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Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Why Is Grant Lake A Reservoir? A Brief Geological And Human History, From The Pleistocene To The Present, Robert B. Marks Jan 2024

Why Is Grant Lake A Reservoir? A Brief Geological And Human History, From The Pleistocene To The Present, Robert B. Marks

Eastern Sierra History Journal

Drawing on a range of archival resources and illustrative material, Prof. Marks probes why and how Grant Lake in the Eastern Sierra of California became a reservoir. The process is long and involved, and has much to do with a remote and ancient lake ultimately being developed to serve the water needs of the distant city of Los Angeles.


Diamond In The Rough: A Century Of Education And Democracy At Deep Springs College, L. Jackson Newell Jan 2024

Diamond In The Rough: A Century Of Education And Democracy At Deep Springs College, L. Jackson Newell

Eastern Sierra History Journal

Deep Springs College, one of the great innovations in American higher education, is the subject of this close reading of its history, educational philosophy, and present state. Situated in the rugged eastern California high desert, the college has managed to survive, even thrive, despite innumerable challenges.


“Dome Of The Continent”: Mount Whitney, Continental Expansion, And The Democratization Of The Sierra Nevada, Joseph Esparza Jan 2024

“Dome Of The Continent”: Mount Whitney, Continental Expansion, And The Democratization Of The Sierra Nevada, Joseph Esparza

Eastern Sierra History Journal

This article explores how Tumanguya, the Paiute name for what settler-colonists called Mount Whitney, became a landmark presence in the American environmental culture--and why.


Dispossessed Again: Paiute Land Allotments In The Mono Basin, 1907-1929, Robert B. Marks Jan 2023

Dispossessed Again: Paiute Land Allotments In The Mono Basin, 1907-1929, Robert B. Marks

Eastern Sierra History Journal

Like most California Indians, the Kutzadikaa people in the Mono Basin on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains were dispossessed of their land in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, they were not then removed to a reservation. They were left landless with no rights to reclaim their land until the Dawes Act (1887) made land allotments to non-reservation Indians possible. This article explores the history of land allotments in the Mono Basin, and places that story into the broader context of U.S. assimilationist policies but more importantly into the context of local history. Kutzadika …


Mr. Clover Goes To Washington: Land, Water, And Fraud In The Mono Basin, 1910-1945, Robert B. Marks Jan 2022

Mr. Clover Goes To Washington: Land, Water, And Fraud In The Mono Basin, 1910-1945, Robert B. Marks

Eastern Sierra History Journal

The water woes of the Mono Basin of the Eastern Sierra region of California did not begin when Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power began to purchase water rights there in the early twentieth century. Robert Marks argues persuasively that James B. Clover's water schemes predated, and in a sense, opened the way for Los Angeles later to tap Sierran snowmelt and funnel it down to Southern California.


This Land Is Their Land, Char Miller Apr 2021

This Land Is Their Land, Char Miller

Eastern Sierra History Journal

An 1891 petition to the United States government from the Indigenous people of the Yosemite Valley in the central Sierras offers a blistering indictment of the settler-colonial expropriation of their homeland and a counter narrative to conservationists who have debated for more than a century the impact of flooding the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide water to San Francisco.


Sheep Replace Pronghorn: An Environmental History Of The Mono Basin, Robert B. Marks Mar 2021

Sheep Replace Pronghorn: An Environmental History Of The Mono Basin, Robert B. Marks

Eastern Sierra History Journal

This article examines the ways in which the hunting-gathering people of the Mono Basin lived before their way of life and environment was overturned by the nineteenth-century arrival of Euro-American settlers with vastly different ways of interacting with the environment. And it tracks some of these alterations by tracking when and how sheep replaced pronghorns.


Gifford Pinchot's Legacy: America's Great National Forests, Char Miller Jan 2020

Gifford Pinchot's Legacy: America's Great National Forests, Char Miller

Eastern Sierra History Journal

Gifford Pinchot, the founding chief of the US Forest Service, had a profound impact in California and more broadly across the US west. After all, the Forest Service manages upwards of 193 million acres, many of which are located west of the Mississippi River. Yet it was California, which he visited in 1891, that rocked his perceptions of America the Beautiful.


