A California lake vanished in the 19th century and reappeared 130 years later

A California lake that vanished 130 years ago has suddenly reappeared. Tulare Lake in the San Joaquin Valley was once one of the largest bodies of freshwater in the United States. However, the greed for more farmland led colonists to drain its waters, effectively killing the lake. But in 2023, this lake made a reappearance. Researchers stated in a press release that Tulare was more than 160 kilometres long and 50 kilometres wide in the 19th century. Vivian Underhill of Northeastern University said, it was 'the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi River”. But with the landscape of the San Joaquin Valley being largely arid in the 21st century, it is almost impossible to believe that such a water body once existed in the region. But this lake once carried “agricultural supplies from the Bakersfield area up to Fresno and then up to San Francisco”, a total distance of nearly 500 kilometres.

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The researchers said that these “ancestral lakes” and connecting waterways vanished because of man-made irrigation. The Tulare Lake was once called “Pa’ashi” by the indigenous Tachi Yokut tribe, and its water came from the snowmelt out of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Fresno does not receive much rainfall, yet in the 1800s, “Fresno was a lakeside town,” Underhill said. Based on the findings, she says that the lake started disappearing in the late 1850s and early 1860s. This was because of “the state of California’s desire to take [historically indigenous] land and put it into private ownership.” Whoever could drain the land would be granted ownership of that area, and this became a major incentive, she said.

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California lake returns

The lake fully disappeared by 1890, only to make a comeback in 2023. This happened because of "snow in the winter and then rain in the spring,” Underhill explained. This rain and snow event meant that the snow melted really fast, and the water moved to the depression that was once the Tulare Lake. This led to "birds of all kinds — pelicans, hawks, waterbirds” making a comeback as well. Underhill said that the Tachi have also seen "burrowing owls nesting around the shore," a species classified as vulnerable or imperilled by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The rainfall and flooding also brought with them fish and amphibians. Meanwhile, for the Tachi, the return of the lake has been an "incredibly powerful and spiritual experience."

The lake is now already shrinking and covers merely 2,625 acres right now. Efforts have started to drain it once again, and experts say its disappearance is imminent.