The lost frontier

About this book

When water from the Owens River spilled into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, the lifeblood of the Owens Valley began to drain away. Much has been written about this diversion of water to quench the thirst of a rapidly growing metropolis, but little has been said about the patterns of rural livelihood and land use that had evolved in the Owens Valley over the decades prior to the diversion. This book examines details of the Owens Valley's overlooked past - where the early pioneers came from, how they farmed and survived in this isolated arid environment - in order to provide insights into the processes, the patterns, the hardships, and the adjustments associated with colonizing this arid frontier. Drawing on previously untouched sources regarding the settlement of the valley - federal land survey notes, tract book data, master title plat maps and historical indices, manuscript census schedules, and the valley's newspapers - Sauder not only puts the Owens Valley story in perspective but also sees it as a microcosm of broader processes and patterns that characterized much of the intermountain West. After experiencing more than sixty years of colonization efforts, the Owens Valley in the mid-1920s became a virtual colony of Los Angeles. As farmers left the valley, abandoned farmhouses were bulldozed by the city, and once-productive fields were invaded by desert scrub. The Owens Valley not only reveals much about the arid West's past, it also allows us to peer into, and perhaps influence, the region's future. The Lost Frontier now provides a yardstick against which recent environmental issues in the Owens Valley might be measured and offers insights into our options for protecting agriculture from urban growth.