Manzanar (Spanish for "apple orchard") was a town in Inyo County, California, founded by water engineer and land developer George Chaffey.[1] Most notably, Manzanar is known for its role in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
A post office operated at Manzanar from 1911 to 1914.[2] Manzanar was a shipping point for the surrounding apple orchards before the diversion of water through the Los Angeles Aqueduct from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.[2]
Manzanar was first inhabited by Native Americans nearly 10,000 years ago. Approximately 1,500 years ago, the area was settled by the Owens Valley Paiute,[4][5] who ranged across the Owens Valley from Long Valley on the north to Owens Lake on the south, and from the crest of the Sierra Nevada on the west to the Inyo Mountains on the east.[6] Other Native American nations in the region included the Miwok, Western Mono, and Tubatulabal to the west, the Shoshone to the south and east, and the Mono Lake Paiute to the north.[6] The Owens Valley Paiute hunted and fished, collected pine nuts, and raised crops utilizing irrigation in the Manzanar area.[4][7] They also traded brown-ware pottery for salt from the Saline Valley, and traded other wares and goods across the Sierra Nevada during the summer and fall.[8]
The Owens Valley received scant attention from European Americans until the early 1860s, as it was little more than a crossroads on the routes through the area. When gold and silver were discovered in the Sierra Nevada and the Inyo Mountains, the resulting sudden influx of miners, farmers, cattlemen and their hungry herds brought conflict with the Owens Valley Paiute, whose crops were being destroyed.[9]
Approximately one-third of the Native Americans in the Owens Valley were relocated to Fort Tejon. "The Army didn't take them on a direct route, either, said Owens Valley Paiute elder Irene Button. "They were forced to walk all the way around the eastern shore of Owens Lake" (covers an area of approximately 108 square miles (280km2)).[10] After 1863, many returned to their permanent villages, established along creeks flowing down from the Sierra Nevada mountains. In the Manzanar area, the Owens Valley Paiute had established villages along Bairs, Georges, Shepherds, and Symmes creeks.[11]
Ranchers
When European American settlers first arrived in the Owens Valley in the mid-19th century, they found a number of large Paiute villages in the Manzanar area.[12] John Shepherd, one of the first of the new settlers, homesteaded 160 acres (65ha) of land 3 miles (5km) north of Georges Creek in 1864. With the help of Owens Valley Paiute field workers and laborers,[13] he expanded his ranch to 2,000 acres (810ha).[14]
As the area was developed, its farmers by 1922 produced "probably 90 per cent Winesaps on 400 to 500 acres (160 to 200ha) of bearing trees," even with its "limited water supply." Inyo County agricultural agent J.P. Hertel predicted that year the growers would "no doubt plant many more trees in the future and irrigate them by the development of large wells."[15]
In 1925 it was known as "one of the best apple and peach districts in California."[16]
Township
George Chaffey
In 1905, George Chaffey, an agricultural developer from Southern California, purchased Shepherd's ranch and subdivided it, along with other adjacent ranches. He founded the town of Manzanar in 1910,[17][18] "on the main trunk line of the Southern Pacific."[19] By August 1911, the town had a population of "almost 200 people."[20]
The articles of incorporation for a Manzanar Water Company were filed on September 15, 1910, with capital stock of $250,000. The incorporators, directors, and subscribers were G.A. Hanson, Isaac Baxter and C.E. Searls.[21]
In January 1911, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors approved an application by Chaffey's Owens Valley Improvement Company for a telephone line linking Independence, Lone River, Owengo, Francis, Citrus and Manzanar.[22]
The company built an irrigation system over an area of a thousand acres and planted about twenty thousand fruit trees.[17][20]
Ira L. Hatfield was the town's first postmaster, appointed in May 1911.[23] The first post office was at Thebes, a town 1.5 miles away.[24]
Manzanar Community Hall, ca. 1912. In back is Hatfield's (later Bandhauer's) General Store, which housed the post office.
