Opinion: California’s ghostly Tulare Lake will be revived this year
Spanish soldier and California explorer Pedro Fages was chasing deserters in 1772 when he came across a vast marshy lake and named it Los Tules for the reeds and rushes that lined its shore.
Its abundance of fish and other wildlife supported several Native American tribes, who built boats from the lake’s reeds to gather its bounty. It was a fairly common phenomenon in the 19th century, but the last time it happened naturally was in 1878. With the arrival of the railroad, the region was becoming an agricultural center and farmers were diverting water from Tulare’s tributaries for irrigation.
Once dry, the lakebed became the site of immense cotton farms, principally those of the Boswell and Salyer families. However, every few decades nature would reassert itself, piling up so much snow in the Sierra that the dams and levees were unable to contain the Kings and other rivers and Tulare Lake would be recreated.
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