Garlock

Garlock existed because the water was here and the ore was not. Freighters and cattlemen watered at Cow Wells to skirt the Red Rock washes, and when the Yellow Aster came in on Rand Mountain its ore was hauled down to be crushed where the water already stood. Eugene Garlock of Tehachapi set up an eight-stamp mill, and miners spoke of going down to the Garlock mill, then down to the Garlock, until the name stuck. In 1898 the water was piped to Randsburg instead, and the town went with it.

What the plaque says

Garlock In 1896 Eugene Garlock constructed a stamp mill near this spot for the crushing of gold ore from the Yellow Aster Mine on Rand Mountain. Known originally as Cow Wells, by prospectors and freighters during the 1880's and early 1890's, the town of Garlock continued to thrive until water was piped from here to Randsburg in 1898, and the Kramer-Randsburg rail line was completed in the same year. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 671 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with the Kern County Historical Society, El Tejon Parlor No. 239, Native Daughters of the Golden West, and the Kern County Museum, May 22, 1960.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Trona Pinnacles — 28 mi
  More than five hundred tufa spires standing on a dry Pleistocene lakebed outside Ridgecrest.

More markers nearby

• Rand Mining District — 8.0 mi
• Desert Spring — 12 mi
• Freeman Junction — 15 mi
• Indian Wells — 19 mi