In summer 1911, a "one and a half story building, 40x50" was erected at the corner of Francis and Independence avenues. The lower floor included a hall to be used "for public gatherings, church, Sunday-school and dancing." Four rooms were to be used for a company office, a barber shop and "other small lines of business." The upper floor was planned for "a good-sized hall to be used for lodge purposes."[24]
By 1920, the town had more than twenty-five homes, a two-room school, a town hall, and a general store.[18] Also at that time, nearly 5,000 acres (2,000ha) of apple, pear, and peach trees were under cultivation; along with crops of grapes, prunes, potatoes, corn and alfalfa; and large vegetable and flower gardens.[17][26]
"Manzanar was a very happy place and a pleasant place to live during those years, with its peach, pear, and apple orchards, alfalfa fields, tree-lined country lanes, meadows and corn fields," said Martha Mills, who lived at Manzanar from 1916 to 1920.[27]
Quenching Los Angeles' thirst
Unlined section of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, just south of Manzanar near U.S. Route 395, 2007
In 1913, the City of Los Angeles completed construction of its 233-mile (375km)Los Angeles Aqueduct.[28] It did not take long for Los Angeles water officials to realize that Owens River water was insufficient to supply the rapidly growing metropolis. In 1920, they began to purchase more of the water rights on the Owens Valley floor. As the decade went on, the City of Los Angeles bought out one Owens Valley farmer after another, and extended its reach northward into Mono County, including Long Valley.[29] By 1933, the city owned 85 percent of all town property and 95 percent of all ranch and farm land in the Owens Valley, including Manzanar.[18]
Although some residents sold their land for prices that made them financially independent and relocated, a significant number chose to stay. In dry years, Los Angeles pumped ground water and drained all surface water, diverting all of it into its aqueduct and leaving Owens Valley ranchers without water.[30] Without water for irrigation, the holdout ranchers left their ranches and their communities; that included the town of Manzanar, which was abandoned by 1929.[4]
There was so much water during those early years, that when a horse pulled a buggy, the water frequently came up to the horse's knees," said Lucille DeBoer, who lived on a ranch at Manzanar. "When this happened, the children took off their shoes and socks to walk home. In the early 1900s the City of Los Angeles started to purchase ranches in the Owens Valley for the sole purpose of supplying water to the people in Los Angeles. People started to sell their land to the city, which put in wells to drain the water out of the ground; the trees began to die; and the land finally turned to vacant dirt. This ended the Land of the Big Red Apples"[26]
By the beginning of August 1924, however, "the purchase of the Manzanar district for $780,000 was consummated by Los Angeles."[31]
The 4,958-acre (2,006ha) Manzanar tract of 68 parcels was obtained by the city for an "aggregate price" of $788,120 ($159 an acre). It was described as lying "between the north end of the Alabama Hills and the town of Independence." It was fed by the "Shepard [sic], George, Bairs, Symmes and Pinyon creeks." City engineer William Mulholland said the land would be valuable to the city "chiefly as a subterranean reservoir of water."[32]
By 1925, as a result of farmers and others moving away from Manzanar as Los Angeles purchased their properties, the "two-teacher school" was expected to have only seven pupils.[33]
The Manzanar and Independence, California, school districts were merged,[34] but the combined district was suspended, or it lapsed, in 1934.[35]
The ranches remained, and Los Angeles offered the land and the buildings on them for lease.[16][36] Many farmers who had sold out leased their farms back. Water from a new well was made available to some.[37] Victor M. Christopher, who had been working for the Owens Valley Improvement Company, was hired by the city to "look after the maintenance and leasing of the whole tract."[38]
Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one of the smaller internment camps. It is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, approximately 230 miles (370 km) north of Los Angeles. Manzanar means "apple orchard" in Spanish. The Manzanar National Historic Site, which preserves and interprets the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States, was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the ten former camp sites.
Inyo County is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is on the east side of the Sierra Nevada and southeast of Yosemite National Park in Central California. It contains the Owens River Valley; it is flanked to the west by the Sierra Nevada and to the east by the White Mountains and the Inyo Mountains. With an area of 10,192 square miles (26,400 km2), Inyo is the second-largest county by area in California, after San Bernardino County. Almost one-half of that area is within Death Valley National Park. However, with a population density of 1.8 people per square mile, it also has the second-lowest population density in California, after Alpine County.
Bishop is a city in California, United States. It is the largest populated place and only incorporated city in Inyo County. Bishop is located near the northern end of the Owens Valley, at an elevation of 4,150 feet (1,260 m). The city was named after Bishop Creek, flowing out of the Sierra Nevada; the creek was named after Samuel Addison Bishop, a settler in the Owens Valley. Bishop is a commercial and residential center, while many vacation destinations and tourist attractions in the Sierra Nevada are located nearby.
Lone Pine is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States, located 16 mi (26 km) south-southeast of Independence at an elevation of 3,727 ft (1,136 m). The population was 2,035 at the 2010 census, up from 1,655 at the 2000 census. The town is located in the Owens Valley, near the Alabama Hills and Mount Whitney, between the eastern peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the west and the Inyo Mountains to the east. The local hospital, Southern Inyo Hospital, offers standby emergency services. The town is named after a solitary pine tree that once existed at the mouth of Lone Pine Canyon. On March 26, 1872, the very large Lone Pine earthquake destroyed most of the town and killed 27 of its 250 to 300 residents.
