Editing Bishop, California (section)

===First American settlers===
[[File:SamuelAddisonBishop.jpg|thumb|right|Samuel Addison Bishop in 1870]]
{{More citations needed section|date=May 2020}}
The first American explorers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California included the famous mountain men [[Jedediah Smith]] in 1833<ref name="Owens Valley"/>  and Joseph Walker in 1834.<ref>{{cite book|last=Gilbert|first=Bil|title=Westering Man: The Life of Joseph Walker|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h7BQjaTxHy8C|year=1985|orig-year=1983|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|location=Tulsa|isbn=0806119349|access-date=October 22, 2023|archive-date=November 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231108161158/https://books.google.com/books?id=h7BQjaTxHy8C|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|144}} This remote area of California had never been explored by the Spanish and even though it was shown as Mexican territory on early maps, the Eastern Sierra region remained unvisited by them.

The most renowned early explorer to visit the area was John C. Fremont. He was the first [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] candidate to run for President of the United States in 1856 and later a famous [[Union Army|Union]] Civil War general. Officially sanctioned by the federal government, his 1845 mapping party to the Eastern Sierra included the celebrated Indian scout [[Kit Carson]], for whom the capital of Nevada, [[Carson City, Nevada|Carson City]], was named. Also in the party were Ed Kern for whom [[Kern County, California]] was named, and Richard Owens, who gave his name to Owens Lake near [[Lone Pine, California]] and later [[Owens Valley]] itself. Fremont lost a cannon which he had brought along in case of [[Native Americans in the United States|Indian]] attacks near present-day [[Bridgeport, California]] (about {{convert|80|mi|km|disp=sqbr}} north of Bishop).{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}

The city of Bishop came into being due to the need for beef in a booming mining camp some eighty miles to the north, [[Aurora, Nevada]], (Aurora was believed to be on the California side of the border at that time and was the county seat of Mono County, California). In 1861 cattlemen drove herds of cattle some three hundred miles from the great San Joaquin Valley of California, through the southern Sierra at Walker Pass, up the Owens Valley, and then through Adobe Meadows to Aurora. Along the way, some cattlemen noticed that the unsettled northern Owens Valley was perfect for raising livestock.

To avoid the long journey from the other side of the mountains, a few of them decided to settle in the valley. Driving about 600 head of cattle and 50 horses, [[Samuel Addison Bishop]], his wife, and several hired hands arrived in the Owens Valley on August 22, 1861 from [[Fort Tejon]] in the [[Tehachapi Mountains]]. Along with Henry Vansickle, Charles Putnam, Allen Van Fleet, and the McGee brothers, Bishop was one of the first white settlers in the valley.

Sheepmen soon followed the cattlement and they initially struggled due to a lack of forage for their stock in the area. Remnants of the early settlers' stone corrals and fences can still be seen north of Bishop along Highway 395 in [[Round Valley, California]] (barb wire fencing was not invented until 1873). Establishing a homestead, the [[San Francis Ranch]], along the creek which still bears his name, Samuel Bishop set up a market to sell beef to the miners and business owners in Aurora. One of the residents of Aurora at that time was a young [[Samuel Clemens]] who later gained fame as author [[Mark Twain]] (see Twain's book [[Roughing It]] for his comments on the area). By 1862, a frontier settlement (and later town), known as [[Bishop Creek (Inyo County)|Bishop Creek]], was established a couple of miles east of the San Francis Ranch. Though the town continues to prosper, the only reminder of Samuel Bishop's ranch today is a monument placed near the original site at the corner of Highway 168 West and Red Hill Road, two miles west of downtown Bishop.

[[File:West Line Street Cemetery.jpg|thumb|The historic cemetery on West Line St. was established in 1868.]]
In 1866, the County of Inyo was established from part of [[Tulare County, California|Tulare County]]. The Eastern High Sierra and the Owens Valley was the westernmost frontier in America at that time. In 1871, Daniel Bruhn was one of 41 wranglers herding nearly 3,000 wild Spanish mustangs from [[Stockton, California]] to [[Texas]]. Their travels brought them over the [[Sierra Nevada|High Sierra]] and into the remote Owens Valley, where they lost over 500 head of horses. The descendants of those mustangs still roam wild on the California/Nevada border just north of Bishop.