Lone Pine Off The Beaten Path

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Lots of wonderful murals located up along the street. For starters the one on the
The Beverly and Jim Rogers Museum of Lone Pine Film History building is awesome and if you walk along the main street, you see one from the Lone Pine Drug Store, behind Jakes Saloon, on the wall nearest the main street on Bonanza Restaurant, and a neat little one on The Trails Head Inn. Murals are so artistic and can really be the show case of a community. Hopefully Lone Pine will grace us with more!

The Chamber of Commerce
Monday through Friday 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
We are closed most Legal Holidays.
760.876.4444
P.O Box 749 Lone Pine, CA 93545

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On March 16, 1872 at 2:30 AM Lone Pine experienced an earthquake that destroyed 60 buildings and killed Twenty-six people. Most of the building were built out of adobe so they crumbled easily. So these twenty six people were burried into a mass grave. A marker and a flag pole and memorial plaque is left to remember what was lost.

The marker reads:
Disaster in 1872
On the date of March 26, 1872,
An earthquake of major proportions shook Owens Valley and nearly destroyed the town of Lone Pine. Twenty-seven persons were killed. In addition to single burials, 16 of the victims were interred in a common grave enclosed by this fence.
California Historical Marker NO. 507

Flag Pole and Lions Club plaque reads:
March 26, 1988
116 years ago this date an 8.3 earthquake hit Lone Pine, 27 people died, 16 are buried at this site in a common grave. Alice Meysan age 11 (family still resides in Independence), Manuel Ybaceta, Anotonia Montoya, Maria Tarrazona & her 3 children. The rest of French, Irish, Chilean, Mexican, Native American ancestry are known but to GOD. March 26, 1872.

Located 200 ft W of State Hwy 395 (P.M. 58. 7), 0.9 mi N of Lone Pine.

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This whole area is still is a favorite for movie makers. This marker is right at the entrance where some of the most favorable Hollywood movies were made from the 1920's-1950's.

This marker reads:
Movie Flats
Since 1920 hundreds of movies and TV episodes, including Gunga Din, How The West Was Won, Khyber Rifles, Bengal Lancers, and High Sierra, along with, The Lone Ranger and Bonanza, with such stars as Tom Mix, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gary Cooper, Gene Autry, Glen Ford, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne, have been filmed in these rugged Alabama Hills with their majestic Sierra Nevada background. Plaque dedicated by Roy Rogers, whose first starring feature was filmed here in 1933.
Plaque Placed By
E Clampus Vitus
Slim Princess Chapter #395
October 7, 1990

Location is in Lone Pine from Hwy 395, drive west up Whitney Portal Road 2.7 iles and look for Movie Road on your right.

Mount Whitney is not known for its scenery. Don't get me wrong- the Sierras really are beautiful. But its a desert like environment and lacks the greenery and abundant mountain scenery found elsewhere. Still, there are sights to behold while you are gasping your way up the trail. We found this waterfall about a mile into the hike. It gave us something to pause and admire. I think I was more grateful for the pause than anything else. When I found out we'd only gone a mile, it began to sink in that it wasn't going to be the mileage that counted on this trip. I started to realize just how difficult this was going to be. We all underestimated it just a bit, as we'd later come to realize. But, at that moment, sheltered from the harsh afternoon sunlight by a rare bit of forest and feeling the cool water vapors on our skin, we were just enjoying the moment.

As we headed south of Lone Pine, we skirted the northern edge of the Mojave Desert at Indian Wells Valley, before heading West along route 178, it was here that we encountered the northernmost range of the Surreal looking Joshua Tree, so named because its branches are siad to resemble the arm of the prophet Joshua as he pointed, spear in hand, to the city of Ai, in ancient Greece. The scientific name of Joshua tree is Yucca brevifolia and they are found only in North America in the states of California, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, and can live a couple hundred years.

One of the most beautiful spectacles in spring is the creamy white blossoms of blooming Joshua trees. These white candles can be seen from February to late April. Joshua trees do not branch until after they bloom and they don’t bloom every year.

It was quite an amazing sight seeing these spectacular members of the Yucca family marching off into the distance, but my favourites still have to be the Saguaro Cacti of the Sonoran Desert...

BTW: Watch out as this is most assuredly RATTLESNAKE COUNTRY!