Lone Pine is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States,[2] located 16 mi (26 km) south-southeast of Independence.

The town is located in the Owens Valley, near the Alabama Hills and Mount Whitney, between the eastern peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the west and the Inyo Mountains to the east.

[7] These early inhabitants are known to have established trading routes which extended to the Pacific Central Coast, delivering materials originating in the Owens Valley to such tribes as the Chumash.

[10] One of the few remaining structures pre-dating the earthquake is the 21-inch (53 cm)-thick "Old Adobe Wall" located in the alley behind the Lone Star Bistro, a coffee house.

[10] During the 1870s, Lone Pine was an important supply town for several nearby mining communities, including Kearsarge, Cerro Gordo, Keeler, Swansea, and Darwin.

[11] The silver was carried in ore buckets on a strong cable to Keeler, and then transported 4 miles (6.4 km) northwest to smelter ovens at Swansea.

[11] To supply the necessary building materials and fuel for these operations, a sawmill was constructed near Horseshoe Meadows by Colonel Sherman Stevens that produced wood for the smelters and the mines.

[11] The wood was moved by flume to the valley, where it was burned in adobe kilns to make charcoal, which was then transported by steamships across Owens Lake to the smelters at Swansea, about 12 miles (19 km) south of Lone Pine.

In 1883, the Carson and Colorado Railway line was constructed from Belleville, Nevada, across the White Mountains to Benton, and then down into the Owens Valley where it ended in Keeler.

[12] The arrival of the C&C rail line, with its engine "The Slim Princess", and the stagecoach in Keeler were a major economic boost for the area.

[12] In 1920, the history of Lone Pine was dramatically altered when a movie production company came to the Alabama Hills to make the silent film The Round-Up.

[13] Notable films shot here in the 1920s and 1930s include Riders of the Purple Sage (1925) with Tom Mix, The Enchanted Hill (1926) with Jack Holt, Somewhere in Sonora (1927) with Ken Maynard, Blue Steel (1934) with John Wayne, Hop-Along Cassidy (1935) with William Boyd, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) with Errol Flynn, Oh, Susanna!

(1936) with Gene Autry, Rhythm on the Range (1936) with Bing Crosby, The Cowboy and the Lady (1938) with Gary Cooper, Under Western Stars (1938) with Roy Rogers, and Gunga Din (1939) with Cary Grant.

In the coming decades, Lone Pine and the Alabama Hills continued to be used as the setting for Western films, including West of the Pecos (1945) with Robert Mitchum, Thunder Mountain (1947) with Tim Holt, The Gunfighter (1950) with Gregory Peck, The Nevadan (1950) with Randolph Scott, Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) with Spencer Tracy, Hell Bent for Leather (1960) with Audie Murphy, How the West Was Won (1962) with James Stewart, Nevada Smith (1966) with Steve McQueen, Joe Kidd (1972) with Clint Eastwood, Maverick (1994) with Mel Gibson, and The Lone Ranger (2013) with Johnny Depp.

Through the years, non-Western films also used the unique landscape of the area, including Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) with Robert Cummings, Samson and Delilah (1949) with Hedy Lamarr, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) with William Shatner, Tremors (1990) with Kevin Bacon, The Postman (1997) with Kevin Costner, and Gladiator (2000) with Russell Crowe.

Whitney, where pack mules lugged camera equipment up the mountainside: "filming began just outside Lone Pine ... on August 5, 1940.

Whitney, ... a group of twenty men from the studio worked for four days to clear a path so that mountain-trained mules, packing cameras and other equipment, could get up to the shooting area.

[21] The tribe traditionally lived in sedentary villages in the valley due to the suitable climate and abundant food supply.

Since the early years of filmmaking, directors and their production units have used the Lone Pine area to represent the iconic American West.

Approaching the 100th anniversary of The Roundup (1920), the first documented film produced in the area, Lone Pine has played host to hundreds of the industry's best-known directors and actors, among them directors William Wyler, John Ford, George Stevens, and William Wellman, and actors John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Clint Eastwood, Barbara Stanwyck, and Jeff Bridges.

The classic Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan and Anne Francis, was also filmed in and around the Lone Pine area.

[24][25] Lone Pine is also the location of several scenes in Iron Man (2008), depicting Afghanistan, and in the Godzilla (2014) remake, as a temporary military forward operating base ("FOB").

Barbara Stanwyck in accordance with her wishes had her cremated remains and ashes scattered from a helicopter over Lone Pine, California, where she had made some of her western films.

[38] Serving the area with a 4,000-foot (1,200 m) runway, Lone Pine Airport (FAA identifier: O26) is located approximately one mile (1.6 km) southeast of town at 36°35′17″N 118°03′07″W / 36.58806°N 118.05194°W / 36.58806; -118.05194.