Alabama Gates 2024 is a weekend of free community events in Lone Pine, California, November 15 – 17, 2024, commemorating the centennial of the Alabama Gates Occupation. This significant historical event occurred when the people of Owens Valley non-violently seized the Los Angeles Aqueduct’s control gates just north of Lone Pine on November 16, 1924, diverting the entire flow of the aqueduct into the historic Owens River channel in protest of the City of Los Angeles’ aggressive land acquisition and water harvesting activities within the valley that began with the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The 1924 Alabama Gates occupation evolved into a multi-day community picnic as 700 Owens Valley residents gathered in solidarity with the occupiers over four days.
Our event marks this legendary act of civil disobedience, which reverberated worldwide, illuminating these two regions’ complicated and intertwined water history. But it also reflects how white settlers had previously confiscated and occupied Payahüünadü, the ancestral lands of the Paiute and Shoshone People in what is now called Owens Valley, along with the repercussions of this settler colonialism on contemporary Tribal residents who continue to live here.
Our November 2024 event includes a free-to-the-public roundtable discussion series at Statham Hall, Lone Pine’s Inyo County-administered community center. Our three two hour panels scheduled over two days feature renowned Owens Valley historian John Walton, author of Western Times and Water Wars (UC Press, 1993) with Dr. Sophia Borgias, a human-environment geographer whose research focuses on Owens Valley Indigenous water rights, moderated by Jon Klusmire, journalist and former director of the Eastern California Museum; a panel with Payahüünadü Tribal representatives moderated by Dr. Sophia Borgias; and an environmentally-focused roundtable discussion with leaders from four non-profit Owens Valley conservation groups. Other free weekend events include an opening reception, a no-host community picnic at Lone Pine’s Spainhower Park featuring local food truck concessionaires, film screenings at Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History, and an interpretive walking tour with a local naturalist at Patsiata (Owens Lake). This event is produced by There It Is—Take It! in partnership with Sierra Forever (formerly ESIA). Our event partners include Friends of the Eastern California Museum (FECM), Friends of the Inyo, Museum of Western Film History, Owens Valley Committee (OVC), Owens Valley Indian Water Commission (OVIWC), and Sierra Club Range of Light Group.
Our program was made possible with support from California Humanities, a partner of the NEH. For press inquiries, contact Kim Stringfellow at [email protected].
FOR FULL PROGRAM SCHEDULE, visit: https://alabamagates2024.org
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