Inyo County, California


Inyo County is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is on the east side of the Sierra [Nevada |Sierra Nevada] and southeast of Yosemite National Park in Central California. It contains the Owens River Valley; it is flanked to the west by the Sierra Nevada and to the east by the White Mountains and the Inyo Mountains. Mono County is to the north. With an area of, Inyo is the second-largest county by area in California, after San Bernardino County which is directly south of Inyo County. Almost half of Inyo County's area is within Death Valley National Park. However, with a population density of 1.8 people per square mile, it also has the second-lowest population density in California, after Alpine County.

History

Present-day Inyo county has been the historic homeland for thousands of years of the Mono, Timbisha, Kawaiisu, and Northern Paiute Native Americans. The descendants of these ancestors continue to live in their traditional homelands in the Owens River Valley and in Death Valley National Park.
Inyo County was formed in 1866 out of the territory of the unorganized Coso County, which had been created on April 4, 1864, from parts of Mono County and Tulare County. It acquired more territory from Mono County in 1870 and Kern County and San Bernardino County in 1872.
For many years it has been commonly believed that the county derived its name from the Mono tribe's name for the mountains in its former homeland. Actually the name came to be thought of, mistakenly, as the name of the mountains to the east of the Owens Valley when the first whites there asked the local Owens Valley Paiutes for the name of the mountains to the east. They responded that that was the land of Inyo. They meant by this that those lands belonged to the Timbisha tribe headed by a man whose name was Inyo. Inyo was the name of the headman of one of the Timbisha bands at the time of contact when the first whites, the Bennett-Arcane Party of 1849, wandered, lost, into Death Valley on their expedition to the gold fields of western California. The Owens Valley whites misunderstood the reference and thought that Inyo was the name of the mountains when actually it was the name of the chief, or headman, of the tribe that had those mountains as part of their homeland. In Timbisha, ɨnnɨyun means "it's dangerous".
To supply the growing City of Los Angeles, water was diverted from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The Owens River Valley cultures and environments changed substantially. From the 1910s to 1930s the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased much of the valley for water rights and control. In 1941 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power extended the Los Angeles Aqueduct system farther upriver into the Mono Basin.

Natural history

Inyo County is host to a number of natural superlatives. Among them are:
, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, is on Inyo County's western border. The Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, the lowest place in North America, is in eastern Inyo County. The difference between the two points is about. They are not visible from each other, but both can be observed from the Panamint Range on the west side of Death Valley, above the Panamint Valley. Thus, Inyo County has the greatest elevation difference among all of the counties and county-equivalents in the contiguous United States.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and is water. It is the second-largest county by area in California and the ninth-largest in the United States.

Lakes

There are 22 official wilderness areas in Inyo County that are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. This is the second-largest number of any county, exceeded only by San Bernardino County's 35 wilderness areas. Most of these are managed solely by the Bureau of Land Management, but four are integral components of Death Valley National Park or Inyo National Forest and are thus managed by either the National Park Service or the Forest Service. Some of these wilderness areas also extend into neighboring counties.
Except as noted, the wilderness areas are managed solely by the Bureau of Land Management and lie entirely within Inyo County:
Death Valley National Park is a mostly arid United States National Park east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Inyo County and northern San Bernardino County in California, with a small extension into southwestern Nye County and extreme southern Esmeralda County in Nevada. In addition, there is an exclave in southern Nye County. The park covers, encompassing Saline Valley, a large part of Panamint Valley, almost all of Death Valley, and parts of several mountain ranges. Death Valley National Monument was proclaimed in 1933, placing the area under federal protection. In 1994, the monument was redesignated a national park, as well as being substantially expanded to include Saline and Eureka Valleys.
It is the hottest and driest of the national parks in the United States. It also features the second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere and the lowest point in North America at the Badwater Basin, which is below sea level. It is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include Creosote Bush, Bighorn Sheep, Coyote, and the Death Valley Pupfish, a survivor of much wetter times. Approximately 95% of the park is designated as wilderness. Death Valley National Park is visited annually by more than 770,000 visitors who come to enjoy its diverse geologic features, desert wildlife, historic sites, scenery, clear night skies, and the solitude of the extreme desert environment.

Other parks

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 19,016 and a median age of 44.8 years. 20.2% of residents were under the age of 18 and 23.7% were 65 years of age or older, and there were 102.3 males for every 100 females overall and 102.6 males for every 100 females age 18 and over.
The racial makeup of the county was 61.8% White, 0.5% Black or African American, 13.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.5% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 11.9% from some other race, and 11.2% from two or more races, while Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 23.1% of the population.
57.9% of residents lived in urban areas, while 42.1% lived in rural areas.
There were 8,046 households in the county, of which 25.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them and 26.4% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present; about 33.2% of households were made up of individuals and 16.9% had someone 65 years of age or older living alone.
There were 9,469 housing units, of which 15.0% were vacant, and among occupied units 64.3% were owner-occupied while 35.7% were renter-occupied; the homeowner vacancy rate stood at 0.8% and the rental vacancy rate at 6.5%.

