Valley Wells

Emigrants who had got clear of Death Valley crossed the Slate Range in early 1850, saw white ground spreading ahead of them and took it for water. It was the dry bed of Searles Lake, and what brine it held was undrinkable. They turned north and west in something close to despair and struggled over the Argus Range toward the settlements. The irony came later. Those same salts made the valley's fortune, and the mineral works at Trona now stand on the disappointment that nearly finished them.

What the plaque says

In this area, several groups of midwestern emigrants, who had escaped from hazards and privations in Death Valley in 1849, sought to secure water from Searles Lake. When they discovered its salty nature, they turned northward and westward in despair, and with travail crossed the Argus and other mountains to reach settlements of Central and Southern California.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Trona Pinnacles — 15 mi
  More than five hundred tufa spires standing on a dry Pleistocene lakebed outside Ridgecrest.