 Milham City was projected by a group of Kings County citizens who owned lands on the slope of the hills east of the oil field.It scarcely had emerged from the dream stage when the Standard Oil Company announced in 1929, that a townsite had been set aside on the northwestern slope of the hills and that it would be called Avenal.Thus the present thriving, interesting little town of Avenal came into being as the "oil capital" of the great field.