Furnace Creek, California
census-designated place in Inyo County, California, United States
Furnace Creek (formerly Greenland Ranch) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States. The population was 136 at the 2020 census, up from 24 at the 2010 census. The elevation of the village is 190 feet (58 m) below sea level. The visitor center, museum, and headquarters of Death Valley National Park are located at Furnace Creek.
History
Francis Marion Smith and William Tell Coleman's company, the Harmony Borax Works, established Greenland Ranch in 1883, named after the green alfalfa fields which they planted there. They established a weather station at the ranch in 1891. Greenland Ranch was renamed Furnace Creek Ranch in 1933.
The Timbisha tribe currently live at the Death Valley Indian Community reservation here. They provided many of the artisans and builders to construct the original Fred Harvey Company resort buildings, the Indian Village, and Park Service structures. They compose the majority of residents of Furnace Creek's permanent population at the tribe's reservation.
“Furnace Creek, California” enters the record as census-designated place in Inyo County, California, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Furnace, Creek and California can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Furnace Creek, California” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Furnace, Creek and California provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q967966. VIAF identifies the subject as 242720585. The Library of Congress control number is no2013020759. Authority coordinates are 36.458, -116.871. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 2010, 1883 and 1891.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Furnace Creek, California” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.