The city of Bishop is located in Inyo County – which is geographically one of the largest counties in the country and is 95 percent owned by the federal government. Bishop is a classic western frontier city and has been squeezed out of all other industries by the encroachment of federal land, which literally surrounds it and limits the community to survival on tourism dollars. Those vitally important dollars come from visitors eager to see the great Wild West, ride out like our forefathers into the Eastern Sierra, enjoy the natural beauty on a hike, or hire a mule packer to explore the federal forests in the area.
The 50 thousand dollar grant contained in this bill for the American Mule Museum is a modest federal investment in a worthy economic development project and a good example of how federal seed money is leveraged to develop local projects.