Bishop, California

Bishop (formerly Bishop Creek)<ref name=CGN>Template:California's Geographic Names</ref> is the only incorporated city in Inyo County, California, United States. It is located near the northern end of the Owens Valley within the Mojave Desert, at an elevation of Template:Convert.<ref name=gnis /> The city was named after Bishop Creek, flowing out of the Sierra Nevada range; the creek was named after Samuel Addison Bishop, a settler in the Owens Valley. Bishop is a commercial and residential center, while many vacation destinations and tourist attractions in the Sierra Nevada are located nearby. The city covers approximately Template:Convert, making it the county's largest community by population and land area.

The population of the city was 3,879 at the 2010 census, up from 3,575 at the 2000 census. The population of the built-up zone containing Bishop is much larger; more than 14,500 people live in a compact area which includes Bishop, West Bishop, Dixon Lane-Meadow Creek, and the Bishop Paiute Reservation. It is by far the largest settlement in Inyo County.

A number of western films were shot in Bishop, including movies starring John Wayne, Charlton Heston, and Joel McCrea.<ref name="Schneider, Jerry L. 2016 Page 149">Schneider, Jerry L. (2016). Western Filming Locations California, Book 6. CP Entertainment Books. Page 149. Template:ISBN.</ref>

History

The Bishop Creek post office operated from 1870 to 1889 and from 1935 to 1938.<ref name=CGN /> The first Bishop post office opened in 1889.<ref name=CGN />

In order to support the growth aspirations of Los Angeles, water was diverted from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. From the 1910s to 1930s, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased much of the valley for water rights and control. The result was a substantial change to the Owens Valley culture and environment. The economy of Bishop suffered when farmers, ranchers and land owners sold much of their property. Jack Foley, a Bishop resident and sound effects specialist, mitigated the economic loss by persuading several Los Angeles studio bosses that the town of Bishop would be ideal as a location to shoot westerns.

History and heritage

File:California - Inyo - Bishop - 2023 - June 10.jpg

Bishop Civic Center

The city of Bishop was named for one of the first European settlers in the area, Samuel A. Bishop. Owens Lake was named for Richard Owens, a member of John C. Fremont's 1845 exploration party which included Kit Carson and Ed Kern. Later the entire valley became known as The Owens Valley (see First Settlers below). The Paiute Indians called Owens Lake by the name of "Pacheta" and the Owens River "Wakopee." Geographically, Inyo County is today the second largest county in California with a population of slightly over 18,000 residents. The county is so large that several eastern states put together would fit neatly within its boundaries. Inyo County contains both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous United States; Mt. Whitney, Template:Convert above sea level, and Badwater in Death Valley, Template:Convert below sea level. The "Inyo" in Inyo County is commonly believed to be a Paiute word meaning "dwelling place of the great spirit," although some scholars are now convinced that it is a mistranslation of the word Indio, which is Spanish for Indian. It is possible that the Paiute were trying to explain to the earliest English speaking settlers in the Owens Valley that this was their land by using a form of "Indio" they had learned from other Indian tribes, who in turn, had learned it from the Spanish or Mexicans, not realizing that not all Europeans spoke the same language. Thus Inyo may actually mean "Indian Land."Template:Citation needed

First American settlers

File:SamuelAddisonBishop.jpg

Samuel Addison Bishop in 1870

Template:More citations needed section 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>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp 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 candidate to run for President of the United States in 1856 and later a famous 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, 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 Indian attacks near present-day Bridgeport, California (about Template:Convert north of Bishop).Template:Citation needed

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, 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

The historic cemetery on West Line St. was established in 1868.

In 1866, the County of Inyo was established from part of 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 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.

Water conflicts of the Owens Valley

Template:Main As Los Angeles expanded during the late 19th century, it began outgrowing its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, promoted a plan to take water from Owens Valley, where Bishop lies, to Los Angeles via an aqueduct.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Between 1905 and 1907, most of the land in the Owens Valley was purchased from farmers and ranchers at bargain prices by Eaton, ostensibly for a his own use.<ref name=Cadillac>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp The real goal was to send Owens Valley water south to Los Angeles.<ref name = "SmithsonianMag">Template:Cite news</ref> In 1907, Eaton traveled to Washington to meet with advisers of Theodore Roosevelt to convince them that the water of the Owens River would do more good flowing through faucets in Los Angeles than it would if used on Owens Valley fields and orchards.<ref name = "Eaton-PBS">Template:Cite web</ref> Despite a political fight with Congressman Sylvester Smith, who represented the area around Bishop, Roosevelt decided in favor of the aqueduct.<ref name = "LADWPConstruction">Template:Cite web</ref>

