tRONA, CA

Established in 1913 as a company town, Trona grew around the extraction of borax and other minerals from Searles Lake, a dry lakebed in California’s Mojave Desert. Its population declined as the town’s fortunes changed, though mineral processing continued. The wider Searles Valley community, which includes Trona, had 1,565 residents at the 2020 Census. Against the pale lakebed and surrounding mountains, the town’s industrial structures and remnants of its past give the landscape a strange, unsettled atmosphere.