Hanford, CA Real Estate

In the warm, but shaded center of town, children play in the fountain of the city’s park; artists showcase their work on the sidewalks of the park and the gates of what used to be a jail, swing open to welcome diners inside to eat in one of the region’s most interesting buildings.

Superior Dairy, the town’s ice cream parlor that has been attracting children and their parents for the last eighty years, draws numbers so large that the lines for ice cream often stretch out the door. The only things larger then the lines are the smiles of patrons and the mountainous scoops of ice cream mounted on the sugar cones they hold with two hands. Welcome to Hanford, the big small town in the middle of Kings County.

With the downtown area centered around the Amtrak station, development in the area has provided a myriad of new retail opportunities. With the small town benefits of things like a drive-in theatre, historic buildings and community atmosphere, Hanford remains a close-knit community.

Despite its relatively small population, roughly 45,000, the city maintains a diverse community. Many of city’s original buildings, like the Courthouse, jail and theatre remain intact, some of them dating back to the 1800s. Hanford offers a variety of housing options; new developments and a historical appreciation mix well to provide an eclectic collection of options. Like many areas of the Central Valley, shady streets within the city are among the most desirable.

Every year, Hanford hosts the annual Kings Fair, an event designed to showcase the area’s agricultural heritage and culture, while offering fun activities like tractor pulls and musical entertainment for its residents. Other events like the Blues and Roots Festival and the Annual Taoist Moon Festival are well attended by locals.

Hanford’s beginnings can be attributed to a group of residents whose inhabitation began thousands of years ago; according to historians, Hanford was first inhabited by the Tachi Yokut Indians, a group on Indians still active in the community. The tribe built a reservation in 1939, and after the passing of the Indian Gaming Act, constructed one of the area’s most popular sources of entertainment and gaming, the Tachi Palace & Casino in the neighboring city of Lemoore.

Hanford isn’t afraid to embrace its historical roots, as the beautiful, historical buildings can attest. A unique combination of big town convenience and small town charm, Hanford is wonderful Central Valley community.