The Warner Lakes are a chain of shallow lakes and marshes in the Warner Valley of eastern Lake County, Oregon, United States. The lakes extend the length of the valley, covering approximately .
The lakes are named in honor of Captain William H. Warner, a topographical engineer who explored Warner Valley before being killed by Native Americans in 1849. The Warner Lakes and surrounding wetlands support a wide variety of birds and other wildlife. Much of the land surrounding the lakes is owned by the public and is administered by the Bureau of Land Management. These public lands provide recreational opportunities including hunting, fishing, bird watching, and camping.
Warner Valley
The Warner Valley is in south-central Oregon. It is approximately long and wide. Most of the valley is in Lake County, however the north end of the valley extends about into Harney County. It is an alluvial basin containing numerous lakes, remnants of a single great lake that covered the valley floor up to deep during the Pleistocene epoch. Today, steep cliffs rise above a chain of endorheic lakes and interconnected wetlands, known collectively as Warner Lakes. The valley has two regions commonly referred to as South Warner Valley and North Warner Valley. The two areas transition between Crump Lake and Hart Lake at a point where the valley narrows to about in width.
Native Americans used the Warner Valley's lakes and wetland for thousands of years before the first white explorers arrived. There are scores of petroglyphs near the lake shores, some are estimated to be 12,000 years old. The Greaser Petroglyph Site, in the South Warner Valley, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In December 1843, Captain John C. Fremont led a party through the valley. Fremont and his party spent Christmas Day camped near Hart Lake. In honor of the date, Fremont named it Christmas Valley and the lake Christmas Lake. However, early mapmakers mistakenly plotted Christmas Valley northwest of the Warner Valley, leaving the valley and lake unnamed on early maps. In 1849, the valley was explored by Captain William Horace Warner, an Army topographical engineer. On September 26, 1849, Warner was ambushed and killed by Indians just south of the Warner Valley. In 1864, Lieutenant Colonel C. S. Drew of the 1st Oregon Cavalry visited the valley while on a scouting expedition. Drew named the valley in honor of Warner, who he believed had been killed there.
In 1867, General George Crook decided to build a fort in the Warner Valley to prevent Indian raiding parties from passing through the area. To get his wagons across the wetlands, he directed a bridge to be built across a narrow, marshy channel between Hart Lake and Crump Lake. Forty soldiers of the 23rd Infantry Regiment under the command of Captain James Henton were assigned the task. The bridge was constructed between May 16, 1867, and July 24, 1867. Known as the Stone Bridge, it was actually a quarter mile long causeway constructed by hauling basalt boulders and smaller rocks from nearby Hart Mountain and dumping them into the marsh. Today, the Stone Bridge across the Warner wetlands still exists. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Lakes and wetlands
At one time, the entire Warner Valley was covered by a single vast lake. However, the water level gradually receded, leaving a chain of lakes at the low spots with marsh land between the lakes. Today, the valley floor is occupied by a chain of lakes and wetlands covering over . This includes designated by the Bureau of Land Management as the "Warner Wetlands Area of Critical Environmental Concern".
There are numerous lakes in the Warner Lakes chain. Starting at the south end of the valley, the largest of the Warner Lakes are Pelican Lake, Crump Lake, Hart Lake, Anderson Lake, Swamp Lake, Mugwump Lake, Flagstaff Lake, Upper Campbell Lake, Lower Campbell Lake, Stone Corral Lake, Turpin Lake, and Bluejoint Lake. The valley slopes toward the north. As a result, Crump Lake is elevated higher than Bluejoint Lake.
The Warner Lakes are fed by Twentymile Creek and Deep Creek at the south end and Honey Creek which flows into Hart Lake. Most of the water from Twentymile Creek flows into Greaser Reservoir or into irrigation canals in the South Warner Valley. As field drainage, some of its water eventually merges with Deep Creek and flow into Pelican Lake.