1907 Map of Mt. Whitney

About this map

Independence serves as the focal point of this high-altitude landscape, situated where the arid Owens River valley meets the towering eastern face of the Sierra Nevada. Surveyed just after the turn of the century, the map reveals a corridor of early Owens Valley settlement including Lone Pine, Aberdeen, and Manzanar—decades before the latter became a site of wartime interment. The Southern Pacific Railroad traces the valley floor, facilitating the region’s early mining and ranching economy, evidenced by the Bluebell Mine in the Inyo Mountains to the east.