Lake Hughes is an unincorporated community in northern Los Angeles County, California.

It is in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, northwest of Palmdale and north of the Santa Clarita Valley, in the Angeles National Forest.

The community is rural in character, with a population of 544 at the 2020 census, but also has a strong recreational element centered on the three lakes in the vicinity.

Nearby Elizabeth Lake, known then as La Laguna de Chico Lopez, was a watering locale on Spanish colonial and Mexican El Camino Viejo in Alta California and the Gold Rush era Stockton – Los Angeles Road.

From 1858 to 1861, Lake Hughes was on the route of the Butterfield Overland Mail, between the Widow Smith's Station and Mud Spring stage stops.

The lake area was to the west of Rancho La Liebre, an 1846 Mexican land grant now part of Tejon Ranch.

Less than a half a mile east of Lake Hughes, the five-mile-long (8 km) tunnel is 285 feet (87 m) under the valley floor.

The Elizabeth Lake Tunnel was the largest single construction project on the Los Angeles Aqueduct and set speed records in its day.

Its location in the San Gabriel Mountains allows for more moderate and less extreme temperatures and more precipitation in contrast to the neighboring Antelope Valley, which is the west end of the Mojave Desert.

There were 400 housing units at an average density of 37.4 per square mile (14.4/km2), of which 175 (58.3%) were owner-occupied, and 125 (41.7%) were occupied by renters.

According to the 2010 United States Census, Lake Hughes had a median household income of $53,281, with 29.0% of the population living below the federal poverty line.

[25] In 1869 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors designated Elizabeth Lake School District to serve the area.

A wooden structure was built that lasted until it was replaced in the early 1930s by the adobe structure on the east side of Elizabeth Lake Road, a quarter mile north of Andrada Corner (intersection of San Francisquito and Elizabeth Lake Roads).

Children from the communities of Lake Hughes, Elizabeth Lake and Green Valley, as well as parts of Leona Valley and Pine Canyon, make up the student population, which is 81% White, 11% Hispanic and 8% other ethnic groups.