Little Rock Creek is a northwestward-flowing

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

in the

San Gabriel Mountains The San Gabriel Mountains () are a mountain range located in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert ...

and

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

, within northern

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

. Its headwaters are in the

Angeles National Forest The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the United States 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 Gabri ...

, just west of Mount Williamson peak. Downstream the creek enters Little Rock Reservoir, impounded by Little Rock Dam. After released there it flows through Little Rock Wash into the

Antelope Valley The Antelope Valley is a valley primarily located in northern Los Angeles County, California, United States and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, Kern County, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated ...

of the western Mojave Desert. The

California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, commonly referred to as OEHHA (pronounced oh-EEE-ha), is a specialized department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) with responsibility for evaluati ...

has issued a safe eatin
advisory
for any fish caught in Little Rock Reservoir due to elevated levels of mercury and PCBs.

History

According to the toponomastic scholar, Erwin Gudde, "little" often refers to a place name when it is near to a larger geographic feature, in this case Little Rock Creek being close to Big Rock Creek The fifth

Pacific Railroad Survey The Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853–1855) were a series of explorations of the American West designed to find and document possible routes for a transcontinental railroad across North America. The expeditions included surveyors, scientists, and a ...

led by Lt. Robert Stockton Williamson and Colonel John Parke visited Little Rock Creek in 1853, as they surveyed the north slope of the San Gabriel Mountains. The first non-native settlement in the area was Santiago García, who was born circa 1833. He built an adobe on the north side of Little Rock Creek approximately to the east of where the creek turned from north to east near Totem Pole Ranch. At this wet spot, where the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental Fault (geology)#Strike-slip faults, right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly through the U.S. state of California. It forms part of the tectonics, tectonic boundary between the Paci ...

system forced water to the surface, the Garcia cienaga (canyon) was located. Santiago Garcia was killed in 1873 by a grizzly bear in what was later named Santiago Canyon.

Watershed and Course

Little Rock Creek's originates just west of the summit of Mount Williamson and flows down the north slope of the San Gabriel Mountains. Its main tributaries are South Fork Little Rock Creek and then Santiago Canyon Creek just before reaching Little Rock Reservoir. At Little Rock Dam it becomes Little Rock Wash which terminates in the Antelope Valley. Little Rock Creek is part of the Antelope Valley Watershed, which is a closed

endorheic basin An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

with no outlet. It is part of the South Lahontan Hydrologic Region.

Ecology

Lower Little Rock Creek is home to the endangered arroyo toad (''Anaxyrus californicus''), a factor leading to the closure of Little Rock Road and the forested areas upstream from the reservoir. The upper segment of the creek is located in the newly designated Pleasant View Ridge Wilderness area and supports an important population of endangered

mountain yellow-legged frog The mountain yellow-legged frog (''Rana muscosa''), also known as the southern mountain yellow-legged frog, is a species of true frog endemic to California in the United States. It occurs in the San Jacinto Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, a ...

(''Rana muscosa''). The Little Rock Creek watershed was protected by the October, 2014 designation of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

References

External links

*
Friends of the River
{{authority control Rivers of Los Angeles County, California San Gabriel Mountains Antelope Valley Mojave Desert San Gabriel Mountains National Monument Rivers of Southern California

History

Watershed and Course

Ecology

See also

References

External links