Yellowstone 2018-2

The Owens Valley

This will be a much-abbreviated lesson of one of the most important events in the history of the California.  Under the direction of City of Los Angeles engineer William Mullholland, the watershed of the Eastern Sierra Nevada in the form of Owens Lake was diverted to the City of Los Angeles providing water and hydroelectric power to the citizens of Los Angeles. To date, customers of the L.A. Department of Water and Power still enjoy rates low enough to make a San Diegan have an apoplexy.

While not criminal theft, it was abusive enough that Owens Lake was drained completely which ruined a thriving agricultural industry. I would recommend that as a citizen of California, you do some reading on this subject.  But for now, you want to know what this has to do with my road trip.  Well, U. S. 395 runs through the Owens Valley. (Isn’t clever the way he weaves two boring topics into one hyper-boring history lesson?) But the journey begins a little bit further south.

U.S. 395 came to San Diego in 1935 with its southern terminus at the intersection of Ash and 11^th streets, downtown.  Over the years several pieces were brought together resulting in a highway running north to south the length of the country and into British Columbia.  The route did not continue south of downtown to the Mexican border, but in those days only sailors and movie stars visited Tijuana, for their own nefarious reasons. (I’ll bet he makes up those big words!)

The economic drivers of U.S. 66 remained the same for the new I-40, so its path parallels closely that of the original “Mother Road”.  You could still get off of the freeway and visit the somewhat depressed Main Streets, but you did not have to; you could zip right by looking for the Best Western sign glowing in the desert twilight.  

Not true of U.S. 395.  Economic realities, and probably more than a few “fiscal initiatives”, saw the route of I-15 moved several hundred miles east into the State of Nevada and it’s sparkling new gem, Las Vegas. The leisure set got a new freeway and the Owens Valley and U.S. 395 was dealt another blow.

Okay, that’s it for the history lesson and I hope it gives you some sense of why this little corridor of California fascinates me so much.  Forthcoming posts consist of my experiences on this trip, and as little history as possible.  (Oh! Is there going to be a test?).