Latitude / Longitude:
36°31′29″N 117°54′14″W / 36.52472°N 117.90389°W / 36.52472 -117.90389
3,661 ft (1,116 m)
Pacific (PST) (UTC-8)
Swansea is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California. It is located 8.5 miles (14 km) south of New York Butte, at an elevation of 3,661 ft (1,116 m).
Swansea was a boomtown located on the eastern shore of Owens Lake. Spawned by the success of the silver mining operations in the nearby Cerro Gordo Mines in the late 1860s, Swansea became a hub for smelting the ore and transporting the resulting ingots to Los Angeles, over 200 miles away. The smelter operated from 1869 to 1874.
In the summer of 1874, a thunderstorm-induced debris flow inundated Swansea under several ft of water, rock, and sand. By then the town had been almost deserted, and the debris flow marked the end of Swansea. As of 2007, only one building and a smelter foundation remained alongside Route 136 (about 10 miles southeast of Lone Pine).
Swansea was named after the mining town Swansea in south Wales, from which many experienced miners emigrated to the United States. The 1872 Lone Pine earthquake damaged the smelters and uplifted the shoreline, rendering the Swansea pier inaccessible by Owens Lake steamships. As a result, most of the smelting and transportation business moved to Keeler, approximately one mile to the south.