Old Salt Lake

Tongva people dug salt from the bottom of a spring-fed lake here and traded it inland, and the village beside it was Onoova-nga, the place of salt. In December 1854 Manuel Domínguez sold 215 acres of Rancho San Pedro, the lake with it, to Henry Allanson and William Johnson. They laid out an evaporation pond, then a boiling house of forty-eight wood-fired kettles, and hauled the sacks ten miles overland to San Pedro. The yield was 450 tons in 1879. Southern California Edison filled the lake in 1948 and built a power plant on it.

What the plaque says

This marker locates the site near which the Indians and early California settlers came to obtain their salt, which at many times was more valuable than gold. Presented by Tierra del Rey Parlor #300 Native Daughters of the Golden West March 27, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Monica Pier — 12 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 24 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Colorado Street Bridge — 24 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.

More markers nearby

• Manhattan Beach State Pier — 2.4 mi
• Site of Adobe Home of José Dolores Sepulveda — 4.7 mi
• Site of the Childhood Home of the Beach Boys — 6.1 mi
• Site of Old Whaling Station — 8.5 mi