Olancha

Olancha is one of the oldest American settlements in the Owens Valley. In 1860 a miner named Minnard H. Farley came south chasing silver in the nearby Coso Range. In order to process the ore he milled, he needed water and wood and finding it here, he raised a stamp mill and furnace just below Olancha Creek. It was the first mill and furnace in the entire valley.

The stone footings of Farley's works survive today as a California Historical Landmark.

The town's name is older still. It is thought to come from the Yaudanche, a local group of Paiute people who lived and fished along these creeks long before the miners arrived.

A post office opened in 1870, and Olancha settled into the quiet roadside life it still leads — a mix of building types and uses, nestled in a verdant meadow beside the towering Sierras west and the white, wind-blown bed of Owens Lake, its source to the north before the Owens river water runs into the sand or the taps of the thirsty city to the south. Travellers heading to Panamint or Death Valleys to the east turn off here and those heading up the valley or to the Sierras press on north or head south toward Mojave and Los Angeles.