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Bend City

Ghost town · Inyo County, California

Independence quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1951, 1:62,500)
Independence quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1951, 1:62,500) · U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection · Public domain

Bend City is a ghost town in Inyo County, California. It is one of 29 former communities in Inyo County on the federal names register. That ranks the county 6th among the 58 California counties with a vanished settlement on record.

The U.S. Geological Survey lists Bend City as a historical populated place: the name is no longer in official use for a community, whether the settlement was abandoned, absorbed into a neighbouring town or renamed. The recorded location is 36.8192° N, 118.1306° W.

In old newspapers

The earliest digitized newspaper pages printed in California before 1931 that mention “Bend City”, from the Library of Congress. A page may use the name for something else; open it to read the context. 14 pages in all.

Key facts

Elevation3,754 ft
Nearest living townIndependence, CA
Distance to it4.3 miles
Coordinates36.81917, -118.13056

Open the location on a map

Then and now

Drag the slider: the old USGS map on the left, the same ground from the air today on the right. Both cover the same 1.9-mile square centred on the recorded location.

Bend City today, aerial view
Independence quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1951, 1:62,500)

Left: Independence quadrangle, USGS topographic map (1951, 1:62,500), U.S. Geological Survey, Historical Topographic Map Collection. Right: The same ground today: NAIP aerial imagery, USDA Farm Service Agency, National Agriculture Imagery Program (via USGS). Both public domain.

What's there now

Bend City is no longer a community in its own right. The nearest living town is Independence, CA (population 875), about 4.3 miles away in a straight line, and the site sits at roughly 3,754 feet above sea level. The aerial view above shows what covers the ground today. Much of the land around former townsites is private; check access before you visit.

Nearby places

Questions

Where is Bend City?

Bend City is in Inyo County, California, at 36.8192, -118.1306.

How many ghost towns are in Inyo County?

Inyo County, California has 29 ghost towns on record at Wayfarrow.

Sources and licences

Facts marked "approximately" carry an uncertain date in the source. Text on this page is generated from the sources above; no encyclopedia prose is copied. Last updated 2026-11-06.