Gardens at the Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley, CA
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- Unknown
- Location
- Death Valley, California
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2009. All Rights Reserved
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- Search LEARN NC for arid, badlands, Badwater Basin, California, Death Valley, Death Valley National Park, Death Valley Railroad, deserts, dry, erosion, Furnace Creek, Furnace Creek Inn, inn, lowest point, mountains, national parks, railroads, rain, rainstorm, salt, salt flats, sedimentary, and volcanic.
In the classroom
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Gardens at the Furnace Creek Inn in Death Valley, California. Opened in 1927, the inn was built in order to save the new Death Valley Railroad. Since mines had shut down and no longer needed the railroad, the Pacific Coast Borax Company built the luxury hotel to attract visitors and keep the line active. Three years later, the line closed anyway, because visitors preferred to arrive by car, but the inn remained a success and still operates today.
Death Valley National Park is located east of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It is home to the lowest point in North America at Badwater, which is 282 feet below sea level, but it also encompasses parts of several mountain ranges. Its highest point is Telescope Peak, at 11,049 feet. Located in an rainshadow exaggerated by the presence of four major mountain ranges between it and the ocean, Death Valley receives less than two inches of rainfall a year and is famous as one of the hottest and driest places in North America. Summer temperatures often hover around 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
