Northern section of the Lava Beds National Monument. Most of the flat landscape in the photos taken this day were the bottom of Lower Klamath Lake, 94,000 acres of marshlands that were home to the Modoc people. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began a draining process by the early 1910s for the purpose of settling the land with homesteaders.

"The drained lakebed of Lower Klamath turned into a dusty waste of dried peat that burned annually into the 1930s."
The long butte above was a peninsula in the lake. oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/lower_klamath_lake/#.WCA1p_krKM8