California History on Highway 395
Museums, a Garden and Ghost Town Tell of Area's Past
A ghost town, a native plant garden, a World War II internment camp and museums with everything from rail cars to movie memorabilia relate Eastern California history.
Travelers along U.S. Highway 395 through eastern California will learn a good deal about the area’s history if they take time to visit the following stops along the way.
Located in a former elementary schoolhouse, built in Bridgeport in 1880, the Mono County Museum is best known for its collection of Paiute basketry (Paiute baskets are much more intricately woven than those of most other native Americans). Located on Emigrant Street behind the Memorial Hall in Bridgeport Park, the museum also contains early-day mining and farming equipment.
Bodie State Historic Park is the site of the 1859 gold discovery that initiated the Eastern Sierra’s great mining rush. With a population of 10,000, Bodie was California’s second largest town. More than 170 of its buildings remain standing today, making it the largest un-restored ghost town in the American West. Since it’s a ghost town, there are no stores in which to buy film, sunscreen et al, so bring them along.
The Mammoth Ski Museum (100 College Parkway across from the Mammoth campus of Cerro Coso College) enables visitors to view one of the largest collections of skiing-related art and literature in the world. Vintage posters, original paintings, photos and sculptures are among the art works on display. Exhibits and a film presented in the museum’s Pioneer Theater add insight into the area’s ski history.
Laws Railroad Museum and Historic Site (off Highway 395 on US 6 4.5 miles north of Bishop) chronicles the legacy of the last narrow gauge railroad west of the Rockies. Among the 28 buildings in the historical village are the original 1883 Laws Depot, the railroad turntable, agent’s house, general store and blacksmith shop. There’s also a railroad locomotive and cars onsite. Memorabilia displayed includes Native American items and mining equipment.
The Eastern California Museum and Bookstore in Independence (off Highway 395 at 155 N. Grant Street, three blocks west of the classic Inyo County Courthouse ) contains a large collection of historic photographs, Native American basketry and artifacts from the Manzanar Japanese relocation camp (see below). Botanists won’t want to miss the Mary DeDecker Native Plant Garden, with species ranging from the perennial alkali sacaton to an unusual species of lupine. DeDecker was a transplanted Oklahoman who spent half a century collecting and cataloguing area flora.
Manzanar National Historic Site, located on the west side of the highway between Independence and Lone Pine was one of ten internment camps where Japanese American citizens and resident Japanese aliens were interned during World War II. The Interpretive Center located in the former auditorium houses photographs and documents. There’s also a driving tour route.
The Southern Inyo Museum in Lone Pine contains the contents of an earlier museum that was founded in 1874 in the mining town of Darwin. Darwin, with an estimated population of 3,500, was once the largest town in Inyo County. The museum’s collections – of early day mining tools and equipment, minerals, bugs, stuffed reptiles and other memorabilia now occupies a small yellow building just off the highway at 127 West Bush Street. Among the exhibits are a surgical kit that belonged to Dr. Eramus Darwin French, a medical doctor/prospector for whom the original museum was named.
Newest museum on Highway 395 is the Beverly & Jim Rogers Museum of Lone Pine Film History, which opened in 2006. Dedicated to the more than 400 movies that were filmed in and around the nearby Alabama Hills, the museum is a treasure trove of parade and stunt saddles, cowboy clothing, prop guns, original posters and other memorabilia relating to the early days of Hollywood B-Westerns.
