Hanford is a city of about 53,000 residents in the San Joaquin Valley of central California between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, and is the county seat of Kings County. The relatively small town is home of a number of local and regional attractions, particularly arts and culture and live entertainment.
The Hanford Carnegie Museum, which was founded in 1905, started out as a library and became a museum in 1975. The facility, which hosts exhibits that showcase the history of the greater Hanford area and its residents, is open Tuesday through Saturday, and bimonthly on Saturdays the museum has workshops on life in the area. The museum also has an outdoor courtyard and meeting room that are available for rent for special occasions.
Hanford is home to a handful of venues devoted to the arts. Among them is the King Art Center, which puts on 10 gallery exhibits of paintings, drawings, photography and sculptures by local and guest artists each year. The city is also home to the Kings Players, an acting troupe that performs at the Temple Theatre. The group puts on about four plays each year at the Temple. Shows are typically held Thursdays through Sundays. The Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture collects, preserves, exhibits and educates the public about works of fine art, particularly Japanese art.
The Hanford Fox Theatre, which originally opened in 1929, is a small venue that is known for its live performances by musicians, comedians and others. Past performers have included country music stars LeAnn Rimes, David Allan Coe, Willie Nelson and Vince Gill, as well as comic George Lopez. The theater also screens films and holds special event performances, such as acrobat troupes and the showing of the Academy Awards live on the movie screen.
The Hanford Conference & Visitor's Agency offers visitors the chance to learn about the city via tours conducted by volunteer guides known as the "Hanford Show-Offs." The tour-guide club, which was organized in the 1980s, typically entertain visitors with stories of the city's history while escorting them around the city's landmarks. The city's Conference and Visitors' Agency also offers driving tours via a converted 1950 fire truck known as "Freddie."
