Before the White Man arrived, the Owens Valley was inhabited by the
Southern Paiute Indians of the Mono Tribe, who occupied the cooler
mountain valleys in the summers and retreated to the warmer Owens
Valley floor during the winter months.
The
town of Lone Pine is named after the lonely pine tree that was found at
the mouth of Lone Pine Canyon. The town was founded during the 1860's to
provide supplies to the local gold and silver mining
communities of Kearsarge, Cerro Gordo and Darwin, and later to farmers and
ranchers. The pine tree has long since vanished, destroyed in flood.
Mount Whitney was first discovered by a
California Geological Survey team in 1864, who named the peak after Josiah
Whitney, a Professor at the California Academy of Sciences. Members of the
survey team, William Brewer and Clarence King attempted to climb the peak
but were unsuccessful. Whitney was first climbed on August 18, 1873, by
three Lone Pine locals; Charley Begole, Johnny Lucas, and Al Johnson.
Over the years the town has endured an Earthquake
the magnitude of the "Big One" in San Francisco in 1906, it has
been home to a transient mining population, was home to the construction
workers building the LA Aqueduct, and has hosted the crews responsible for
many classic feature films. During World War
II Japanese American were confined in the Manzanar
relocation camp.