Tecopa is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeast Inyo County, California, United States. It was established in the late 19th century as mining town. It is now better known for the natural hot springs north of the current townsite.
Owens Valley is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains, and is within the northern end of the Mojave Desert. It sits on the west edge of the Great Basin. The mountain peaks on the West side reach above 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is about 4,000 feet (1,200 m), making the valley the deepest in the United States. The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the Land of Little Rain". The bed of Owens Lake, now a predominantly dry endorheic alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley.
Owens Lake is a mostly dry lake in the Owens Valley on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Inyo County, California. It is about 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Lone Pine. Unlike most dry lakes in the Basin and Range Province that have been dry for thousands of years, Owens held significant water until 1913, when much of the Owens River was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct, causing Owens Lake to desiccate by 1926. A 2004 court order required the LADWP to reestablish a small flow from the river into the lake. As of 2013, it is the largest single source of dust pollution in the United States.
The California Water Wars were a series of political conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California over water rights.
Frederick Eaton was a major individual in the transformation and expansion of Los Angeles in the latter 19th century through early 20th century, in California. Eaton was the political mastermind behind the early 20th century Los Angeles Aqueduct project, designed by William Mulholland.
The Owens River is a river in eastern California in the United States, approximately 183 miles (295 km) long. It drains into and through the Owens Valley, an arid basin between the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada and the western faces of the Inyo and White Mountains. The river terminates at the endorheic Owens Lake south of Lone Pine, at the bottom of a 2,600 sq mi (6,700 km2) watershed.
George Chaffey was a Canadian–born engineer who with his brother William developed large parts of Southern California, including what became the community of Etiwanda and cities of Ontario, and Upland. They undertook similar developments in Australia which became the city of Mildura, and the town of Renmark and Paringa.
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is a United States national recreation area containing many individual parks and open space preserves, located primarily in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. The SMMNRA is in the greater Los Angeles region, with two thirds of the parklands in northwest Los Angeles County, and the remaining third, including a Simi Hills extension, in southeastern Ventura County.
Coso Hot Springs is a hot spring complex in the Coso Volcanic Field in the Mojave Desert of Inyo County, California. The Springs are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Laws is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California. Laws is located 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Bishop on U.S. Route 6, towards the Nevada state line.
The history of the San Fernando Valley from its exploration by the 1769 Portola expedition to the annexation of much of it by the City of Los Angeles in 1915 is a story of booms and busts, as cattle ranching, sheep ranching, large-scale wheat farming, and fruit orchards flourished and faded. Throughout its history, settlement in the San Fernando Valley was shaped by availability of reliable water supplies and by proximity to the major transportation routes through the surrounding mountains.
Fort Independence, originally named Camp Independence, was a fort located in the Owens Valley, 3 miles (4.8 km) north of present-day Independence, Inyo County, eastern California. The U.S. Army post was active from 1862 to 1877.
Manzanar is a historic site of a former World War II Japanese-American incarceration camp
Pawona Witu is an archeological site near Bishop in Inyo County, California that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The listing included 1,080 acres (440 ha). Its location is not disclosed. Archeological sites are often listed on the National Register for their potential to yield knowledge in the future.
The Inyo County Courthouse, on N. Edwards St. in Independence, California, was designed by architect William H. Weeks in Classical Revival style, and was built in 1922. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
Battle of Bishop Creek was one of the early engagements of the Owens Valley Indian War fought on April 6, 1862 along Bishop Creek, in what is now Inyo County, California.
1 2 3 Durham, David L. (1998). California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State. Clovis, Calif.: Word Dancer Press. p.1182. ISBN1-884995-14-4.
↑ Steward, Julian H (1933). "Ethnography Of The Owens Valley Paiute"(PDF). University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology. 33 (3): 233–250. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
1 2 Burton, Jeffery F. (1996). Three Farewells To Manzanar: The Archeology of Manzanar National Historic Site, California. Part 1: Chapters 1–14. Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior. p.151. Publications in Anthropology 67.
↑ Van Horn, Lawrence F. (1995). Native American Consultations and Ethnographic Assessment: The Paiutes and Shoshones of Owens Valley, California. Western Archaeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, Denver Service Center. pp.3–4.
↑ Burton. Three Farewells To Manzanar: The Archeology of Manzanar National Historic Site, California. Part 1: Chapters 1–14. p.2.
↑ "In Owens Valley, Where Los Angeles, as Biggest Land Owner, Finds Itself Head Over Heels in the Farm Business," Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1926, (images 156 and 157).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
