By: Maurice Kunkel

According to Dr. Bruce Love of the University of California at Riverside, two different Native American groups utilized Lovejoy Springs, for camping and water supply areas, during their annual migration between the mountains and the desert floor. Lovejoy Buttes is the area that the Lake Los Angeles development surrounds. Indian bones and artifacts have been found when the manmade lake was built in 1968 and again when the Community Park was developed inthe 1990’s.

Original farmers and ranchers named the area “Wilsona” in 1915, when Aaron Huff and his neighbors founded the School District. He made weekly horse and buggy trips to the Lancaster Post Office to pick-up and deliver mail for residents of this area. One old map identifies the Huff ranch as the “Wilsona Post Office” although it was not official.

Modern history of Lake Los Angeles began when Ray Watt and George Isaacs acquired more than 4,000 acres surrounding Lovejoy Buttes, subdivided it into 4,465 lots, posted a bond with the state to pave roads, install a water system, and built the 27 acre lake that existed between Ron's on The Rock's and the L. A. County Fire Station 114. The lots were sold to many people with a “marketing blitz,” patterned after the “land scam” success of California City. So successful was the project that Boise-Cascade Corporation bought out Ray and George and continued the sale of the vacant lots until losing a class-action lawsuit, which precluded the Corporation from selling land at retail in this state. Eventually, the remaining lots were sold back to Watt Industries, for a reported ten cents on the dollar.

After about five years, Mr. Watt sent a mobile home park developer out to Lake L.A. to see if he could build and sell a few houses (to help with the property tax bills that were in arrears). After some problems with the trade unions, Hal Gutsch prevailed and was able to hire sub-contractors to construct a “few” homes on the ½ to 1 acre lots that he had acquired from Boise-Cascade. Thirteen new, three and four bedroom homes were sold the first weekend from $28,950 to $31,950. More than 700 homes were built and sold between 1977 and 1980 until the Jimmy Carter effect of stagflation economy brought 17% interest rates killing the housing market. Thankfully, Ronald Regan was elected President taking office in 1981 and rebuilt America’s Military, resulting in the B-1 and B-2 bombers among other projects at Edwards Air Force Base. These brought new home buyers with good jobs to the area and Lake Los Angeles grew to more than 3,550 houses. Winning the Cold War in 1989 stopped many of the job creating projects and led to a recession, which made property values plummet to prices as low as the original values of 1977.

The present boom brought on with low prices compared with other communities in Southern California, coupled with record low interest rates brought us to where we are today. More than 700 easily build able lots remain in the development and it’s just a matter of time before the vacant lots come alive with construction activity.