Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns

Cerro Gordo burned every tree within reach of itself, so its furnaces had to import their fire. In June 1873 Colonel Sherman Stevens built a sawmill high on Cottonwood Creek and a flume to bring the wood down to these two kilns, where it smouldered for about ten days into charcoal. Wagons carried it to Stevens Wharf; the steamer Bessie Brady crossed Owens Lake in three hours rather than the three days it took to drive around; mule teams hauled it up the Yellow Grade.

What the plaque says

In June 1873 Colonel Sherman Stevens built a sawmill and flume on Cottonwood Creek high in the Sierras directly west of this spot. The flume connected with the Los Angeles Bullion Road. The lumber from the flume was used for timbering in the mine and buildings, and the wood was turned into charcoal in these kilns, then hauled to Steven's Wharf east of here on Owens Lake. There it was put on the steamer the "Bessie Brady," or the "Mollie Stevens," hauled directly across the lake, and from there wagons took it up the "Yellow Grade" to Cerro Gordo Mine, high in the Inyo Mountains above Keeler. M. W. Belshaw's furnaces had used all available wood around the Cerro Gordo and this charcoal was necessary to continued production. The bullion which was then taken out by the reverse of this route was hauled to Los Angeles on Remi Nadeau's 14, 16, 18 animal freight wagons and played a major part in the building of that little pueblo into the city of today.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Owens Lake — 8.3 mi
  Patsiata, the lake Los Angeles drank, and the most expensive dust in America.
• Alabama Hills — 11 mi
  Rounded golden granite under the Sierra wall, and Hollywoods oldest outdoor set.
• Mount Whitney — 19 mi
  At 14,505 feet, the highest summit in the contiguous United States, eighty miles from the lowest point.
• Manzanar National Historic Site — 23 mi
  A concentration camp on twice-taken ground, where the United States imprisoned more than eleven thousand of its own.

More markers nearby

• Furnace of the Owens Lake Silver-Lead Company — 9.6 mi
• Farley's Olancha Mill Site — 9.7 mi
• Grave of 1872 Earthquake Victims — 14 mi
• Manzanar Relocation Center — 23 mi