Putting California On The Map: Von Schmidt’S Lines, David Carle Jan 2020

Putting California On The Map: Von Schmidt’S Lines, David Carle

Eastern Sierra History Journal

When Allexey Waldemar von Schmidt lived in California, from 1849 through 1906, the young state developed a reputation as a society of innovators and energetic problem-solvers. Von Schmidt was a surveyor and civil engineer, an involved citizen of San Francisco, a father and husband, and a pioneer whose triumphs and tragedies enlarged the California Dream. Historian David Carle argues here that this pioneering surveyor literally took California’s measure and documented every step of the way.


Crucible Of The Modern Republic: The Yosemite Grant And Environmental Citizenship, Jen A. Huntley Jan 2020

Crucible Of The Modern Republic: The Yosemite Grant And Environmental Citizenship, Jen A. Huntley

Eastern Sierra History Journal

The Yosemite Grant, which established the basis for the state, later national park in the central Sierra, initiated a powerful new force that constituted a tipping point in American environmental history, Jen A. Huntley argues. A moment in US history when the right combination of people and politics and ideas hit a nerve in the broad social psyche of a time and launched a new environmental understanding.


Making The Past Present: Editor's Note, Char Miller Jan 2020

Making The Past Present: Editor's Note, Char Miller

Eastern Sierra History Journal

For this inaugural volume of the ESHJ, editor Char Miller discusses the formative role that writer Mary Austin (1868-1934) has had in identifying many of the Eastern Sierra's key features, natural and human. This new journal hopes to add to the intellectual work that she launched, serving as a window into this complex, fascinating, and contested region.


Places Of Memory And Meaning: The Eastern Sierra And Mojave Desert, Glenn Pascall Jan 2020

Places Of Memory And Meaning: The Eastern Sierra And Mojave Desert, Glenn Pascall

Eastern Sierra History Journal

A long-time lover of the Eastern Sierra, Glenn Pascall recalls in words and photographs how and why this region of staggering beauty has resonated so deeply with him.


The Ever-Changing World Of The Paiute, Joseph Lent Jan 2020

The Ever-Changing World Of The Paiute, Joseph Lent

Eastern Sierra History Journal

In this important article, Joseph Lent offers a counter-narrative to settler-colonial conceptions of what we now call the Eastern Sierra that derives its power from the oral histories of the Paiute nation.


Gone Fishing: Military Brass In The High Sierra, 1944, Jack Fisher Jan 2020

Gone Fishing: Military Brass In The High Sierra, 1944, Jack Fisher

Eastern Sierra History Journal

Shortly after DDay, Generals George C. Marshall and H.H. (Hap) Arnold flew to Bishop CA for a fishing trip in the High Sierra. In this little-known episode, historian Jack Fisher explores the manifold significance of the generals' recreational trip, not least their need to get away from the wartime pressures.


Eastern Sierra Water: Historic Choices That Shaped California, David Carle Jan 2020

Eastern Sierra Water: Historic Choices That Shaped California, David Carle

Eastern Sierra History Journal

The story of Los Angeles' legendary water grab in the Eastern Sierra is well and often told. David Carle reengages compellingly with this history in this reflective essay that condenses a century's worth of battles over the flow and distribution of what some have called "white gold."


Horse Meadows And Bohler Canyon Arborglyphs: History Recorded On The Trees, Nancy Hadlock, Richard Potashin Jan 2020

Horse Meadows And Bohler Canyon Arborglyphs: History Recorded On The Trees, Nancy Hadlock, Richard Potashin

Eastern Sierra History Journal

In this close reading of Arborglyphs in canyons above the Mono Basin, the authors discuss how and why Basque shepherds and others carved their names with knives into (mostly) Aspens. Documenting these expressive markings is one way to reclaim the shepherd-artists' names and something of their experiences in the High Sierra tending their flocks.