Ghost Towns of Route 66 (22 page)

An eclectic collection of souvenirs representing more than a century and a half of life in the Mojave Desert surrounds the schoolhouse-turned-museum. The building also serves as headquarters for the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association. There is no neon or kitsch—just a small grove of trees, a windmill, and other trappings of a desert oasis to catch the passing motorist's eye.

Those who stop are pleasantly surprised. The old schoolhouse appears as it did in 1914. Inside is a dazzling array of simple exhibits that range from fine art, rare photographs, and arrows to a functioning wood-burning caboose stove that provides heat in the winter and artifacts from World War II.

Throughout the well-maintained grounds, and linked by pleasant little trails, are artifacts ranging from a weatherworn 1921 Buick to an Atlantic & Pacific boxcar more than a century old. The bronze eagle on the flagpole is from General George S. Patton's Indio headquarters. The site contains an operational stamp mill painstakingly moved from an old mine and reassembled on site as well as a collection of bottles with glass turned purple from the desert sun, vintage highway signs, and gas pumps. You'll find telephone poles from the first transcontinental telephone line and an aircraft beacon dating to the 1920s, ore cars and antique railroad crossing gates, and pumps, crushers, and other mining equipment that predate Route 66 by decades.

To say the very least, the schoolhouse and outdoor museum add flesh to the dry, dusty bones of the forgotten outpost of Goffs.

The empty windows of the old general store framing a desert sky present a haunting image in Goffs.

Essex's brief moment of fame came in 1977 after the bypass of U.S. 66 by Interstate 40. A feature in the
Los Angeles Times
proclaimed that Essex was so remote it was the last community in the continental forty-eight states without television service—after which all thirty-five residents were invited to the
Johnny Carson Show
, and a manufacturer in Pennsylvania donated the necessary translator equipment to move the town into the modern era.

The well remains, even though water is no longer available. The café and garage are closed. Only the post office remains in operation.

Danby, the next town to the west, began life as a water stop for the railroad in the Mojave Desert. These stops, initially named from west to east in alphabetical order, proved important for early motorists.

At some point, Danby morphed into a small oasis on the National Old Trails Highway, Route 66 after 1926. The 1914 edition of the Los Angles/Phoenix route map of the Desert Classic race course indicates that services offered here included repairs, oil, and gas—the same limited services Rittenhouse noted thirty-two years later in his guidebook. Today, a high fence protects the sparse remnants from vandals. The elements are another matter, however, and soon there will be little to mark the site of Danby but ruins.

Roy's Motel and Café is one of the most well-known sites along Route 66.

Cadiz has shared origins with Danby. However, its period as a service center for motorists was a short one, for when Route 66 supplanted the National Old Trails Highway, a bypass of three miles left this wide spot in a desert road high and dry.

Nearby on Route 66 are the remains of Summit, occasionally listed as Cadiz Summit. This often results in confusion. Summit was an oasis spawned by Route 66 and the needs of those who drove it. In 1946, Rittenhouse notes that it consisted of “A handful of tourist cabins, a café, and gas station.” Today, graffiti covers the ruins of these structures at the top of the pass through the Marble Mountains, and all manner of garbage litters the grounds.

The reason James Albert Chambless chose to relocate from the forested hills of Arkansas to the desolate wilderness of the Mojave Desert is a mystery. What we do know is that the Automobile Club of Southern California noted his proprietor-ship of a small store at the junction of Cadiz Road and the National Old Trails Highway in 1922 and that, with the 1931 realignment of the highway and its designation as U.S. 66, he relocated his business and reestablished it as Chambless Camp.

Between this point in time and the mid-1930s, Chambless Camp became Chambless, and James Chambless faded into obscurity. During this period, his namesake community grew into a very busy desert oasis that included a grove of trees and a post office, a gas station, motel cabins, a café, and a store.

For Rittenhouse in 1946, Chambless mirrored Danby in that it consisted of a “wide porched gas station, with a café and several tourist cabins.” He also noted, “Except for Ludlow, California, there are no ‘towns' which merit the definition between Needles and Daggett, California, a stretch of about 150 miles.”

The wide porch that once offered travelers the slightest bit of respite from the blistering sun is now gone, victim of a fierce desert storm, but the store built of adobe bricks and the small stone cabins remain. Sequestered behind a towering chainlink fence topped by razor wire, they stand in silent testimony to better times on the old double six and await their resurrection.

Several years ago, Gus Lizalde purchased and fenced the property. His dream to breathe new life into Chambless with its refurbishment as a Route 66 time capsule—and plans for a massive solar-powered generating facility immediately to the west—may once again make the town more than a dusty footnote to the history of the Mojave Desert and Route 66, but at this time the store remains roofless.

The towering Roy's Motel and Café sign erected in 1959 has contributed greatly toward making Amboy one of the most famous ghost towns on Route 66. The sign and its namesake café and gas station have figured prominently in commercials promoting everything from Dodge trucks to Qwest. The sign has also appeared as a backdrop in numerous films, including
Hitcher
, a 1986 thriller starring Rutger Hauer.