Keeler Then to Now

Keeler Then to Now. . , In 1865 Pablo Flores found the richest vein of silver California has ever had ($17 million) overlooking Owens Lake at the crest of the Inyo Mountains. By 1868 Cerro Gordo Landing was growing to supply the mines. Water went up the "Yellow Grade" road every day on 50 burros at $.10 a gallon. Four years later, in 1872, the town's name was Hawley, and the Bessie Brady boat was cutting 8 days off the trip to San Pedro Harbor. , When James Marshall Keeler, a mining investor, got wind in 1882 that the Carson and Colorado narrow gauge train was being built to service the mines, he laid out a 42 block town site of 50' by 90' lots, and Hawley became Keeler. Eventually, silver was replaced by zinc, marble, soda ash, talc, agricultural products and livestock as the silver played out circa 1880. , By world war one, electricity came, and Los Angeles diverted the Owens River into the aqueduct, and the Owens Lake began evaporating. The twenties roared by, and the last operating narrow gauge train west of the Rockies kept Keeler going until the 50's. , When Southern Pacific lifted the rails in 1960, Owenyo Station House came from north of Lone Pine to house the new Keeler Volunteer Fire Dept. Keeler kept shrinking until the L.A. Dept of Water and Power was ordered to mitigate the dust caused by the evaporation of the Owens Lake, and the latest boom ($1.5 billion) began.