Harvey L. Hall Memorial Highway

This morning, a dedication took place for a portion of the Westside Parkway, named the Harvey L. Hall Memorial Highway, in honor of Bakersfield’s longest-serving mayor and founder of Hall Ambulance Service, Inc. The stretch of roadway will run between the Coffee Road off-ramp, heading west, and the on-ramp at Allen Road, heading east.
Assemblyman Vince Fong, (R-Kern County) introduced ACR 64 in April 2021, which was co-authored with Assemblymember Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield; Senator Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger; and Senator Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield. The resolution received unanimous support on the Assembly and Senate floors and the Assembly Transportation Committee.
As a pioneer of modern emergency medical services and Bakersfield’s 25th mayor, Harvey L. Hall embraced his motto of “Unity in Our Community” with a lifetime of service to Kern County.
The prologue leading to Mr. Hall’s 58-year career in the ambulance business started on a dare, literally. Working as a hospital orderly, Hall ran into a friend working as an ambulance attendant who dared the 19-year-old to go on a ride-along. The next day, he was offered a job with the company, changing the course of his life.
In 1971, with a $15,000 bank loan and a vision to build the best ambulance company in the nation,
Mr. Hall founded Hall Ambulance Service, with his residence serving as headquarters.
Through the years, he grew his ambulance company to neighboring cities and communities while staying at the forefront of EMS evolution and innovation. Today, Hall Ambulance serves 94% of Kern County’s population.
His impact on the private ambulance industry ran deep. In 2020, on the 50th Anniversary of California’s Wedworth-Townsend Paramedic Act, Mr. Hall was profiled by the National EMS Museum and the California Ambulance Association as one of 17 Californians responsible for shaping EMS in the United States.
As Bakersfield’s 25th Mayor, Hall served four terms (2001-2017) where he performed 958 ribbon cuttings with his famous oversized scissors, led 91 groundbreakings, and issued 10,750 Certificates of Appreciation and 1,836 Proclamations to community members.
Mayor Hall donated his mayoral salary to create the Mayor’s Scholarship awarding $253,000 in funds to 297 local college students.
Mayor Hall was focused on creating community pride by encouraging residents to get involved. He organized the Keep Bakersfield Beautiful Committee and the local Great American Cleanup, where volunteers would perform litter cleanup, graffiti removal, and beautification projects each spring.
To create a positive first impression of Bakersfield for those traveling along the city’s roadways, he hosted 116 Mayor’s Freeway Cleanup events, picking up litter alongside volunteers on the freeway on-and-off ramps running through Bakersfield.
Signage for the Harvey L. Hall Memorial Highway was paid for through private funds at no expense to taxpayers.
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