Elizabeth Lake is a natural
sag pond
A sag pond is a body of fresh water collected in the lowest parts of a depression formed between two sides of an active strike-slip, transtensional or normal fault zone.
Formation
A sag pond is formed along a strike-slip fault, which may creat ...
that lies directly on the
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). ...
in the northern
Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northwestern
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the List of the most populous counties in the United States, most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, ...
, southern
California. The lake has been dry since 2013 because of prolonged drought.
Geography
The lake, at in elevation, is within the
Angeles National Forest
The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the U.S. Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabriel Mountai ...
. It is a natural perennial lake, but may dry up entirely during drought years. It is south of the western
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and ...
.
Elizabeth Lake is one of a series of
sag pond
A sag pond is a body of fresh water collected in the lowest parts of a depression formed between two sides of an active strike-slip, transtensional or normal fault zone.
Formation
A sag pond is formed along a strike-slip fault, which may creat ...
s created by the motion of the Earth's
tectonic plate
Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large te ...
s along the San Andreas Fault in the area, with others including
Hughes Lake and the
Munz Lakes
Munz Lakes is a small lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault in the northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, within Los Angeles County, California.
Geography
The lake is one of a series of sag ponds created by active tectonic plate movement of ...
. They are part of the northern upper
Santa Clara River watershed.
The
community of Elizabeth Lake is on the shore of the lake. It is administratively within the
unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to:
* Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality
* Unincorporated entity, a type of organization
* Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...
community of Lake Hughes, and shares the same zip code.
History
Nomenclature
In 1780, the Spanish explorer-priest
Junipero Serra named the lake La Laguna de Diablo (English: Devil's Lake), because some who lived nearby believed that within it dwelt a pet of the
devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...
, which later came to be known as the Elizabeth Lake Monster. The creature is said to resemble a
dragon, with leathery wings and scaly skin.
Sometime after 1834, the lake was called La Laguna de Liebre (English: Rabbit Lake) for a short time. Then in the 1840s it became known as La Laguna de Chico Lopez, for Francisco "Chico" Lopez, who grazed cattle on its banks.
Native American
Elizabeth Lake once marked a dividing point between the territories of the
Tataviam,
Kitanemuk
The Kitanemuk are an indigenous people of California. They traditionally lived in the Tehachapi Mountains and the Antelope Valley area of the western Mojave Desert of southern California, United States. Today some Kitanemuk people are enroll ...
, and
Serrano tribes of Native Americans. The Tataviam may have called it Kivarum.
Spain and Mexico
As early as the 1780s, the main inland route between southern and northern Spanish colonial
Las Californias province
The Californias (Spanish: ''Las Californias''), occasionally known as The Three Californias or Two Californias, are a region of North America spanning the United States and Mexico, consisting of the U.S. state of California and the Mexican sta ...
was
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles (English: the Old Road to Los Angeles). It became a well established inland route, and an alternative to the coastal
El Camino Real trail used since the 1770s. Locally, it ascended the Sierra Pelona Mountains via
San Francisquito Canyon
San Francisquito Canyon is a canyon created through erosion of the Sierra Pelona Mountains by the San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, Southern California.
Geography
The canyon cuts through the Sierra Pelona Mountains, which are central ...
, crossed through
San Francisquito Pass, ran north to the lake, and then skirted it and continued northwest to
Aguaje Lodoso (Mud Spring) in the
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and ...
and westward to
Cow Springs and the
Cuddy Valley, and then down
Cuddy Canyon
Cuddy Canyon is a canyon running along the boundary line between Kern County and Ventura County, California. It lies inside the Los Padres National Forest and southern San Emigdio Mountains.
The canyon includes the Tejon Pass mountain communitie ...
to the
San Joaquin Valley.
Another inland route diverged from the El Camino Viejo at Elizabeth Lake, going north to cross the western Antelope Valley and then up
Cottonwood Creek canyon, to cross over the
Tehachapi Mountains via
Old Tejon Pass, and down
Tejon Creek
Tejon Creek, originally in Spanish ''Arroyo de Tejon'', is a stream in Kern County, California. Its headwaters are located on the western slopes of the Tehachapi Mountains, and it flows northwest into the southern San Joaquin Valley.
History
'' ...
canyon to the San Joaquin Valley. After 1843, much of that section was within the Mexican
Alta California
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...
land grant of
Rancho Tejon. From 1849 to before 1854, it was the main road connecting the southern part of the state to the trail along the eastern side of the San Joaquin Valley to the goldfields to the north.
