 According to the publication "California's Geographic Names," Mettler was founded in 1941, but an obituary of Clifford Alvin Mettler in "The Bakersfield Californian" reported that the settlement was founded by him, his father, William H. Mettler, and his brother (unnamed) in the "late 1940s" in the Wheeler Ridge area, which settlement "later became known as Mettler Station.