Incorporated July 25, 1911, this "mother city" of the prolific Midway-Sunset Oil Fields is the gateway to the Cerro Noreste/Mt. Pinos recreation area.

Maricopa is the name applied by a Pima Indian Tribe to a neighboring tribe of Uymas inhabiting the Gila River Valley in southern Arizona. How the name reached California is unknown, but it was given to the oil-booming community when a station on the Sunset Western Railroad was established there in 1903.

The real growth in Maricopa began with the opening of the first Lakeview gusher in 1910. The famed gusher helped make Kern County "First in Oil" in the state and nation.