[ ''Where Rolls the Kern: a History of Kern County, California''](_blank)
Herbert G. Comfort; Enterprise Press; Moorpark, Ca; 1934; (#255); Chapter IV, "The Founding of Fort Tejon; pp. 21-52. "Before 1854, the' main line of travel into the valley was straight North from Elizabeth Lake across Antelope Valley, entering the San Joaquin by way of the original Tejon Pass, at the head of Tejon Creek, above the present headquarters of Tejon Rancho. The establishment of the Fort Diverted this general travel to the West almost 29 miles to the present Tejon Pass, then known as Fort Tejon Pass. As the Tejon Creek Pass was abandoned, the name Tejon Pass came to be used solely for the pass leading into Canada de las Uvas."
The
Mexican land grant
The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement for ...
Rancho La Liebre Rancho La Liebre was a Mexican land grant in present-day Kern County, California and Los Angeles County, given in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to José María Flores. Liebre means "Hare" in Spanish and the rancho was named as such because of the a ...
was established in 1846 in
Alta California
Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain, formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but ...
, with its southeastern section in the Sierra Pelona Mountains near the lake.
United States
In the early 1850s, the vicinity of La Laguna de Chico Lopez was a frequent haunt of
California grizzly bear
The California grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos californicus'') is an extinct population or subspecies of the brown bear, generally known (together with other North American brown bear populations) as the grizzly bear. "Grizzly" could have meant "gri ...
s—so numerous that cattle ranching was considered impossible.
In 1854, the route to the San Joaquin Valley shifted away from the Old Tejon Pass route to the
Stockton - Los Angeles Road Stockton may refer to:
Places Australia
* Stockton, New South Wales
* Stockton, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region
New Zealand
* Stockton, New Zealand
United Kingdom
* Stockton, Cheshire
* Stockton, Norfolk
* Stockton, ...
, using the
Fort Tejon Pass, and the
Grapevine Canyon. The later
Butterfield Overland Mail
Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...
shortened the route to Cow Springs avoiding Mud Springs, skirting Elizabeth Lake to its north westward via the San Andreas Rift to
Oakgrove Canyon Oakgrove may refer to:
;in England:
* Oakgrove, Cheshire
* Oakgrove, Milton Keynes
;in Ireland
* Oakgrove Integrated College, Derry, Northern Ireland
;in the United States
* McGehee-Stringfellow House, a former plantation known as ''Oakgrove'', n ...
then north via
Pine Canyon to Antelope Valley and westward again to Cow Springs.
The first building at the lake was
La Casa de Miguel Ortiz, an adobe built by Miguel Ortiz, a
muleteer
An ''arriero'', muleteer, or more informally a muleskinner ( es, arriero; pt, tropeiro; ca, traginer) is a person who transports goods using pack animals, especially mules.
Distribution and function
In South America, muleskinners transport ...
, on land given him by his employer,
Edward Fitzgerald Beale
Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale (February 4, 1822 – April 22, 1893) was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian affairs superintendent, California rancher, ...
. Southwest of the Ortiz Adobe was the Andrada Stage Station adobe, sited where the old Fort Tejon Road entered
San Francisquito Canyon
San Francisquito Canyon is a canyon created through erosion of the Sierra Pelona Mountains by the San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, Southern California.
Geography
The canyon cuts through the Sierra Pelona Mountains, which are central ...
.
In 2013, wildfires swept through the Lake Elizabeth area. The lake has been dry ever since 2013, unrelated to the fire but because of a drought.
Education
In 1869, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors designated the Elizabeth Lake School District to serve the area, which had the only established school between Los Angeles and Bakersfield. Land for the school was donated by Samuel and Almeda Frakes from their ranch lands. Children from the Lake Hughes, Elizabeth Lake, and Green Valley areas are still served by this school district.
The 1869 wooden schoolhouse lasted until it was replaced by an adobe structure in the early 1930s, located on the east side of Elizabeth Lake Road, ¼ mile north of Andrada Corner at the intersection of San Francisquito and Elizabeth Lake Roads.
Lake Hughes
In 1924, Judge Hughes renamed the sag pond to the west of Elizabeth Lake to
Lake Hughes
Lake Hughes is an unincorporated community in northern Los Angeles County, California. It is in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, northwest of Palmdale and north of the Santa Clarita Valley, in the Angeles National Forest. It is on the sag pond wate ...
, and created a recreational resort area around it.
See also
*
Elizabeth Lake, California
Elizabeth Lake is a census-designated place (CDP) and unincorporated community on Elizabeth Lake (lake), in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,756.
Geography
The community of Elizabeth ...
— community on lake
*
List of lakes in California
There are more than 3,000 named lakes, reservoirs, and dry lakes in the U.S. state of California.
Largest lakes
In terms of area covered, the largest lake in California is the Salton Sea, a lake formed in 1905 which is now saline. It occupie ...
* – related topics
References
External links
*
Weird California - The Monster of Elizabeth Lake
{{authority control
Lakes of Los Angeles County, California
Santa Clara River (California)
Sierra Pelona Ridge
Angeles National Forest
El Camino Viejo
Lakes of California
Lakes of Southern California