In southeastern Riverside County lies the massive Salton Sea, extending well into Imperial County. Many know the massive inland sea was formed in 1905 when an irrigation scheme caused the Colorado River to break out of its normal course and start filling the low-lying inland depression.
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But this wasn’t the first time such an incident had occurred, and it wasn’t the first instance of the term “Salton Sea” being used to describe it — that occurred some 15 years earlier in summer 1891.
Sometime probably in May 1891, the Colorado River’s course changed such that it began to fill the Salton Sink as it was known at the time. Newspapers began to make mention of this, and reported on explorers and even reporters making plans to investigate the area.
On June 28, 1891, the Los Angeles Herald printed one of the first in-depth articles about the new lake, and it was not favorable.
First, the source of the water was unknown (probably because no one had as yet followed the course of the water). However, theories about the water’s origins caused alarm. At the same time the new lake was reported, it was also seen that the artesian well constructed by the Southern Pacific Railroad at Indio, had ceased functioning. It was theorized that perhaps another artesian flow had surfaced in the Salton Sink, thereby taking the water away from Indio.
Only a couple of days later, reports were coming in that there had been a huge break in the Colorado River, which was feeding the lake. The Herald reported that the lake’s depth had grown by 24 inches in 24 hours with little to indicate that it would stop.
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By June 30, the Herald dubbed the new phenomenon the Salton Sea.
While the sea continued to expand, one phenomenon remained — the sea itself was never very deep. At most, according to recent sources, it never got deeper than about five feet. So, when the broken diversion was repaired and the water stopped flowing to the new sea, it was left in the desert to simply dry up. In fact, it was essentially gone within about 8-10 years.
By 1903, when the San Bernardino Daily Times-Index was describing a photograph taken at the old shoreline, it spoke of a coral-encrusted rock “which evidently grew there many years ago when the basin was full and a large part of the desert was covered by the ocean.”
Of course, the Times-Index had no way of knowing then that things were about to change, and change for the long term, for in 1905, the water came again — this time filling the basin as it still is today. But that’s an article for another time.
If you have an idea for a future Back in the Day column about a local historic person, place or event, contact Steve Lech and Kim Jarrell Johnson at [email protected].
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