Lower Lake Stone Jail now defunct, and has been designated California Historical Landmark #429. Lower Lake Stone Jail Lower Lake Stone Jail, in Lower Lake, California, is a one-room jail claimed to be the smallest jail in the United States, was erected in 1876 of stone locally quarried and reinforced with iron. During the days of the first quicksilver operations of the Sulphur Bank Mine, lasting from 1873 to 1883, rapid town growth and the urgent need for civil order necessitated the building of a jail. Stephen Nicolai, one of the first stonemasons in Lower Lake, built the jail from local materials with the
Lake Tanganyika stayed on board the MV "Liemba" and travelled across the lake. Since 2004 the lake has been the focus of a massive Water and Nature Initiative by the IUCN. The project is scheduled to take five years at a total cost of US$27 million. The initiative is attempting to monitor the resources and state of the lake, set common criteria for acceptable level of sediments, pollution, and water quality in general, and design and establish a lake basin management authority. Because of increasing global temperature there is a direct correlation to lower productivity in Lake Tanganyika. Southern winds create upwells