Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only €10,99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Around Trona and Searles Valley
    Around Trona and Searles Valley
    Around Trona and Searles Valley
    Ebook194 pages43 minutes

    Around Trona and Searles Valley

    By James L. Fairchild, Russell L. Kaldenberg and Searles Valley Historical Society

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Trona was once the most populous community in the Upper Mojave Desert. Originally explored by the Death Valley 49ers in 1850, Searles Valley was formed by remnants of the Owens River Lakes. The small towns of Borosolvay, Magnesium, Burnham, and Slaterange City prospered for a period before fading. Homewood Canyon, Westend, Argus, Pioneer Point, and Trona continue to provide pleasant housing for Searles Valley residents. The valley is dominated by mining history, and Searles Valley Minerals still produces products for worldwide markets. Wyatt Earp played cards and gambled at Poeville and was arrested in 1910 in Searles Valley for claim jumping. In 1913, Stafford Wallace Austin helped create the planned town of Trona. Amelia Earhart's husband, George Putnam, died at the Trona Hospital in 1950. Sit down and enjoy the jaunt through some of the most interesting history in the West.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateAug 17, 2015
    ISBN9781439652794
    Around Trona and Searles Valley
    Author

    James L. Fairchild

    Coauthors James L. Fairchild and Russell L. Kaldenberg, with the Searles Valley Historical Society, compiled vintage photographs to show Searles Valley's development over the years. James L. Fairchild has lived in Trona since 1963 and has investigated the history of mining methods on Searles Lake for 15 years. Historic preservation specialist Russell L. Kaldenberg has worked extensively throughout the West on cultural resource projects and oral histories.

    Related to Around Trona and Searles Valley

    Related ebooks

    Photography For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Black Bart’s Double-Barrels

      Nov 8, 2022

      On the American fronter shotguns—smoothbore firearms that could be loaded with bird shot, buckshot, lead balls or “buck and ball”—justly came to be feared at close range. Smoothbore “front stuffers” date from the 16th century when Europeans first use

      3 min read

    • Article

      Hubris in Art Form

      Jan 3, 2023

      Hubris in Art Form
      6 min read

    • Article

      Midnight In Old Mexico

      Jul 24, 2018

      Midnight In Old Mexico
      7 min read

    • Article

      Searching For Victorio

      May 11, 2021

      Searching For Victorio
      6 min read

    • Article

      Return Of The Pilgrim

      Mar 30, 2020

      Return Of The Pilgrim
      10 min read

    • Article

      Hank Adams, The 'Most Important Indian,' Dies At 77

      Dec 25, 2020

      Hank Adams, a lifelong Native American civil rights advocate, died Dec. 21 at the age of 77. Adams is most well-known for his work in getting the federal government to uphold tribal treaty rights.

      2 min read

    • Article

      Crossing Paths with Hemingway

      Jun 9, 2020

      Crossing Paths with Hemingway
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Art Of N.c. Wyeth

      Jul 1, 2019

      The year was 1902, and a 20-year-old art student named Newell Convers “N.C.” Wyeth decided to take a chance and submit a proposal for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. The whole idea was outlandish. Many older, more experienced professionals ha

      4 min read

    • Article

      Sweeping Sorrow

      Mar 29, 2022

      Sweeping Sorrow
      15 min read

    • Article

      ‘An Infinite Blessing!’

      Jan 18, 2022

      ‘An Infinite Blessing!’
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Wreck Of Bertrand

      May 3, 2022

      The Wreck Of Bertrand
      4 min read

    • Article

      Running With Wolf

      Apr 14, 2022

      Running With Wolf
      4 min read

    • Article

      Plein Air Painter

      Mar 4, 2021

      WHEN THE RUBY RANGE’s aspens turned gold last autumn, Shaun Horne was there, brush in hand. When severe winter storms heaped snow on the twelve-thousand-foot peaks, Shaun Horne was there, brush in hand. When spring’s long-awaited warmth triggered a h

      3 min read

    • Article

      Land Of Enchantment

      Jul 19, 2023

      Land Of Enchantment
      9 min read

    • Article

      Good As Gold

      Mar 1, 2022

      Good As Gold
      10 min read

    • Article

      Going West

      Oct 27, 2022

      Going West
      5 min read

    • Article

      Chávez Ravine

      Sep 4, 2018

      Chávez Ravine
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Haunting Riverboat Voyage

      Oct 16, 2022

      A Haunting Riverboat Voyage
      7 min read

    • Article

      Project Veritas Founder James O'Keefe Is Forced Out At The Right-wing Group

      Feb 21, 2023

      In a video, O'Keefe said he was leaving his group, known for hidden-camera efforts to embarrass journalists, after the board of directors removed his power. The board cited "financial malfeasance."

