DELANO, Calif. -- The city of Delano officially celebrated its 94th birthday this April; but as ABC23's North County reporter Crystal Figueroa found out, the city got started long before that.

It was back in 1873 when the Southern Pacific Rail Road was headed from northern California south and stopped its tracks just a few miles into Delano.

Since then, history records show that workers started moving in and never left.

Alma Goodell is one of Delano’s oldest and most loyal residents. She is 91 years old, but she was only 14 when she and her family escaped Oklahoma’s dust bowl in 1932 and moved to Delano.

She said photos were a luxury so the only memories she has are stored in her mind.

She said she remembers when Delano only had a handful of residents and fields covered the land everywhere you looked.

Some rare pictures are now preserved by the Kern County Museum.

Their records show that Delano high school was built in 1911 and have pictures of it and of Cecil Avenue Middle School.

The original school, Jasmine School, was built in 1916 and now sits at Delano’s Heritage Museum along with other original buildings.

Goodell said back in the 1930s neighbors were more like family, but because Delano has grown so much some of those traditions have been lost.

The city that started out with a couple hundred people is now home to almost 50,000 residents.

She said if she could only keep one old thing it would be the slower pace of living, other than that, she said Delano will always be the home she loves.