Editing Oakdale, California (section)

==History==
The city was founded in 1871 when the [[Stockton and Visalia Railroad]] met the [[Central Pacific Railroad#Acquisitions|Copperopolis Railroad]].   The site of Taylor's Ferry Crossing is located in Oakdale, a crossing of the [[Stanislaus River]] on the 19th century [[Stockton - Los Angeles Road]].

Oakdale was used as a film location for the [[United Artists]] film ''[[Bound for Glory (1976 film)|Bound For Glory]]'' starring [[David Carradine]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.209magazine.com/features/hollywood-in-the-209/ |title=Hollywood in the 209 |last=Benziger |first=Jeff |date=February 6, 2017 |website=209 Magazine |publisher= |access-date=August 25, 2021 |quote=David Carradine of ''Kung Fu'' TV show fame came to Oakdale to ride the rails atop a moving boxcar as Woody Guthrie in the 1976 movie ''Bound for Glory.'' Also on the set in south Oakdale was Randy Quaid, best known as Cousin Eddie in ''National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.'' Kennedy Road in Knights Ferry doubled as the New Mexico border where Carradine hitchhiked in the film.}}</ref> Oakdale doubled as a dusty 'Texas' town using railroad scenes for the film. Oakdale was nominated for an award for having the most almond trees per capita per square mile in the state of California.

In June 2020, the town was taken by a false rumor that Black Lives Matters protestors intended to invade the town from the Bay Area. The owner of a local bar, the H-B Saloon, hired an out-of-town militia, gunmen dressed in camouflage, to patrol the town while store windows were boarded up. The false rumor started on the local Facebook group for the town. A 2025 ''New York Times'' report on the town noted that the town had become a news desert, as local news outlets had for the most part disappeared while inhabitants increasingly relied on social media for information about their area.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Tan |first=Eli |last2=Ortega |first2=Ulysses |date=2025-05-03 |title=It Was Just a Rumor on Facebook. Then a Militia Showed Up. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/technology/news-misinformation-facebook-oakdale.html |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>