The aqueduct was built from 1907 to 1913 under the supervision of William Mullholland.<ref name = "ripple">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp The aqueduct is Template:Convert long, used no pumping stations; only gravity siphons.<ref name="ripple"/> By 1928, Los Angeles owned 90 percent of the land and subsequent water rights in Owens Valley effectively rendering all agriculture, economic and development interests in the region effectively dead. With the diversion of water to Los Angeles, the Owens Lake and lower Owens River dried up, forcing many valley residents to leave the area.<ref name="Owens Valley">Template:Cite book</ref> For a number of years, Owens Valley residents expressed much animosity toward the city of Los Angeles;<ref name="Owens Valley"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> for example, in Dry Ditches, a book of poems published in 1934 by the Parcher family of Bishop. The Owens Valley–city of Los Angeles conflict was the inspiration of the 1974 film Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson.<ref name=beast>Template:Cite news</ref>

Native American cultural heritage

Paiute Indian hut, reconstructed in 1940

Example of Paiute Hut, re-constructed for a float in a parade in Bishop, 1940

Indigenous peoples live in and near Bishop on four reservations. The southernmost is the Lone Pine Indian Reservation; northward is Fort Independence Reservation and Big Pine Indian Reservation. The largest and northernmost is the Bishop Indian Reservation.

Geography

Bishop lies west of the Owens River at the northern end of the Owens Valley. The city is located on U.S. Route 395, the main north–south artery through the Owens Valley, connecting the Inland Empire to Reno, Nevada. US 395 also connects Bishop to Los Angeles via State Route 14 through Palmdale. Bishop is the western terminus of U.S. Route 6. The Paiute-Shoshone Indians of the Bishop Community of the Bishop Colony control land just west of the town. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) controls much of the upstream and surrounding area.

Bishop is immediately to the east of the Sierra Nevada, and west of the White Mountains. Numerous peaks are within a short distance of Bishop, including Mount Humphreys (Template:Convert) to the west, White Mountain Peak (Template:Convert) to the northeast, and pyramidal Mount Tom (Template:Convert) northwest of town. Basin Mountain (Template:Convert) is viewed to the west from Bishop as it rises above the Buttermilks. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of Template:Convert, over 97% of it land. Bishop is known as the "Mule Capital of the World" and a week-long festival called Bishop Mule Days has been held since 1969 during the week of Memorial Day, celebrating the contributions of pack mules to the area. The festival attracts many tourists, primarily from the Southern California area.<ref name="hauer">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="cowboy">"Mule Days," American Cowboy Template:Webarchive, May/June 1999, p.54.</ref>

Bishop is well known in the rock climbing community. Near the city are numerous climbing spots that attract visitors from around the world.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> There are over 2,000 bouldering locations in Bishop. The two main types of rock are volcanic tuff (at the Happy and Sad boulders) and granite (at the Buttermilks).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Aerial view - Bishop, C.jpg

An aerial view of Bishop, looking west. Line Street, Bishop's main East-West Street, is in center left, running from the bottom of the photo into the distance

Notable locations

• Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest
• Bishop Area Chamber of Commerce<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Bishop Visitors Bureau<ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref>
• Eastern Sierra Regional Airport
• Inyo National Forest Supervisor's Office
• Keoughs Hot Springs
• Laws Rail Museum
• Paiute Indian Reservation
• Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center Museum<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Climate

Bishop, as well as the rest of the Owens Valley, has an arid climate (Köppen BWk) with an annual average of Template:Convert of precipitation, and is part of USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7b.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The wettest year was 1969 with Template:Convert of precipitation and the driest 2013 with Template:Convert.<ref name = NowData/> Measurable precipitation occurs on an average of 26 days annually. The most precipitation in one month was Template:Convert in January 1969, which included Template:Convert on January 4, the most rainfall recorded in 24 hours in Bishop. Snowfall averages Template:Convert per season. The snowiest season was from July 1968 to June 1969 with Template:Convert,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> which included the snowiest month, January 1969, at Template:Convert.

