History of Mammoth Lakes

The history of Mammoth Lakes began 200,000 years ago, before humans settled in the area. There were many volcano eruptions in the Mammoth Lakes area. The last eruption took place 50 millennia ago.

The Mammoth Lakes were not populated by white people at first. First there were the Native American tribes: the Paiute, Shoshone, and Washoe tribes. Later in the 19th century, whites began to populate Mammoth Lakes with the California Gold Rush. At that time many halls, hotels, houses were built. The city’s growth process slowed down when people discovered that Mammoth Lakes was not really full of gold.

The tourism history of Mammoth Lakes began after the year 1890, when the first tourists began to visit Mammoth Lakes. They came to hunt, relax, take pictures, swim, fish in the pristine natural environment. The ski part gave more importance to Mammoth Lakes. The Village of Old Mammoth was born at that time.

Many people were coming to Mammoth Lakes from Los Angeles and the trip took about 2 days from Los Angeles. A store, hotel, bakery, and post office were built to represent Mammoth Lakes. Many camps also began to open. Those people built cabins in the lake basin area.
During the winter only a few stayed to guard the estates and were delivered mail and supplies by dog ​​sled.

Mammoth Lakes got its name from the mining era, Mammoth Mining Company.

Mammoth Lakes became a municipality in 1984. The population is around 10,000, but triples on weekends. Mammoth Lakes is now one of California’s favorite mountain resort havens.

Mammoth Lakes measures approximately 2,500 acres. It has successful schools, college, hospital, different art centers and an airport.

More Mammoth details can be found here: http://www.bestofcalifornia.info/mammoth_lakes.html

You can read more about Mammoth Lakes lodging, recreation and services here http://www.bestofcalifornia.info/