The Lake Disappeared

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]The lake was one of the largest bodies of water in California.

[00:00:03]Today, most people have never heard of it.

[00:00:06]Tulare Lake once covered hundreds of square miles in the San Joaquin Valley.

[00:00:11]It was so large that steamboats crossed it. Entire communities depended on it.

[00:00:17]Then the water was diverted. Rivers feeding the lake were rerouted into irrigation projects. Farms expanded.

[00:00:23]Canals multiplied.

[00:00:25]The lake shrank year after year.

[00:00:28]By the early 20th century, most of it was gone.

[00:00:31]The largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi had effectively been erased.

[00:00:36]The transformation created some of the most productive farmland in America.

[00:00:41]It also destroyed wetlands, displaced wildlife, and permanently changed the region's ecology.

[00:00:47]When historic floods returned today, Tulare Lake briefly reappears.

[00:00:52]The water is reminding California that the lake was never supposed to disappear.

[00:00:58]The maps changed. The land remembers.

[00:01:01]We show you the system. You decide what it means.

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