The local school plays on a dirt football field because the searing heat and highly saline soil kills grass.

At one point it boasted an 18-hole golf course that was all sand except for the "greens", which were a softer grade of brown colored dirt.

The mining company also built a library, a scrip-accepting for-profit grocery store, a school, basic housing, and minimal recreation facilities.

Its most notable boom occurred during World War I, when Trona was the only reliable American source of potash, an important element used in the production of gunpowder.

[1] Today, Searles Valley Minerals Inc.'s soda ash processing plant remains the largest firm in town.

Other operations nearby include evaporative salt extraction from the dry lake bed's surface, and a lime quarry.

[5] Located a few miles to the south are the Trona Pinnacles, an unusual landscape consisting of more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet, rising from the bed of the Searles Lake basin.

[1] 95 students were enrolled at Trona High during the 2014-15 school year[11] and its sports teams compete as the Tornadoes.

[1] Barrow High School in Alaska previously had a dirt field as well,[2] but it was replaced with blue Astroturf in 2007.

[1] A number of Hollywood films have been shot in the surrounding desert (particularly around the Trona Pinnacles), including Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Planet of the Apes.

[2] In the 21st century, the town itself served as the setting for three films, Trona (2004), Just Add Water (2008) and Lost Lake (2012).

[15] In the 2014 general election, 350 Trona Joint Unified residents voted, out of 692 registered, according to the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters.