Sectional panorama of Owens Lake taken during the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct - Circa 1910 (West Coast Art photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress American Memory Project)

Owens Lake Photos & Text Courtesy of Kurt Lawson

In all my visits to this valley, never have I seen this lake look more like an actual lake. When driving by I’ve always tried to imagine an enormous lake here, some eighty or more feet deep, even with steam ships hauling ore from one side to the other some 120 years ago before the long straw from Los Angeles sucked the lake literally dry. Decades and billions in lawsuits forced an immense system to be built to keep the dust on the ground after this one lake bed created the worst air quality in the nation. So the lake such as it has been, is an odd patchwork of ponds controlled by berms and plumbing, providing some habitat too thankfully for the wildlife and especially migrating birds that frequented here before people ruined the lake. The great winter of 2022-2023 has brought something I never thought I would see. The lake looks more like a lake than I have ever seen it. A broad circular looking swath of the lake bed, normally appearing devoid of water, has been reborn into an actual lake. Instead of a salt flat surrounded by weird rectangular patches of water, now it looks like a lake surrounded by strange irrigation channels. The transformation is remarkable. I don’t know how long it will last, but for now what a treat it is to see. From the western shore it truly looks like the lake has come back, though to stand there is to be assaulted by millions of gnats which had this photographer literally running away.

Owens Lake - March 2023

Owens Lake - November 2021

How to Get Rich in California By McMorris & Gans - 1876

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Miner's Guide from the Los Angeles Sunday Times - 1905
A Map of the California and Nevada Deserts
(Courtesy "Southern Nevada History in Maps)




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Mojave & Colorado Deserts & Death Valley Map - 1930
(Courtesy "Southern Nevada History in Maps)




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Map of the Desert Area in Southern Nevada and Southeastern California - 1955
(Courtesy "Southern Nevada History in Maps)

OWENS LAKE The Los Angeles Examiner - May, 1874

From the Visalia Times: - Little is apparently known of this lake. It is ninety miles in length and fourteen miles wide, and its greatest depth of thirty feet. The bottom is apparently smooth and level. It is supplied by Owens River and numerous springs, and has no visible outlet. It is highly charged with alkali, borax and other elements, and is so strong that it will cut cloth, leather, destroy soap or grease. On the west side are the highest mountains in the United States: Mount Whitney being but a short distance off. Owens River flows from the north through a narrow valley, between two ranges, and enters the north end of the lake. Rugged, broken mountains rise upon the east. From the south extends a narrow, dry valley. The surrounding scenery is picturesque and grand.

Why Owens Lake is Red

Map of Owens Valley - circa 1910? Map courtesy of the Claremont Colleges Library, Special Collections

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03/21 Inyo County California - Sunset Magazine: June 1912 by G. Yoell Parkhurst (NOTE: If the pdf photos don't disply properly CLICK HERE)
Bishop, CA home	Big Pine, CA chicken ranch
Stacking alpha in Owens Valley	Artesian well near Independence, CA and irrigation canal
Threshing grain near Independence, CA
Inyo Development Company Soda Works on the shores of Owens Lake
Sheep in Owens Valley on their way to market
Bishop Creek gold camp	Railroad routes in the southwestern United States
Owens Lake in 1902

View of Owens Lake with a double row of piling seen extending across middle of picture. (photo courtesy of California History Section Picture Catalog)

Elevated pipeline across Owens Lake from the Natural Soda Products operation at Keeler (Eastern California Museum photo)

The Great Soda Lake in Owens Valley - 1894 Harper's Weekly photo (Photo courtesy Inyo County Sesquicentennial)

Stereogram of Owens Valley and the Sierra Nevada (Photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress American Memory Project)

Fotocards courtesy of the Rich McCutchan Archives unless otherwise indicated
Owens Lake, CA	Owens Lake, CA
Owens Lake, CA	Grading on the Owens Valley Electric Railway in Bishop - Inyo County
Owens Valley circa 1924	Owens Valley circa 1930
Owens Valley circa 1930	Cerro Gordo to Owens Valley tram circa 1930
Road construction in Owens Valley (probably the El Camino Sierra) with Owens Lake in the background (Photo courtesy of Hal Eaton)	The El Camino Sierra along the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada (Photo courtesy of Hal Eaton)

Owens Lake photo from "Men, Medicine & Water" by friends of the LACMA Library Photos were taken by Raymond G. Taylor, M.D. on the occasion of the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct

