Lost Hills Kern County Airport

While no single official reason is cited, the closure was due to economic factors. The land, located in a prime agricultural region of California's Central Valley, became more valuable for farming than for aviation. Low air traffic volumes likely made it financially unsustainable for Kern County to maintain and operate the facility, leading to its sale and conversion for agricultural use.

The airport site has been completely repurposed for agriculture. High-resolution satellite imagery of the coordinates shows that the entire area, including the former runway and taxiways, has been converted into a productive tree nut orchard (likely almonds or pistachios). The faint outline of the former runway is barely discernible running through the rows of trees in some older satellite views, but it is now almost entirely gone. The most prominent and lasting legacy of the airport is the name of a nearby road, 'Airport Drive'.

Also known as Kern County Airport #7, the Lost Hills Airport was a county-owned, public-use airport established sometime between 1942 and 1949. It served the general aviation needs of the small, unincorporated community of Lost Hills and the surrounding agricultural industry. Its primary operations involved light private aircraft and agricultural aviation, such as crop dusters, which were vital for the local economy. The airport was modest, featuring a single north/south oiled runway (Runway 17/35) that was approximately 2,600 feet long. It represented a typical small, rural American airfield that supported local communities before its land value for other purposes surpassed its utility as an airport.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the Lost Hills Kern County Airport. The land has been fully and permanently converted to high-value agricultural production. Re-establishing an airport on this site would be economically and logistically prohibitive, requiring the purchase of the land and removal of the mature orchard. The site is considered permanently closed.