Mary Austin's Home

Mary Austin wrote The Land of Little Rain here in Independence, published in 1903, and its argument was that dry country is not empty country. She wrote the valley as inhabited — by Paiute families, by Basque shepherds and prospectors, by the plants and animals that had worked out how to stay — at a time when the standard literary register for desert was blankness. She later opposed the diversion of the Owens River to Los Angeles, having already set down what the water was for.

What the plaque says

"But if ever you come beyond the borders as far as the town that lies in a hill dimple at the foot of Kearsarge, never leave it until you have knocked at the door of the brown house under the willow-tree at the end of the village street, and there you shall have such news of the land, of its trails and what is astir in them, as one lover of it can give to another..." — The Land of Little Rain

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Manzanar National Historic Site — 5.7 mi
  A concentration camp on twice-taken ground, where the United States imprisoned more than eleven thousand of its own.
• Mount Whitney — 16 mi
  At 14,505 feet, the highest summit in the contiguous United States, eighty miles from the lowest point.
• Alabama Hills — 17 mi
  Rounded golden granite under the Sierra wall, and Hollywoods oldest outdoor set.
• Owens Lake — 31 mi
  Patsiata, the lake Los Angeles drank, and the most expensive dust in America.

More markers nearby

• Site of Putnam's Cabin — steps away
• Camp Independence (Fort) — 2.5 mi
• Site of Bend City — 4.1 mi
• Manzanar Relocation Center — 6.1 mi