      2 min read

    • Article

      Puckety Chute

      Mar 1, 2018

      Puckety Chute
      17 min read

    • Article

      Folk-Blues Fingerpicking

      Dec 13, 2023

      Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Eric Bibb started his career in the late 1960s and is viewed as one of today’s most important acoustic blues artists. A prolific musician he has recorded 24 studio albums and four live releases under his own name, a

      2 min read

    • Article

      Gambling Siblings

      Mar 1, 2023

      Theresa Sokaitis and Rose Bakaysa were always close. Three times a week, the sisters visited Foxwoods Casino, where Rose hit the slot machines while Terry played Caribbean poker. The duo also routinely purchased lottery tickets together, picking the

      1 min read

    • Article

      Beheading Mountain

      May 3, 2022

      Beheading Mountain
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Around Trona and Searles Valley

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Around Trona and Searles Valley - James L. Fairchild

      guidance.

      INTRODUCTION

      Searles Valley is an arid closed basin lying 43 miles east of the south end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. It is bounded on the east and northeast by the Slate Range, on the west by the Argus Range and Spangler Hills, and on the south by the Lava Mountains. Searles (dry) Lake occupies the north-central part of the valley. During those parts of the late Pliocene and Pleistocene periods, precipitation and runoff from the east side of the Sierra Nevada into the Owens River were much greater than at present, and a chain of as many as five large lakes was created, of which Searles Lake was third. In Searles Valley, maximum-depth lakes rose to the 2,280-foot contour, the level of the spillway at the south end of the Slate Range that led overflowing waters to Panamint Valley. That spillway is about 660 feet above the present dry lake surface.

      Deposits in the Searles Lake Formation contain numerous fossil snails and clams, especially in Poison Canyon and Salt Wells Valley. These regions were near the main source of inflowing freshwater at the times Searles Valley contained large lakes, and the genera and species of snails and clams all indicate low-salinity environments. The same species of snail has also been found in Panamint Valley to the east, indicating that when Searles Lake contained freshwater, it also overflowed into Panamint Valley. Only one vertebrate fossil has been found, a fish found at a depth of 68 feet in mud that was deposited between 24,000 and 10,500 years ago.

      The 14 economically important saline mineral beds in Searles Lake are the products of 150,000 years of wet, glacial epochs separated by brief hot dry periods. When it was wet, the Owens River drained into Searles Valley, carrying over 40 chemical elements in its water. Some of these elements were leached from the rocks in the Sierra Nevada Mountains through glacial erosion, and other elements were the result of extensive volcanism in the Owens and Long Valleys and as far north as the Mono Craters. All dissolved elements were at very low concentrations in the river water. However, over many thousands of years and with a river flow averaging 290,000 gallons every minute, and two-and-a-half to four times that flow during glacial periods, many billions of tons of dissolved materials have been carried by the river’s water. During periods when the river flow was low to moderate, Searles Lake was the terminus lake for the river, so all of the dissolved elements accumulated in Searles Lake’s water. During periods of desiccation, these materials were deposited as saline mineral beds.

      Searles Lake has remained mostly dry since its most recent desiccation 10,500 years ago, except for a period centered at about 3,500 years ago when the lake surface rose to an elevation of about 1,800 feet, 180 feet above the present dry surface. This last desiccation was when the topmost mineral bed, the 50- to 80-foot thick Upper Salt, was deposited.

      Archeological sites occur at several locations in Searles Valley, including at the high-water shoreline, which may mean they are more than 10,000 years old. Other sites date from less than 500 years ago.

      Gold and silver miners built the first settlements in Searles Valley, although none were more than a collection of a few shacks or roofed dugouts. These were near their mines, first in the Slate Range and later in the Argus Range. None of their settlements were built to last, and all are now gone, most with little evidence they ever existed. Some of the early settlements and associated mills were burned by Indians, some were salvaged to be moved to other sites, and the rest succumbed to the elements, including flash floods, sun and wind, and vandals. Even the iron machines in their mills and their water pipes are now gone, collected to supply critical materials during World War II. The only exception is the Ruth Mine site in Homewood Canyon, although even there much of the small settlement that once existed is gone.

      In 1873, John Searles and his San Bernardino Borax Mining Company started mining borax that was found in the surface mud along the western edge of a dry lake that covers 50 square miles of the floor of Searles Valley. Their first borax mill was burned by Indians in the spring of 1878, but Searles quickly rebuilt his mill at a new site called Borax. This mill was the start of continuous habitation in Searles Valley by nonnative peoples, which has now lasted for more than 137 years.

      In 1912, potash was found in the brine in Searles Lake. With the outbreak of World War I, potash became a critical nutrient for the crops needed to feed our country. Two factories were built to process the brine to recover potash, but they had only marginal success. The year 1921 was pivotal for Searles Valley. One of the early potash factories had shut down in February, never to restart. The other factory shut down in May and remained closed the rest of the year. However, the scientists and engineers working for American Trona Corporation persevered and invented ways to make the idle plant one of the most profitable businesses in the country.

      Later, scientists learned that the dry lake would yield several other important and valuable mineral commodities, including borax, soda ash, and sodium sulfate, and there was an almost infinite supply of raw ore for these products. With this knowledge, the town started by John Searles was expanded several times as mining expanded. These new miners renamed the town Trona, taking this name from a highly abundant soda-ash mineral found in the dry lake.

      Initially, Trona was the commercial hub for the Panamint and Indian Wells Valleys as well as Searles Valley. The nearest town of consequence was Randsburg, 40 miles to the southwest. During World War II, the Department of the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1