Owens Lake near the middle - 1909

Photos of Owens Lake from wet winters
Owens Lake - August 1969 (Photo courtesy of Ray DeLea)
01/21 My dad was a chemical engineer who worked at the PPG Bartlett Plant located on the shores of Owens Lake. He worked there from the late '50s until the plants closing in 1968. My understanding is the plant made soda as (Sodium Carbonate) - a compound that was used by PPG's glass division to make glass. There used to be a calciner (big rotating cylinder where a heating process took place to cook off the water from the liquid salt slurry taken from Owens Lake. I see that the calciner is gone now. My dad explained to me that the brine taken from the lake had to be fully saturated at 10.0 ppg density for the extraction and manufacturing process to be even marginally profitable. In the winter of 1967 - 68, the Sierra Nevada took an abnormally high volume of snowfall. When the spring of '68 came around, there was strong speculation that the aqueduct, which was uphill from several small towns on the east side of the Sierra, would overflow and decimate a town. It was decided to purposely breachthe aqueduct directly above Owens Lake and let the excess water from the snow runoff drain into the lake basin. The large volume of fresh water from the aqueduct draining into Owens Lake dropped its salinity to the point that every day the plant stayed ope was another day it lost money. The plant was shut down in the summer of '68 and Lone Pine was indeed decimated - not by water but by the loss of those jobs at the plant. For a ten year old boy and his three sisters, it was a hard transition to move from hiking and fishing in the Sierra to the swamps of Lake Charles, LA. There wasn't a mountain or a hill for 200 miles. My dad finished his career with PPG at the LC Plant in 1980 and immediately moved back to California. (Text courtesy of Dean Oneal, Houston, TX - 06 June, 2013)
05/23 Owens Lake as seen from Cerro Gordo - summer 2023. (Photo courtesy of the Friends of Cerro Gordo)
06/23 Owens Lake as seen from Horseshoe Meadows Road - June 2023. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Valiunas)
06/23 Owens Lake as seen from Horseshoe Meadows Road - June 2023. (Photo courtesy of Michael Prather)
Owens Lake as seen from Horseshoe Meadows Road - August 2023. (Photo courtesy of Ray DeLea)
Owens Lake as seen from Horseshoe Meadows Road - August 2023. (Photo courtesy of Ray DeLea)
Owens Lake as seen from Olancha Peak - July 2023. (Photo courtesy of PiTownPi)
Owens Lake as seen from Olancha Peak - July 2023. (Photo courtesy of PiTownPi)
10/23 Owens Lake as seen from Muah Mountain Summit - July 2023. (Photo courtesy of Tao Zhang)
12/23 Owens Lake as seen from the summit of Wonoga Peak (10,371') above Lone Pine - December 2023. (Photo courtesy of Michael Prather)
Owens Lake at sunset from the road to Cerro Gordo (Photo courtesy of Tom Ganner)	Owens Lake at sunset from the Horseshoe Meadow Road (Photo courtesy of Paul Fretheim)

Pittsburg Plate Glass Company plant on the western shores of Owens Lake at Bartlett (Inyo County Sesquicentennial photo) THEN	Pittsburg Plate Glass Company plant on the western shores of Owens Lake at Bartlett (Photo courtesy of Ray DeLea) NOW
04/23 Pittsburg Plate Glass Company plant on the western shores of Owens Lake at Bartlett - 2023 (Photo courtesy of Richard Bellomy)
Sherman Stevens charcoal kilns on the western shores of Owens Lake (Photo courtesy of David Woodruff)	Owens Lake (Photo courtesy of eBay)
08/22 Pittsburg Plate Glass Company plant on the western shores of Owens Lake at Bartlett - Monsoonal thunderstorms over the Inyo Mountains - July 2022 (Photo courtesy of Michael Prather)
Soda Ash operations on Owens Lake over the decades. California Alkali Company: 1917-1932 Clark Chemical Company: 1927-1928 Inyo Development Company: 1887-1920 Inyo Chemical Company: 1917-1932 Permanente Metals Corporation: 1947 - 1950 Natural Soda Products Company: 1915-1952 Pacific Alkali Company / Columbia-Southern Chemical Corporation: 1928 to present .

Soda Ash operations on the shores of Owens Lake near Cottonwood Creek circa 1906 (Photo courtesy of University of Nevada, Reno - Online Digital Collections)

I believe this particular operation was either the Permanente Metals Corporation operations just north of Cartago or the California Alkali Corporation operations out of Cartago. The Inyo Mountains are off in the distance to the east. circa 1940 (Photo courtesy of USC Libraries Special Collections)

Keeping the Dust Down in California's Owens Valley by Jane Braxton Little
Dust mitigation efforts on Owens Lake, Owens Valley, CA (Los Angeles Times photo)	Alkali dust cloud coming off of Owens Lake, Owens Valley, CA (Brian Russell photo)

Owens Lake photo from the Water Resources Archives - Orbach Science Library On the occasion of the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct

Owens Lake - November 1906

Owens Lake	View of Owens Lake on the road that leads to Darwin - 1928
Bartlett, CA	Bartlett, CA
11/21 Bartlett, CA (Photo courtesy CA State Archives, Richard Olsen Negatives Collection)	01/21 The Desert Rat (Photo courtesy The Huntington Library Digital Collections)

Owens Lake	Owens Lake
Owens Lake	Owens River
Produce from the Owens River Valley	Owens River
Owens River	Owens River - Big Pine Canal
Fisherman on the Owens River	Attempting to cross the Owens River
Owens River - Inyo Cattle	Motoring in Owens Valley before there was a paved road.
05/21 Makeshift bridge over the Owens River (Photo courtesy of UCLA Digital Library)

