a Craftsman-style superintendent's house, both built in 1922. Also included are an adobe seed storage laboratory, a 1930s greenhouse, a 1937 cotton gin building, later sheds and shops, and about eight acres of experimental cotton fields. The station began after a federal agronomist's cotton variety tests across the Southwest pointed to the San Joaquin Valley. Kern County land was leased and later bought by the county for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Breeding and testing there led to the "One Variety" approach built around Acala cotton. California's One Variety Cotton Act followed in 1925. The station is recognized for this role in the state's cotton industry, and its seed and production research has drawn visitors and students from other cotton-growing countries. The period of significance runs from 1922 to 1947.