New Cuyama (Chumash: Kuyam, meaning “Clam”) is a census-designated place in the Cuyama Valley, Santa Barbara County, California. It was named after the Chumash word for “clams”, most likely due to the millions of petrified prehistoric clamshell fossils that are found in the surrounding areas. The town is house to the majority of the advance infrastructure for its residents, including within reach neighbor Cuyama, California. New Cuyama is located very near to the intersection points for Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Ventura and Kern counties. The town is served by Highway 166 (connecting U.S. Route 101 and Interstate 5) and the public-use New Cuyama Airport. The population was 542 at the 2020 census.

The area was considered territory of the Yokuts people, but Chumash Indians from the Pacific Coast are next known to have frequented the area. The imprint of an old Indian trail can nevertheless be seen leading higher than the hills of present-day Ventura County to the headwaters of Piru Creek. The name “Cuyama” comes from an Indian village named for the Chumash word kuyam, meaning “clam” or “freshwater mollusk”.

The area’s recorded history dates to 1822, when Mexico won independence from Spain and took exceeding the Spanish colony of Alta California. Two Mexican land grants, the Rancho Cuyama (Lataillade) and Rancho Cuyama (Rojo), were fixed in the 1840s by Governors Manuel Micheltorena and Pío Pico in the lower Cuyama Valley along the Cuyama River, where present-day New Cuyama is, privatizing ownership of the land.

Following the 1949 discovery of oil at the South Cuyama Oil Field, in 1952 the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) settled and developed the town of New Cuyama, building housing and associated want ad business – including the New Cuyama Airport (L88), reopened in May 2015, which bears the distinction of brute the deserted public-use paved airdrome within easy flying range of Los Angeles for greater than 50 miles (80 km). Much of the infrastructure from ARCO’s settling of the town yet exists today and is used by town residents. The indigenous ARCO-built gas meting out plant is still in use and easily seen due south of New Cuyama, though ARCO has since sold off engagement in the facility.