DWP workers erecting power lines across Owens Lake (Photo courtesy Inyo County Sesquicentennial)

DWP workers erecting power lines across Owens Lake (Photo courtesy Inyo County Sesquicentennial)

Inyo resident George Larry with some friends, taking his nice looking boat to Owens Lake for a day out on the water. (Photo courtesy of Tales Along El Camino Sierra)

Vintage Map Courtesy of Hal Eaton

Vintage 1910 railroad stops map - published by Sunset Magazine Homeseakers Bureau

Owens Lake - 1915 (Courtesy Calisphere - Report XV of the State Mineralogist, Mines and Mineral Resources of Portions of California, Inyo County: 1915-1916)

Courtesy Calisphere (unless otherwise noted)
Owens Lake - 1969	05/21 Owens Lake (Photo courtesy of UCLA Digital Library)
Owens Lake - unknown date: Photo taken from the Cottonwood Power House forebay (Photo courtesy of Charles H. Lee)
Owens Lake - unknown date: Photo taken from the Cottonwood Power House forebay (Photo courtesy of Charles H. Lee)
1888 Mining Map of Inyo County Full Size Image of the 1888 Mining Map of Inyo County

Charles H. Lee photos of Owens Lake (Courtesy of the Online Archive of California)

Owens Lake - circa 1926 (Photo courtesy of the California Department of Conservation / California Geological Survey)
Permanente Metals Alkali operations north of Cartago (Photo courtesy of Rick Olson)
05/21 Owens Lake - Circa 1917 Automobile trip taken by J. G. Oliver and W. H. Frick from Los Angeles to the Owens Valley. (Photo courtesy of the Huntington Digital Library)
10/23 Owens Lake (Photo courtesy of the Online Archive of California)

Courtesy USGS Denver Library Photographic Collection
View of Owens Lake from Cirque Peak -1905
View towards Owens Lake from the Cottonwood Canyon Trail -1905
View towards Owens Lake from the Cottonwood Canyon Trail -1905
Colonel Sherman Stevens' Old Mill at lower end of Cottonwood Meadows, Sierra Nevada Mountains. Inyo Co., Calif.
Crude sacks of soda at the National Soda Products facility about 1.5 miles south of Keeler - circa 1901 Hal Eaton writes: Neat thing about the 1902 USGS report is the map which shows the route the Marius Campbell (with his wife, Margaret Stevenson Campbell, along) took and how the photos follow in order. They went from Ballerat to Darwin through Shepherd's Canyon and then Keeler. So photo #230 is a great picture of his wagon in the tight canyon. #233 is "Soda works at Keeler at Owens Lake, California. Showing reservoirs into which the lake water is pumped and which it evaporates and leaves the soda crust. 1901." this photo is taken from elevated spot. 1951 U.S.G.S topographical map of the area .	Marius Campbell U.S.G.S 1902 survey route.

Courtesy Cecile Page Vargo and Roger W. Vargo (Photos from their 2012 book: Images of America - Cerro Gordo)

Inyo Mountain foothills reflecting in the waters of Owens Lake near the town of Keeler. The Cerro Gordo tram terminus is in the far right of the photo and the white Sierra Talc building to the left .

Looking down on the large lake that once was Owens Lake from the snow covered hills of Cerro Gordo

Owens Lake photos courtesy of UCLA Digital Library Collections Photos from the 1913 David F. Smith and Henry Hebard West Tour
Photograph of H.H. West's Buick and Dave F. Smith's EMF parked in tandem along the aqueduct road by Owens Lake	Owens Lake, viewed from the road

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Irrigation Map of Owens Valley - 1922
(Map courtesy of University of Wisconsin UWM Libraries)

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02/21 Bartlett (Photo courtesy of Larry Evans)

06/21 Bartlett (Photo courtesy of Jay Coberly)

05/23 Bartlett and revived Owens Lake - May 2023 (Photo courtesy of Kim Cash)

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The Nevada-California Electric Corporation Map showing that most of the electricity for Eastern and Southern California at one time was being supplied solely by Owens Valley (Photo courtesy of Hal Eaton)

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Airports in Owens Valley History region circa 1929 from the Standard Oil LANDING FIELDS OF THE PACIFIC WEST (Photos courtesy of Hal Eaton)

1903 Tri-Counties map from a California State Geology report showing the regular stage lines from the railroad stops to the major settlements. (Map and text courtesy Hal Eaton archives)

Southern Pacific Company map of California. (Map courtesy of the Yale Digital Archives)

Inyo County Map - 1939 - Printed by Chalfant Press (Photo courtesy of The Huntington Digital Library) (Henry J. Bruman Map Collection)

Sequoia/Inyo Map - 1940 - AAA Map Showing Eastern Sierra Nevada Pack Stations (Photo courtesy of The Huntington Digital Library) (Henry J. Bruman Map Collection)