Keeler Through the Lens: A Railroad Town and the Work Still Underway at Owens Lake

RURAL CALIFORNIA THROUGH THE LENS · KEELER NEWS

Ghost Town Two, February 2022. A visit to Keeler with conversations about the town and its railroad. Watch on YouTube.

KEELER, Calif. — At the bottom of Cerro Gordo Road, the mining story changes from how ore came out of the mountain to how it moved across the valley. The 2022 Ghost Town Two visit uses Keeler’s railroad and conversations with people who live here to tell that story. Looking toward the lake from the same community raises a different question in 2026: what work continues to keep dust down around the shore?

The town at the end of the railroad

The lead video frames Keeler as Cerro Gordo’s shipping hub and describes interviews with residents and people preserving part of the railroad. A 2024 Ghost Town Wonders tour uses photographs and footage of buildings to revisit the same history. LADWP’s account of Owens Lake identifies Keeler’s surviving Carson and Colorado Railroad depot and the remains of the Swansea pier along the eastern shore. Our reporting on the Swansea furnace follows another part of that supply chain.

Ghost Town Wonders, April 2024. Keeler’s buildings and mining history. Watch on YouTube.

What the dunes tell us about the lake

In a 2016 excerpt from Jennifer Little’s 100 Years of Dust project, Paiute leader Kathy Bancroft explains dust mitigation at Keeler Dunes. The lake is known to the Nüümü as Patsiata. The Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District identifies the dunes as a significant dust source for Keeler. Its May 2026 board packet lists irrigation maintenance, spring planting and watering, and monitoring among its priorities for the dunes project in fiscal year 2026–27.

Jennifer Little, February 2016. Kathy Bancroft discusses the Keeler Dunes dust project. Watch on YouTube.

Earth Fresh with Jason’s June 2026 explainer steps back to look at the wider lakebed. The scale matters: LADWP’s lakebed program describes measures including shallow flooding, gravel and vegetation. For readers in Keeler, the air district’s work on the nearby dunes is a more specific measure of what continues locally.

Earth Fresh with Jason, June 2026. A lakewide overview of dust control and habitat. Watch on YouTube.

What visitors can see from public trails

Daytrippen.com’s 2020 video visits Plover Wing Plaza and Keeler. The plaza gives visitors one way to see a managed lakebed without relying on routes through private or operational areas. The utility’s access page lists three designated trailheads. Keeler News has separately covered the public trails and bird surveys and migration.

Daytrippen.com, December 2020. Owens Lake Plaza and nearby Keeler. Watch on YouTube.

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