Inyokern, CA

Inyokern is a Kern County census-designated place on the western side of Indian Wells Valley, eight miles west of Ridgecrest and at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. Its name is a geographic shortcut—Inyo plus Kern—and its history follows the same border-country logic. The place began as an agrarian settlement, became a Southern Pacific railroad town on the Lone Pine Branch, and expanded during construction of the Owens Valley aqueduct. World War II brought the Naval Ordnance Test Station at nearby China Lake, later Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. Inyokern is a high-desert place where county lines, a vanished rail line, and the Navy’s test range all meet.