1913 Map of Ballarat

About this map

Owens Lake and the surrounding desert basins define this early twentieth-century survey of the high desert along the California-Nevada border. This was an era of intense resource extraction, evidenced by the industrial infrastructure of the Soda Works on the lake shore and the Southern Pacific railroad line skirting the Inyo Mountains. The map details the isolated mining settlements and camps that once thrived in these canyons, including the high-altitude Skidoo, the mining hub of Darwin, and the community at Ballarat.