There is an average of 3 nights of sub Template:Convert lows, 139 nights where the low reaches the freezing mark, 104 days with Template:Convert+ highs, and 29 days with Template:Convert+ highs. Due to the aridity and hot high-altitude sun, there are only 34 days with maxima below Template:Convert and only one per year with a maximum below Template:Convert,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the annual diurnal temperature variation is Template:Convert, reaching Template:Convert in summer. The record high temperature of Template:Convert occurred on July 10, 2021; the record low of Template:Convert was recorded on December 22, 1990, and December 27, 1988. Diurnals are wide enough that temperatures both during summer and winter afternoons resemble Southern Spain's interior, whereas nights in both seasons are similar to those found on the Baltic Sea in far northern Europe.

Cold daytime highs and warm nights are rare, but have happened on occasion. The coldest daytime maximum measured was Template:Convert in 1962.<ref name=BishopNOAA>Template:Cite web</ref> Ice days are infrequent with the warmer climate of recent decades. Between 1991 and 2020 the coldest maximum temperature of the year averaged Template:Convert with the coldest days barely remaining below freezing.<ref name=BishopNOAA/> The warmest night on record was Template:Convert in 1961 while the average warmest night stands at Template:Convert.<ref name=BishopNOAA/>

Demographics

Template:US Census population The demographic information here applies to residents living within the city limits of Bishop; 3,879 people are in downtown Bishop.

The "greater Bishop area," which includes unincorporated nearby neighborhoods such as West Bishop, Meadow Creek-Dixon Lane, Wilkerson Ranch, Rocking K, Mustang Mesa, Round Valley and the Bishop Paiute Tribe add an additional 11,000 residents to the greater Bishop area.<ref name="auto"/>

2020

The 2020 United States census reported that Bishop had a population of 3,819. The population density was Template:Convert. The racial makeup of Bishop was 63.5% White, 0.2% African American, 2.8% Native American, 2.4% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 17.4% from other races, and 13.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 30.0% of the population.<ref name=DP1>Template:Cite web</ref>

The census reported that 96.7% of the population lived in households, 1.6% lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 1.7% were institutionalized.<ref name=DP1/>

There were 1,748 households, out of which 28.5% included children under the age of 18, 31.5% were married-couple households, 8.9% were cohabiting couple households, 30.7% had a female householder with no partner present, and 28.9% had a male householder with no partner present. 39.7% of households were one person, and 17.9% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.11.<ref name=DP1/> There were 904 families (51.7% of all households).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountain Range viewed from Bishop, CA

Snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains as seen from Bishop

The age distribution was 19.7% under the age of 18, 6.7% aged 18 to 24, 27.7% aged 25 to 44, 26.4% aged 45 to 64, and 19.5% who were 65Template:Nbspyears of age or older. The median age was 41.0Template:Nbspyears. For every 100 females, there were 97.7 males.<ref name=DP1/>

There were 1,939 housing units at an average density of Template:Convert, of which 1,748 (90.1%) were occupied. Of these, 36.7% were owner-occupied, and 63.3% were occupied by renters.<ref name=DP1/>

In 2023, the US Census Bureau estimated that the median household income was $82,205, and the per capita income was $54,267. About 2.9% of families and 6.0% of the population were below the poverty line.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Politics and government

In the state legislature Bishop is in Template:Representative.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It is also in the 4th State Senate district. Federally, Bishop is in Template:Representative.<ref>Template:Cite GovTrack</ref>

Bishop maintains its own police force, but also has a substation of the Inyo County Sheriff's Department on the outskirts of the city. The California Highway Patrol also has an office in town.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Transportation

U.S. Route 395 is the four-lane divided highway serving Bishop between southern California and Reno while U.S. Route 6 provides access to Tonopah and other communities in Nevada. The junction of U.S. Routes 395 and 6 is one of only two junctions of two U.S. Routes in California, the other being the junction of U.S. Routes 101 and 199 in Crescent City, California. The Eastern Sierra Regional Airport provides general aviation services in addition to seasonal scheduled passenger airline service nonstop to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver operated by SkyWest Airlines flying as United Express with regional jet aircraft on behalf of United Airlines.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:Eastern Sierra Transit bus shelter in Bishop California.jpg

Eastern Sierra Transit bus shelter in Bishop

Eastern Sierra Transit offers bus service as far north as Reno, Nevada, and as far south as Lancaster, California.

