Keeler

Keeler, California - The Olds Family #3

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All photographs on this page courtesy of Garey Ford unless otherwise noted.

Garey Ford writes:

My wife's father, Rodney Allen Olds, was born in Keeler in the mid-twenties. His father, Loren Olds, lived and worked for the National Soda Products Co. (NSP). I'm attaching the family photos of the Olds family while they lived in the NSP Co.Village in 1925. Also, included in the pictures is the Keeler (Mapes) Hotel fire in 1925 and the Owens River Gorge Plant. Hope you get these so others may enjoy them too. Garey Ford (Wife, Teresa M. Olds).
PS: also included are pictures of the David Olds family ranch in Bishop 1885.

April 2012

NSP Melvina Olds and Irma Badgley Keeler, CA - 1925	Rod Olds and Vera Rife Keeler, CA -1926	Rod and Dad Olds Keeler, CA -1927
Olds farm house, Bishop, CA.	Rodney Allen Olds Keeler, CA -1926	Rod Olds and Vera Rife Keeler, CA -1926
Rodney Allen Olds, age 1 mo, 1926	Spillway at the power plant (southern Sierra) in Owens River Gorge - 1921	Shep, Charlie Carr, Loren and Art Olds, on the old Meriel Ranch Big Pine, CA -1918

School picnic (Art and Doris Olds) Keeler, CA -1926	NSP Keller, CA -1925
Top Row: C L, Maria, Evelyn 2nd Row: Orin D, Loren, Theodore, unknown, Lillis Front Row: Jim, Lester, Walter Olds 1904	NSP Keller, CA -1925
	Top Left sitting on gate is Charles Luther, Unknown In the middle: Unknown, Unknown In Front: David, Nettie Olds Round Valley, Bishop CA about 1885

Owens River Gorge - 1921

Owens River Gorge - 1921

Rod's birth place, NSP Keeller, CA - 1947

Photographs Courtesy Rich McCutchan Archives
Houses at Keeler during the Souther Pacific RR days.
Old Carson & Colorado RR passenger car at Keeler
Southern Pacific RR at the Sierra Talc Company at Keeler - circa 1950	Southern Pacific RR at Keeler - circa 1950
Southern Pacific RR at the Cerro Gordo Mine tram terminus at Keeler - circa 1950
09/21 Photograph of the Southern Pacific narrow gauge gondolas at the terminus of the Leschen Aerial Wire Rope Tramway, October 31, 1950. This is the cable tramway terminal that once helped keep the narrow gauge busy. Surveying for the Cerro Gordo tramway actually began in 1908. In June of 1908 four railroad cars arrived at Keeler with lumber for the tramway. One hundred men were employed to build the tramway, which ran from the Cerro Gordo mine down to the Four Metals Company Smelter, east of Keeler. The tramway began service in the spring of 1909, a few months after the Four Metals Company Smelter had been put into operation in December of 1908. (Photo courtesy of University of Nevada, Reno - Online Digital Collections)

Photographs and Text Courtesy Dennis Burke Archives
Here is a very interesting image of the Cerro Gordo tram house and ore bins in Keeler just over the tracks and east of the Sierra Talc Co. The material from the Cerro Gordo mines would travel down the mountain in buckets that traveled on a cable system. The buckets would be dumped into the ore bins and then into the narrow gauge gondola cars as you see here.	Flash flood in Keeler looking south. Sierra Talc plant on the right and Cerro Gordo Tram building center behind the string of box cars.
Keeler Railroad Station. This photo was taken between 1905 and 1912. During those dates the railroad was called the "Nevada & California Railroad." You can see the "N & C" letters on the side o the box car.
Carson & Colorado Railroad shipping bill for bales of hay being shipped from Independence to Polita in 1888.

Photographs and Text Courtesy Brian Norden Archives
Keeler, CA after the 1945 cloudburst.	Keeler, CA after the 1945 cloudburst.

10/25

Keeler Market, Keeler, CA
(Photo courtesy of Willy Jardine)

Keeler Market, Keeler, CA
(Photo courtesy of George Sapp)

For More Keeler pictures see my pages on the Carson & Colorado SPNG Railroad

	George Brown - Owens Valley Pioneer
	To the Top of Mt. Whitney
	The Wonacott Family
	More Keeler and the Olds Family
	Aberdeen
	Keough's Radium Hot Springs
	Allie Robinson Pack Trains

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This page was last updated on 02 October 2025