Little Lake is a former settlement in

Inyo County Inyo County () is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is o ...

that lies just off

U.S. Route 395 U.S. Route 395 (US 395) is a U.S. Route in the western United States. The southern terminus of the route is in the Mojave Desert at Interstate 15 near Hesperia. The northern terminus is at the Canada–US border near Laurier, where the road ...

on Little Lake Road.

History

Little Lake was established largely as a traveler's stop along what eventually became US 395, after the

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...

dammed the site's eponymous landmark – once known as Owens Little Lake – as part of its work on the

Los Angeles Aqueduct The Los Angeles Aqueduct system, comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct (Owens Valley aqueduct) and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance system, built and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Owens Valley ...

in 1905. While early on the town had a store, auto repair shop and gas station, its most famous landmark was its namesake, rock-faced hotel constructed in 1923. Little Lake was a necessary stop for travelers journeying up to the

Eastern Sierra The Eastern Sierra is a region in California comprising the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, which includes Mono and Inyo Counties. The main thoroughfare is U.S. Route 395, which passes through Bridgeport, Lee Vining, Bishop, Big Pine, ...

from

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

for decades. In the 1920s, a trip from Los Angeles to a town such as Lone Pine might take two or three days necessitating a stay at locations like Little Lake before continuing onwards. In the 1940s, “sportsman traffic heading northward along US 395 considered Little Lake an important stop to spray cooling water on boiling radiators, feed hungry stomachs or to get gasoline.”

Decline

As technology improved, travelers no longer needed to stop as often for rest and supplies. By the 1960s travelers could easily go from Los Angeles to locations in the Eastern Sierra with little more than brief stops for gas. With these improvements small settlements like Bramlette, named after the founder and later renamed Little Lake, became increasingly obsolete. In the early 1960s, US 395 was realigned. As a result, the former alignment that Little Lake was built on became a

frontage road A frontage road (also known as an access road, outer road, service road, feeder road, or parallel road) is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. A frontage road is often used to provide access to private drivew ...

known as Little Lake Road, and the need to access it by leaving US 395 eventually spelled the demise of local businesses. In 1981, with Little Lake's population at 52 residents, Southern Pacific's "Slim Princess" Narrow Gauge Railroad that passed Little Lake had already long been abandoned and the rails were permanently removed. The Little Lake Hotel, which had evolved into an apartment building for local residents, burned in 1989 and was never rebuilt. In 1997, the

United States Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

ended service at Little Lake, and by the early 2000s Little Lake Road, building foundations, off ramps and even its road signs were bulldozed into oblivion and hauled away.

Current State

Though it remains properly marked as a geographic location on a few maps, the entire townsite had been restored to its natural state by the summer of 2001. The little lake, for which the town was named, is all that remains.

Citations

{{authority control Former settlements in Inyo County, California Former populated places in California