W. A. Chalfant

Chalfant, (William Arthur), born in 1868 into a newspaper family, started his own newspaper at age 8. With his father, he founded the Inyo Register newspaper when he was 17, and he took over its editorship. Searching for news, stories, remembrances, he began collecting anything he could find on the history of Inyo County, California. Manuscripts, journals, correspondence, government documents, interviews with 'old timers' were grist for the pages. He made a decision to collect and reprint in one volume the events and stories from prior to 1870. Most had first appeared in the Register. In the Story of Inyo he covers the geology, culture of the people found in the Owens Valley when the Manly party arrived from Death Valley, and the later "Indian Wars", as well as efforts to fight back against the City of Los Angeles buying up all the water rights. This book was followed by four others detailing events from later decades of Owens Valley history. Reading the Story of Inyo, you find the pages are sprinkled with the characters whose names later were attached to towns, mountain peaks, passes, and streams.… (mehr)