• The Federal Writers’ Project named an area three miles south-southeast of Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley the Devil’s Cornfield because the arrowweed growing there resembled shocks of corn tied about the middle.

• The Devil’s Golf Course got its name because it was thought that only a fiend could play golf on the rough surface of crystallized salt at the place.

• Lost Cannon Creek owes its name to the local legend that a cannon left by John C. Fremont was discovered in the area in 1844.

• Old Mammoth, a settlement in Mono County, was known simply as “Mammoth” until 1937 when businesses there moved to present-day Mammoth Lakes to take advantage of the traffic on a newly completed highway. The name originated with the Mammoth gold vein located east of Lake Mary and with the Mammoth Mining Company. Mammoth City, the center for mining activity, boomed in 1878 and 1879. The ridge south of Old Mammoth has been called Red Mountain, Gold Mountain and Mineral Hill.

...just a taste from the scads of fascinating facts to be mined from Durham’s Place-Names of California’s Eastern Sierra.

This gazetteer, one of fourteen volumes in the Durham’s Place-Names of California Series, is derived from California’s Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State, David L. Durham’s definitive gazetteer of California. Each volume of the series contains the complete body of entries contained in California’s Geographic Names for the counties covered.

Thousands of topographic features, such as ridges, peaks, canyons and valleys; water features, such as streams, lakes, waterfalls, and springs; and cultural features, such as cities, towns, crossroads and railroad sidings are included. Many entries include information about who named the feature, when and why, as well as alternate or obsolete names. A complete bibliography of sources is included.

Longitude and latitude are given for each feature, a boon to hikers wishing to use GPS devices to keep on track to their destinations.

Guaranteed to provide addictively entertaining browsing for residents of Alpine, Inyo and Mono counties, this book will also delight:

• Tourists • Historians • Geographers • Students • Writers • Cartographers

• Genealogists • Hikers and outdoor folks of all kinds

• Great for browsing.

• Indispensable for research.

• Keep a copy in your car to use on trips!