Canebrake Creek, which State Route 178 follows down to Canebrake from the Walker Pass, was named by Robert S. Williamson in the fall of 1853 after he observed Indians there collecting the sugary reeds from a canebrake, or bulrush patch. The creek is a major tributary of the South Fork Kern River, which it flows into at Bloomfield Ranch, part of the Canebrake Ecological Reserve.