Walker's Pass

Walker crossed here going out. In 1834 he took his trappers east out of the San Joaquin through this notch, and the name fastened to a pass he used to leave California. Nine years later he brought Joseph Chiles's emigrant wagons back the other way, and the teams failed at Owens Lake, seventy miles short; the party finished on horseback and left the wagons in the alkali. The route was too long, and emigrants took the northern crossings instead. Only after 1860, hauling freight to the Owens Valley mines, did it become a working road.

What the plaque says

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL LANDMARK WALKER'S PASS DISCOVERED BY JOSEPH R. WALKER, AMERICAN TRAIL-BLAZER, WHO LEFT THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY THROUGH THIS PASS IN 1834. THIS AREA WAS TRAVERSED BY TOPOGRAPHER EDWARD M. KERN, AFTER WHOM THE KERN RIVER WAS NAMED, WHILE ACCOMPANYING THE FREMONT EXPEDITION OF 1845. AFTER 1860 IT BECAME A MINING FREIGHT ROUTE TO OWENS VALLEY. DEDICATED APRIL 1937 MARKER PLACED BY BAKERSFIELD PARLOR NO. 42 N.S.G.W. EL TEJON PARLOR NO. 239 N.S.G.W. KERN COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE STATE REGISTERED LANDMARK NO. 99 WALKER PASS HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A REGISTERED NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THE HISTORIC SITES ACT OF AUGUST 21, 1935 THIS SITE POSSESSES EXCEPTIONAL VALUE IN COMMEMORATING AND ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 1963 Dedicated to the Memory of Joseph Rutherford Walker 1798 - 1876 Who discovered this pass over the Sierra Nevada Mountains between the Great Basin and the Interior of California in 1834 DESIGNATED A NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK -- JULY 4, 1961 Presented by The Peter Lebeck and Platrix Chapters of E Clampus Vitus First Dedicated October 19, 1963 Restored April 29, 2012

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Freeman Junction — 7.9 mi
• Indian Wells — 8.7 mi
• Garlock — 22 mi
• Kernville — 23 mi