History

The Mysterious Tulare Lake

Story & Photos by Terry Ommen

For thousands of years on land that was once part of Tulare County, there was a large mysterious lake. It’s gone today, but in its prime, the west shoreline of Tulare Lake stretched nearly to what is now Kettleman City, and the east edge was close to the city of Tulare. It spread north almost to Lemoore, and its southern shoreline approached the current Kern County boundary. It was said to be larger than the Great Salt Lake—perhaps even the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes.

The lake was a mystical “shape-shifter,” frequently changing in size and shape. Annie R. Mitchell, Tulare County’s premier historian, called it a “phantom.” Even though it has disappeared, the story of Tulare Lake is worth another look. The huge freshwater inland lake was fed by numerous waterways that delivered melting snow from the Sierra Nevada. When the winter snowpack was deep, the melted snow came rushing down, expanding the lake’s shoreline. A lighter snowpack meant less water. Therefore, from year to year, Tulare Lake’s size would fluctuate. Eventually, water from the Sierra Nevada was diverted and the lake disappeared.

Though it frequently changed in size and shape, the lake was always large enough to be an awe-inspiring feature. For at least a millennium, native people known as Yokuts lived there, calling the lake Chintache. The inviting habitat provided them with fish, game, and tule plants for making baskets, boats and shelter. When Spanish explorers arrived several hundred years ago, they called the lake La Laguna de los Tulares—or roughly: “place where tules grow.” As American settlers arrived, it became Tulare Lake. Early American settlers also found the lake to be a valuable resource—especially cattlemen, who found prime grazing land with grass for cattle and tule roots for hogs.

Drawing of the sailing schooner named Water Witch on Tulare Lake. It operated on the lake in the 1870s and 1880s, eventually sinking in a storm. Courtesy Tulare County Library History Room

Allen J. Atwell, one of the early stockmen, took advantage of the bountiful lake. At the south end of present-day Alpaugh, there was a large island known as Root Island. He claimed it and ferried cattle and hogs out to it for grazing. The 7 mile-long, 1 ½ mile-wide area became known as Atwell’s Island. When the lake’s water level was low, hogs would wander off the island and live in the tules on the shoreline. For many years, chasing and hunting these wild pigs became a great sport.

Tulare Lake became a sportsman’s paradise for other reasons, too. It attracted wildlife of all kinds: ducks, geese, and many varieties of water fowl visited. Bears, deer, elk, antelope, and other animals were also drawn to this watery oasis. This menagerie of visitors brought out scores of hunters anxious to bag prey for sport and table.

In 1882, James W. A. Wright of Hanford joined Captain T. J. Conley, the skipper of the Water Witch, on a sightseeing excursion on Tulare Lake. Courtesy Wallace Elliott’s 1883 History of Tulare County.

There was another critter that found Tulare Lake appealing—the terrapin, also known as the pond turtle. They were everywhere in and around the water, with a concentration of them about six miles from what is now Kettleman City. It became known as Terrapin Bay. Commercial turtle fishermen frequented the area and caught all they wanted for hungry consumers who saw turtle soup as a delicacy. Fishing the waters reaped other huge rewards besides turtles: salmon, trout, perch, catfish, and other varieties of fish eagerly took fisherman’s bait or were caught in their nets.

Though the lake was a great resource for many, it also provided a backdrop for crime and violence. In the 1860s, Jack Gordon ran his hogs and lived on the lake. He was a gunfighter, murderer, robber, and cattle rustler—known as “a dangerous man who would shoot to kill upon the slightest provocation.” This reputation earned him a place on Tulare Lake known as Gordon Point.

In 1864, Jose Jesus Stenner axed three of his traveling companions to death while camped on the shores of the lake. The mentally disturbed teenage sheep herder was arrested, convicted, and hanged at courthouse square in Visalia—Tulare County’s first legal execution.

Finally, the story of Lakeview: In 1885, a San Francisco schemer by the name of Michael O’Brien bought a large parcel of land, divided the parcel into 7,912 lots, and advertised this new community as modern, complete with streets, and boasted it even had a public fountain. One St. Louis, Missouri man even purchased 192 lots. In 1889, the Visalia Weekly Delta exposed O’Brien as a fraud and Lakeview as a hoax, revealing that the town only existed on paper. Sarcastically, the Delta reported that in all probability Lakeview’s lots would “remain for years to come a favorite rendezvous for the hog, the frog and the slimy snail.”

Tulare Lake remained as part of Tulare County until 1893, when it became part of the newly-created Kings County. By this time, the lake water was already rapidly receding, as more irrigation ditches upstream diverted the water for crops before it reached the lake.

Exactly when the lake went totally dry is difficult to determine, but by the start of the 20th Century, it had all but disappeared. Today, the dry lake bottom is productive agricultural land, crisscrossed with irrigation canals and ditches. From time to time when the Sierra is heavy with snowpack, the lake comes back, but doesn’t stay long. Beyond those appearances, there is very little evidence that the mystery lake ever existed.