My grandparents, Harvey Hoag Duryée and his wife, Grace Bartlett Kissam Duryée, moved to Southern California from New York in the very early 1900s, probably around 1905 if not a bit before. With them came their son, Harvey Junior who would have been about 8 years old in 1905, as well as Harvey Senior's father, Jacob Eugene Duryée, and his wife Lillie Hoag Duryée.

A little family history, Jacob Eugene served as a Lt. Colonel in the Civil War and led the 2nd Maryland at the Battle of Antietam in 1862. He was only 23 years old at the time. He was later awarded the rank of Brevet Brigadier General by President Andrew Jackson after the Civil War. Jacob and Lillie took up residence at the Hotel Westmore in Los Angeles.

Harvey Senior got into real estate during the very first boom in the explosion that was the beginning of the Southern California we know today. At various times he owned much of what is now Del Mar near San Diego, a good portion of Balboa Island and Lido Isle in Newport Bay, and also many acres of land in what would become the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale on the Mojave Desert.

Harvey Senior and his family lived at 2164 West 20th St., Los Angeles. In residence at the Los Angeles house were Harvey and Grace, and until 1907, Harvey Junior. Sadly, Harvey Junior passed away from rheumatic fever in 1907, likely caused by an episode of strep or scarlet fever that was treated differently than we treat it today. (Rheumatic fever results from strep throat or scarlet fever being treated incorrectly.) Before Harvey's passing, along came Elizabeth, "Liz", in 1905. Then in 1910 along came my dad, Melville, or just plain "Mel".

The summers found the Duryée clan seeking an exit from the Los Angeles area, so in the summer of 1917, they packed up their brand new Dodge Brothers Touring car and headed north to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Same spot, Red Rock Canyon, 1917 and 2022

Most of the roads that led away from the city of Los Angeles were unpaved in 1917, and the Duryées had the small town of Bishop in their sights. Bishop sits at the northern edge of the Owens Valley, which is the northernmost extension of the Mojave Desert. Bishop lies almost 300 miles north of Los Angeles, so the Duryées faced a 300-mile trip through the desert on dirt roads in a 1917 Dodge.

Air conditioning?

Not invented yet.

Not being able to go much over 20 MPH, they faced a several-day-long journey filled with heat and dust. (Today using California Hwy 14 and US 395, the drive takes about four hours and the posted speed limit on the open stretches is 65 MPH.) The 1917 photo above was taken by my Aunt Liz (Harvey, Grace, and Mel are in the car - so it was Liz who took the picture) in what is now called Red Rock Canyon State Park. It's roughly 100 miles from Los Angeles, so it's my guess that my Aunt Liz took the photo of the family on the morning of their second day on the road. There are no clues about where they spent the first night, but Mojave seems like a possibility. Their second night was spent in Little Lake, but there is a caption on one of the photos that states "Breakfast outside Little Lake after our terrible night at the hotel - 1917". BTW, that's the first picture in the gallery below.

Once they got to Bishop, they spent the night at a place called Dougherty's Auto Court, or at least that's what's written in my grandmother Grace's hand on the back of the photo. I have not been able to find any information on Dougherty's on the web, so I've contacted a museum hoping something will crop up. I'll post any information they might be able to provide.

After the Duryées had rested, maybe one night, maybe more, they continued up into the Sierra Nevada along Bishop Creek to look for a place to set up their camp for the next few months. The Bishop Creek camp became their base for fishing along the creek and in the nearby lakes, and also for explorations north of Bishop to Mammoth, Silver Lake, Lee Vining, and Mono Lake. Their camp was close to a cabin owned by Ches Keough, the son of Phillip Keough who two years later in 1919 began Keough's Hot Springs, a little south of Bishop. Keough's Hot Springs is still in business today. Ches was staying at the cabin for at least a while when the Duryées arrived, and there is a beautiful posed picture of him holding a fishing pole, and another of him and his wife on the front porch of their cabin. Written on the back of the photo of the cabin: "Ches Keough's Camp up on Bishop Creek - we camped to the right in the aspen trees. Alt. 8450' - 1917."

In the photos below the captions are what was written in pencil on the back of the photos. Initials are used fairly often, so here is what they stand for: