Grave of 1872 Earthquake Victims

At half past two on the morning of 26 March 1872 the valley floor shifted several feet sideways and Lone Pine came down. Fifty-two of the town's fifty-nine buildings were destroyed and twenty-seven of its roughly three hundred people died, most in their beds. Adobe walls collapsed where timber frames largely held, so the dead were overwhelmingly those who lived in adobe. They lie together here — French, Irish, Chilean, Mexican and Native ancestry — and the records still do not agree on how many.

What the plaque says

On the date of March 26, 1872, an earthquake of major proportions shook Owens Valley and nearly destroyed the town of Lone Pine. Twenty seven persons were killed. In addition to single burials, 16 of the victims were interred in a common grave enclosed by this fence.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Alabama Hills — 3.8 mi
  Rounded golden granite under the Sierra wall, and Hollywoods oldest outdoor set.
• Manzanar National Historic Site — 9.0 mi
  A concentration camp on twice-taken ground, where the United States imprisoned more than eleven thousand of its own.
• Mount Whitney — 13 mi
  At 14,505 feet, the highest summit in the contiguous United States, eighty miles from the lowest point.
• Owens Lake — 16 mi
  Patsiata, the lake Los Angeles drank, and the most expensive dust in America.

More markers nearby

• Manzanar Relocation Center — 8.6 mi
• Furnace of the Owens Lake Silver-Lead Company — 11 mi
• Site of Bend City — 14 mi
• Cottonwood Charcoal Kilns — 14 mi