Pearsonville

Pearsonville is the home of a gas station, the Pearsonville Speedway, and the No Name Trailer Park. It is also home to Pearson Automotive, the self-proclaimed Hubcap Capital of the World where Grandma Lucy Pearson, the "Hubcap Queen" helps patrons search for hubcaps among the hundreds of thousands she has in stock. Dealers from Los Angeles regularly stop by to bring back hubcaps that they can sell at twice the price in the city.

Pacific Intertie

The twin power lines of the Owens Gorge Transmission Line and the Pacific Intertie cross the highway a few times, and they are visible throughout the valley. The 230,000 volt Owens Gorge Transmission Line delivers electricity generated at three hydroelectric plants in the Owens River Gorge to Los Angeles. Carrying 1,000,000 volts for 846 miles, the Paciific Intertie is the world's longest distance and highest voltage transmission line, bringing power from the hydroelectric plants of the Columbia river in Washington state to  the homes and industries of Southern California.

Red Hill

Red Hill (3952’) is a volcanic cinder cone that has been extensively mined for cinders used as aggregate in concrete and cement blocks. Some years ago, local citizens made a successful effort to save the Red Hill from complete destruction by limiting mining to the side hidden from the road. Volcanism continues underground to this day in the Coso volcanic field nearby. A geothermal plant east of the town of Coso Junction takes advantage of this free energy source.

Haiwee Reservoir

The Los Angeles Aqueduct consists of two roughly parallel pipe/channel systems. The original aqueduct was completed in 1913, and is gravity fed for its entire journey of over 200 miles to Los Angeles. A second aqueduct, roughly paralleling the original one, was completed in 1970. Both of these aqueducts flow into the Haiwee Reservoir, the southernmost reservoir in the "resource" (Owens Valley) end of the water supply system.

Emerging from the water at the southern end of the Haiwee are the intakes that draw the reservoir water into both the first (1913) and the second (1970) aqueducts. From this point to Los Angeles, the water flows only in troughs and pipes.

Crystal Geyser Plant

The primary source for the most popular bottled water brand in Southern California is in a series of metal sheds on the east side of the highway in Olancha. Here, the western shore of dried-up Owens Lake, is where Crystal Geyser spring water is pumped out of the ground and bottled. The path of the trucks carrying Crystal Geyser water to Los Angeles parallels that of water flowing through the Aqueduct.

Ruins of Cartago

Piles of potash and ruins from a processing plant that closed many years ago cover the area around the town of Cartago, which was once a port on Owens Lake. In the 1870s, bullion from the mines at Cerro Gordo that were shipped across the lake landed here, and were transferred on to Remi Nadeu's 14 mule teams for transport to Los Angeles. The teams then returned here, full of provisions, that were shipped across the lake to Keeler and up to the mines. This commerce helped to stimulate the formation of the City of Los Angeles.

Owens Lake

Owens Lake is a 100 square mile alkali lake that famously dried up after the city of Los Angeles diverted the region's water to its aqueduct. Dust blowing from the exposed dry lake bed makes OWens Lake the largest point source of PM 10 (10 micron Particulate Matter) airborne pollution in the country. After years of political campaigning by local residents, in July 1998 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District signed an agreement to attain federal air quality standards at the Lake by 2006. Dust control measures, already underway, consist of shallow flooding, cultivation of saltgrass, and spreading gravel on the lakebed.

The redness of the salt deposits is caused by salt loving halophilic bacteria. Their survival in this harsh and inhospitable environment makes them the subject of study by NASA, which believes that similar life could inhabit Mars and the Jovian moons Europa and Callisto. NASA is also studying the protein that gives the bacteria their intense color for possible “electronic ink” displays.

Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Chemical Plant Ruins

At the old rail siding of Bartlett, on the east side of the highway, and the west shore of Owens Lake, the ruins of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company's chemical plant are some of the few structures between Olancha and Lone Pine. The modernist lab building and the large sheds and silos have been largely unused since the 1960s, when the company ceased crystallizing and processing carbonate compounds mined from the exposed lake bed. After it was abandoned, the plant was bought by a Dr. McCabe, a medical valve inventor, who used it recreationally, along with some Hollywood friends. Though Dr. McCabe died some years ago, people who knew him still own the building.

Cerro Gordo Mine

Cerro Gordo is a classic Western ghost town, in the mountains east of Owens Lake. Starting in the 1860s, this remote site became a major source for silver, lead, zinc, and other minerals. An aerial tramway operated for a few decades, bringing ore from the mines, as high up as 9,000 feet, down to the shores of Owens Lake, where it was transported across the lake by steamships to the landing at Cartago. Later, the railway was brought around the lake to Keeler and Swansea, which had smelters and processing facilities for the mine. Now Cerro Gordo is a privately owned, partially restored historic site, reachable via a long dirt road.

Keeler

Keeler is the only existing settlement on the east side of Owens Lake. Through the 19th and early 20th century, the town was a landing for boats crossing the lake, a terminus for the area's narrow gauge railroad, and a center for mineral processing, and at one point had a population of 7,000 residents. Today, however, there are only 100 souls in Keeler, among whom live some of the region's more colorful characters, who live in overgrown houses, covered in Owens Lake dust. Just south of town, on Highway 136, the DWP has developed a staging area for the dust reduction programs on the lake.

Eastern Sierra Interagency Information Center

The Eastern Sierra Interagency Information Center provides information on the geology, ecology, history, and tourist possibilities of the Owens Valley and Eastern Sierra. Nine government agencies cooperate to run the information center. Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the contiguous forty-eight states is visible from here, through a display in the window.