Elizabeth Lake (Los Angeles County, California)
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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 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 ...
in the northern
Sierra Pelona Mountains The Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains and originally known as the Liebre Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, t ...
, in northwestern
Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...
, southern
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
.


Geography

The lake, at in elevation, is within 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 ...
. 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 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 ...
. 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 (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...
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 community of Lake Hughes, and shares the same zip code.


History


Name

In 1780, the Spanish explorer-priest
Junípero Serra Saint Junípero Serra Ferrer (; ; November 24, 1713August 28, 1784), popularly known simply as Junipero Serra, was a Spanish Roman Catholic, Catholic priest and missionary of the Franciscan Order. He is credited with establishing the Francis ...
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 mythical 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 conce ...
, which later came to be known as the Elizabeth Lake Monster. The creature is said to resemble a
dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...
, with leathery wings and scaly skin. Sometime after 1834, the lake was called La Laguna de Liebre (English: Jackrabbit 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 The Tataviam (Kitanemuk: ''people on the south slope'') are a Native American group in Southern California. The ancestral land of the Tataviam people includes northwest present-day Los Angeles County and southern Ventura County, primarily in ...
,
Kitanemuk The Kitanemuk are an Indigenous people of California and were a tribal village of the Kawaiisu Nation. The Kawaiisu traditionally lived in the Tehachapi Mountains and the Antelope Valley area of the western Mojave Desert of southern Californi ...
, and Serrano tribes of Native Americans. The Tataviam may have called it Kivarum. The
Vanyume The Vanyume or Desert Serrano are an Indigenous people of Southern California. Traditional Vanyume territory extended along the Mojave River from the Eastern Mojave Desert to present day Victorville and may have included portions of southern ...
, or desert Serrano, village of Tsivung was located near the lake.


Spain and Mexico

As early as the 1780s, the main inland route between southern and northern Spanish colonial Las Californias province 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, 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 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 ...
and westward to Cow Springs and the Cuddy Valley, and then down Cuddy Canyon to the
San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; Spanish language in California, Spanish: ''Valle de San Joaquín'') is the southern half of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an importa ...
. 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 The Tehachapi Mountains (; Kawaiisu: ''Tihachipia'', meaning "hard climb") are a mountain range in the Transverse Ranges system of California in the Western United States. The range extends for approximately in southern Kern County and northwe ...
via Old Tejon Pass, and down Tejon Creek canyon to the San Joaquin Valley. After 1843, much of that section was within the Mexican
Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva 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 was made a separat ...
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''
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 Rancho La Liebre was established in 1846 in
Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva 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 was made a separat ...
, 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''), also known as the California brown bear, California golden bear, or chaparral bear, is an extinct population of the brown bear, generally known (together with other North American brow ...
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, using the Fort Tejon Pass, and the Grapevine Canyon. The later
Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially 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 in ...
shortened the route to Cow Springs avoiding Mud Springs, skirting Elizabeth Lake to its north westward via the San Andreas Rift to Oakgrove Canyon 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 (; ;) is a person who transports goods using pack animals, especially mules. Distribution and function In Latin America, muleskinners transport coffee, maize, maize (corn), cork (mat ...
, on land given him by his employer, wealthy landowner
Edward Fitzgerald Beale Edward Fitzgerald Beale (February 4, 1822 – April 22, 1893) was an American naval officer, frontiersman, rancher and diplomat. He fought in the Mexican–American War, emerging as a hero of the Battle of San Pasqual in 1846. He achieved n ...
. Southwest of the Ortiz Adobe was the Andrada Stage Station adobe, sited where the old Fort Tejon Road entered San Francisquito Canyon. Circa 1915, there were
hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...
s in Elizabeth Lake Canyon. A U.S. government geologist reported, "They are not of high temperature nor notable flow, however, and are seldom visited. The San Andreas fault line is mapped as passing about 8 miles north of these springs, and its proximity suggests that the existence of the warm water may be due to subsidiary fracturing of the rocks." The
Crown Fire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a bushfire ( in Australia), desert ...
scorched in the area and destroyed 10 residences in 2010. The lake was dry between 2013 and 2023 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.


See also

* Elizabeth Lake, California — 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 occup ...
* – 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