I discovered this historical trivia myself by chance not long ago. While stopping in Kettleman City off of I-5, there's a retail complex called Bravo Farms. Inside, near the restrooms there's a map on the wall showing a massive "Tulare Lake". I could hardly believe such a large lake existed in this area not too long ago and it's mostly forgotten.

Google image search, and I found someone else posted a pic of the map: http://ink361.com/app/users/ig-2115609400/eccentricculinary/...

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown

There's a similar story in Israel. There used to be two lakes on the Jordan River (which isn't much a river anymore but that's a different story). The famous Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) and one further to the north called Lake Hula (Merom) that existed until it was drained in the 1950s.

I would highly recommend "Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water;" it goes into fair detail about Lake Tulare. Fascinating read.

Thanks for the recommendation! Linking here to make sure all the "HN Reads"-ish tools pick it up:

http://amzn.com/dp/B001RTKIUA

There used to be a fairly sizable indigenous community (referred to by English-speaking settlers as the Yokuts) in the vicinity of that lake. Some 70,000 strong at their pre-contact height (one of the highest regional populations in North America):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokuts_people

As a people they were apparently "drained" nearly out of existence, also, through the combined efforts of Mexican and European settlers, around the time that lake was drained (down to an estimated population of 600 by 1910).

For a good read on what happened to Lake Tulare, read "The King of California". The world's largest cotton plantation now sits in the lakebed and holds primary water rights. Pink sheet stock. Ticker BWEL.

I went to the library and browsed the book on your recommendation. It is indeed great. It includes a few photos and maps as well. I will have to find the time to read it.

Did you know there's a group trying to create rice that doesn't absorb arsenic?

It turns out one of the only things that can grow on depleted cotton land is rice, but the pesticides used against weevils contain arsenic, and for some weird reason people don't like to eat rice full of arsenic!

required reading on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/California-Indians-Their-Environment-I...

Kindle edition: http://amzn.com/dp/B0034XRFNK

Sell sell sell

I wonder how all these lost lakes impacted the regional climate

I've often thought about this.

I've wondered; if we built a huge trench from the ocean into the Sahara desert, what would the environmental impact be??

People have been making plans about how to flood parts of the Sahara for about 100 years. Some of the more colorful options involved using buried nuclear warheads as trench-digging tools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea

The Amazon rainforest would die. [1]

How much of it actually would die is obviously depends on factors like how big the replacement lake is and how much it affects the phosphorus, but I'm constantly amazed by how seemly separate systems are actually intimately interconnected.

[1] http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-h...

I can imagine it would quickly be filled in by sand. The Sahara is a slow moving ocean of sand particles.

The sand only moves if it is light. When the weather and climate changes, the make up of the sand changes and so does the way it moves. It is a complicated process and it would definitely have some surprises.

Actually, most of the Sahara is rocky, not sandy.

All the sandworms would die.

I had no idea about this facinating part of California history. To think I drove by near the spot dozzens of times between SF and LA wihout ever knowing. Thank you!

Wow - that's actually pretty mindblowing. I lived in Porterville (on the east side of the lake, apparently) when I was a teenager, and my dad was an archaeologist, so he must have known about it but I don't recall him mentioning it. Explains why that whole drive north from there is so flat, though.