Tulare Lake

Tulare Lake, named Laguna de Tache by the Spanish, is a freshwater dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. After Lake Cahuilla disappeared in the 17th century, Tulare Lake was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River and the second-largest freshwater lake entirely in the United States (excluding the Great Lakes which share area with Canada), based upon surface area. The lake dried up after its tributary rivers were diverted for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses.

The lake was named for the tule rush (Schoenoplectus acutus) that lined the marshes and sloughs of its shores. The lake was part of a 13,670-square-mile (35,400 km²) partially endorheic basin, at the south end of the San Joaquin Valley, where it received water from the Kern, Tule, and Kaweah Rivers, as well as from southern distributaries of the Kings. It was separated from the rest of the San Joaquin Valley by tectonic subsidence and alluvial fans extending out from Los Gatos Creek in the Coast Ranges and the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada. Above a threshold elevation of 207 to 210 feet, it overflowed into the San Joaquin River. This happened in 19 of 29 years from 1850 to 1878. No overflows occurred after 1878 due to increasing diversions of tributary waters for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses, and by 1899, the lake was dry except for residual wetlands and occasional floods.