In popular culture

A number of westerns and other films were shot in Bishop:<ref name="Schneider, Jerry L. 2016 Page 149"/>

• Flaming Guns (1932)
• The Fourth Horseman (1932)
• Blue Steel (1934)
• Roll Along, Cowboy (1937)
• Cassidy of Bar 20 (1938)
• The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
• Three Faces West (1940)
• Silver River (1948)
• Frenchie (1951)
• The Law and Jake Wade (1958)
• Will Penny (1967)
• Tremors (1990) The climax scene at the edge of a cliff was filmed in the hills above Bishop
• The Ranch in Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993) is mentioned to be close to Bishop, though filming took place in Oregon.
• The song "Bishop, CA" from Xiu Xiu's 2006 album The Air Force was named after Bishop.

File:California - Inyo - Bishop - 2023 - June 22.jpg

Bishop Twin Theatre on Main Street

Notable residents

• Horace M. Albright, the second director of the National Park Service, was born in Bishop in 1890.
• Television director and producer David Barrett also calls Bishop home, along with his brother, stuntman and NASCAR driver Stanton Barrett. They are grandsons to Dave McCoy, founder of the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
• Actor Robert Bray, who portrayed forest ranger Corey Stuart in CBS's Lassie from 1964 to 1968 and Simon Kane in ABC's Stagecoach West from 1960 to 1961, retired to Bishop, where he died in 1983 at the age of sixty-five.
• Artist Robert Clunie lived and painted in Bishop for decades.
• Elisha Vanslyck Cook Jr. was a character actor in dozens of films, including The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Magnum P.I., The House on Haunted Hill and Shane; Cook lived in Bishop until his death in Big Pine in 1995.
• Mountaineer Peter Croft lives in Bishop.
• Major Kern W. Dunagan US Army Medal of Honor recipient graduated from Bishop High School.
• Actor Trevor Donovan was born in Bishop.
• Former child actor Richard Eyer, who played Bray's son in Stagecoach West, was a teacher in Bishop, until he retired.
• Cowboy poet Curley Fletcher (1892–1954) was raised in Bishop.
• Jack Foley is the namesake for the art of adding sound effects to films, with the profession named Foley artist.
• Major League Baseball pitcher Hal Gregg lived in Bishop until his death there in 1991.
• Jill Kinmont, noted ski racer who was paralyzed in a 1955 accident, grew up in Bishop. Her life story was turned into two major Hollywood movies The Other Side of the Mountain and its sequel The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2.
• Actor Bill Mumy spent part of his childhood and adolescence in Bishop, where his father was a cattle rancher.
• Bishop was the home of Galen Rowell, and his wife Barbara, before their death at the Eastern Sierra Regional Airport.
• Tracy Smith, Olympian, world-record holder in the 3-mile, and 6-time AAU national champion, was a Bishop resident from the 1970s to the 1990s, as he coached the Bishop Union High School track team distance runners.
• Artist Alex Stenzel lives in Bishop.
• Author Claire Vaye Watkins was born in Bishop.
• Matt Williams, former Major League Baseball third baseman and former manager of the Washington Nationals, was born in Bishop.
• Hunter Kampmoyer, was born in Bishop and graduated from Bishop Union High School.

Media

AM radio

• KBOV 1230 AM

FM radio

• KWTW 88.5 FM
• K208BS 89.5 FM
• KWBP 90.1 FM
• K215BQ 90.9 FM
• KDOX 91.3 FM
• K219LU 91.7 FM
• KSRW 92.5 FM
• KRHV 93.3 FM
• KAZB 94.3 FM
• KBPT 96.1 FM
• KIBS 100.7 FM
• K285CP 104.9 FM

Newspapers

• Inyo Register
• The Sierra Reader
• The Sheet
• El Sol De La Sierra

Television

• KVME-TV 20 (JTV 20.1, H&I 20.2 MeTV Toons 20.3)
• Sierra Wave Cable 3 (Formally KSRW-LP 33)
• Optimum Cable 12 (Government Channel)

Online

• Eastern Sierra Now

External links

• City of Bishop official website
• Bishop,CA Visitor Center/Chamber of Commerce
• Bishop Community/Information Webpage