The community is named after B. J. Fannett, a local landowner who opened a general store there in the 1890s. When Japanese immigrants brought rice farming to the area, Fannett grew to meet the farmers' needs.[citation needed]
Although oil has been discovered near Fannett, the town's population has remained small.
In 1993 and again in 2004, Fannett was the center of a controversy over the naming of Jap Road (now Boondocks Road). The road had been named in the early 20th century in reference to the immigrant rice farmer Yoshio Mayumi. However, as social awareness increased over time, it became clear that the name was never meant to honor Mayumi and had always been an ethnic slur. Instead of naming the road after Mayumi, it was decided to change the name to Boondocks Road.
^Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.[4][5]