A brief history
In 1905, nature hooked up with human greed to spawn a 378 square-mile, sea-like lake in the middle of California’s pristine desert. Home to hundreds of species of migratory birds displaced by California’s rampant development, the Salton Sea is serene, vast and indescribably beautiful. It was the second most popular tourist destination during America’s postwar boom ... but now it’s used as a repository for agricultural waste water. The most polluted river in America flows into it, causing massive fish and bird die offs. Some of the poorest communities in California are found there; by the 1970s people had abandoned the area in droves, which today is largely inhabited by retirees, farm workers, and many who cannot make a life anywhere else. (To quote one long-time Salton Sea local, “all the normal people have left or died.”) The juxtaposition of natural wonder, filthy pollution, and impoverished ghost towns of mid-century modern architecture presents a surreal version of the American dream
In 1905, nature hooked up with human greed to spawn a 378 square-mile, sea-like lake in the middle of California’s pristine desert. Home to hundreds of species of migratory birds displaced by California’s rampant development, the Salton Sea is serene, vast and indescribably beautiful. It was the second most popular tourist destination during America’s postwar boom ... but now it’s used as a repository for agricultural waste water. The most polluted river in America flows into it, causing massive fish and bird die offs. Some of the poorest communities in California are found there; by the 1970s people had abandoned the area in droves, which today is largely inhabited by retirees, farm workers, and many who cannot make a life anywhere else. (To quote one long-time Salton Sea local, “all the normal people have left or died.”) The juxtaposition of natural wonder, filthy pollution, and impoverished ghost towns of mid-century modern architecture presents a surreal version of the American dream