Racial and ethnic composition

Race / Ethnicity Pop 1980Pop 1990Pop 2000Pop 2010Pop 2020% 1980% 1990% 2000% 2010% 2020
Latino whites|White] alone 15,19414,81913,35212,29611,03584.91%81.06%74.41%66.30%58.03%
Black or African American alone 227120102850.12%0.39%0.11%0.55%0.45%
Native American or Alaska Native alone 1,5231,6651,6781,8952,1898.51%9.11%9.35%10.22%11.51%
Asian alone 721721582292730.40%0.94%0.88%1.23%1.44%
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone xx1515130.08%0.08%0.08%0.08%0.07%
Other race alone 0182321870.00%0.10%0.13%0.11%0.46%
Mixed race or Multiracial xx442391935xx2.46%2.11%4.92%
Hispanic or Latino 1,0841,5362,2573,5974,3996.06%8.40%12.58%19.40%23.13%
Total17,89518,28117,94518,54619,016 100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%100.00%

2010 Census

The 2010 United States census reported that Inyo County had a population of 18,546. The racial makeup of Inyo County was 13,741 White, 109 African American, 2,121 Native American, 243 Asian, 16 Pacific Islander, 1,676 from other races, and 640 from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3,597 persons.

Politics

Voter registration

Cities by population and voter registration

Overview

Inyo has historically been a strongly Republican county in Presidential and congressional elections. From 1944 [United States presidential election in California|1944] to 2016, the only Democrat to win the county was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
However, the county shifted significantly leftward in 2020, narrowly supporting Joe Biden over Donald Trump. As a result, it became one of only two counties that previously voted for Trump by double digits in 2016 to flip to the Democrats, the other being Talbot County, Maryland.
Inyo still leans Republican. It voted Republican in all statewide races held in 2022. It flipped back to voting for Donald Trump in 2024, though by a much smaller margin than Trump had won the county in 2016.
In the California State Legislature, Inyo County is in, and.
The county is in.
On November 4, 2008, Inyo County voted 60.6% for Proposition 8 which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages.
The county was home to Manzanar Internment Camp, where Japanese Americans were interned during World War II. The county was typically Democratic before World War II. Since World War II, the county has been solidly Republican, only voting for Democratic presidential nominees Lyndon Johnson and Joe Biden.

Crime

The following table includes the number of incidents reported and the rate per 1,000 persons for each type of offense.

Cities by population and crime rates

Education

School districts in Inyo County are:
Deep Springs College is a two-year alternative education college in Deep Springs Valley.
Higher education in Inyo County is provided by the Kern Community College District.

Notable locations

In the 1920s, automobile clubs and nearby towns started to lobby for trans-Sierra highways over Piute Pass and other locations. However, by end of the 1920s, the Forest Service and the Sierra Club decided that roadless wilderness in the Sierra was valuable, and fought the proposal. The Piute Pass proposal faded out by the early 1930s, with the Forest Service proposing a route over Minaret Summit in 1933. The Minaret Summit route was lobbied against by California's Governor Ronald Reagan in 1972. The expansion of the John Muir and Ansel Adams Wildernesses in the 1980s sealed off the Minaret Summit route.
A trans-Sierra route between Porterville and Lone Pine was proposed by local businessmen in 1923. Eventually, a circuitous route across the Sierra was built across the only trans-Sierra route south of Yosemite: Sherman Pass by 1976. That route is Forest Route 22S05 to the west, and Kennedy Meadow Road and 9-Mile Canyon Road to the east.

Major highways

operates intercity bus service along US 395, as well as local services in Bishop. Service extends south to Lancaster and north to Reno, Nevada.

Airports

, Independence Airport, Lone Pine Airport and Shoshone Airport are general aviation airports located near their respective cities. Stovepipe Wells Airport and Furnace Creek Airport are located in Death Valley National Park.

Communities

Cities

Source:
The population ranking of the following table is based on the 2010 census of Inyo County.
† county seat
RankCity/Town/etc.Municipal typePopulation
1BishopCity3,879
2Dixon Lane-Meadow CreekCDP2,645
3West BishopCDP2,607
4Lone PineCDP2,035
5Big PineCDP1,756
6Bishop ReservationAIAN1,588
7† 'IndependenceCDP669
8WilkersonCDP563
9Big Pine ReservationAIAN499
10Round ValleyCDP435
11MesaCDP251
12Lone Pine ReservationAIAN212
13OlanchaCDP192
14TecopaCDP150
15Independence Indian Community of Paiute Indians|Fort Independence Reservation]AIAN93
16CartagoCDP92
17KeelerCDP66
18Homewood CanyonCDP44
19DarwinCDP43
20ShoshoneCDP31
t-21Furnace CreekCDP24
t-21[Timbisha|Timbi-Sha Shoshone Reservation]AIAN24
22TronaCDP18
23PearsonvilleCDP17
24Valley Wells'CDP0