Ghost Towns of Route 66 (24 page)

DAGGETT

J
UST TO THE EAST OF
D
AGGETT
stands a former agricultural inspection station, now a storage facility, built by the state of California in 1953 to replace one built in 1931, which replaced the original built in 1923. As a historic footnote, director John Ford brought the cast and crew of
Grapes of Wrath
to Daggett's inspection station in 1939 to film the scene where the fictional Joad family is stopped for a second time by inspectors.

In 1946, Rittenhouse found Daggett to be a “tree shaded little old town that was formerly the location of smelters which handled the ore brought down from nearby mountains. Some of the old store buildings remain, but the town is now quiet.” Today, the town is even quieter, with the Desert Market being the busiest place in town.

The first settlement of the site dates to the immediate post–Civil War years of the 1860s. The discovery of rich silver and borax deposits in the Calico Mountains six miles north and a dozen years later gave rise to the town known as Calico Junction. It was renamed Daggett after the 1882 completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad from Mojave to Daggett, transforming the site from a roughhewn, hardscrabble camp into a boomtown.

The colorful Desert Market, opened in 1908 as Ryerson's General Store, stands in stark contrast to the faded remnants from Daggett's glory days.

Completion of a ten-stamp mill near Elephant Mountain fueled further growth. The large mill required ten- and twenty-mule teams for transport, and freight companies hauled supplies, ore, and water to and from area mines. As a historic note, special Death Valley–Mojave specifications devised to handle the excessively heavy loads gave rise to another industry: the construction and trade of huge wagons. One of the primary builders of these monsters was Seymour Alf. His shop, which served as a garage for motorists on the National Old Trails Highway as well as Route 66, still stands on 1st Street with the ghost sign of Daggett Garage on the wall.

The Daggett-Calico Railroad expedited the shipping of borax and silver ore to the mill, and the line also helped the community survive the collapse of silver prices and the exhaustion of profitable ore bodies during the 1890s. By 1902, the borax mines alone employed two hundred men, and the business district in Daggett consisted of Alf's Blacksmith Shop, a railroad depot, a drugstore, a lumberyard, the Stone Hotel, three general merchandise stores, two Chinese restaurants, a café, and several saloons.

Just as borax ensured the town's survival after the collapse of silver mining, the National Old Trails Highway, Route 66 after 1926, provided a new revenue stream as borax faded from prominence. Attesting to this was Kelly's Café and Shell Station, the leading national sales outlet for Shell products on several occasions.

With Barstow's prominence as a rail center and as the crossroads for U.S. 66 and U.S. 91, business was slowly siphoned from Daggett. By 1960, it was less than the quiet town noted by Rittenhouse.

Fire and time have claimed a number of historic structures in Daggett, including the old railroad depot. Still, a delightful number of structures survive, including the Desert Market, opened in 1908 as Ryerson's General Store, several now closed cafés and stores, and the circa-1880s Stone Hotel.

The Stone Hotel, built circa 1875, was originally a two-story structure with a second-floor balcony and a large glass dome over the lobby.

From Barstow, drive east seven miles on Interstate 40 to exit 7, then turn north.

A Lost World

THE VESTIGES OF A LONG
and very colorful history along the thirty-mile portion of Route 66 between Barstow and Victorville on the banks of the Mojave River are fast vanishing. In 2007, demolition erased Potapov's service station and auto court, built in 1931 by Spanish-American War veteran Guy Wadsworth. Urban sprawl is rapidly transforming the old town of Helendale—started as a water stop for weary travelers around 1862 and the former site of Exotic World, a burlesque museum—into a suburb of Barstow.

The Do Drop Inn is an empty shell. The Bar Len Drive In Theater is again an empty desert field. Hulaville, once an eclectic roadside attraction, is now but a faded memory preserved in old photos and a diorama at the Route 66 Museum in Victorville.

Still, since this section of road was where the Mojave Trail, the Spanish Trail, and the Mormon Trail converged as they headed for the Cajon Pass, a wide variety of tangible links, many that predate Route 66, keeps the drive interesting.

Counted among these are the row of storefronts from the late nineteenth century in Oro Grande; the Iron Hog Saloon, formerly a dealership for Case farm equipment; and Burden's Store and post office, built in 1926. Other tarnished gems to watch for are the Sagebrush Inn, started as a service station in 1931, and Oro Grande's depot and 1890 schoolhouse.

Anchoring both ends of this drive are two fantastic museums: the Route 66 Mother Road Museum in Barstow and the California Route 66 Museum. The former is housed in the beautifully restored Casa del Desierto Harvey House that originally opened in 1911, and the latter in a former Route 66 roadhouse, the Red Rooster Café.

Even though this faded sign may be more than half a century old, its modernity seems out of place under the desert skies at Oro Grande.

Forlorn desert hills and building storm clouds reflected in the windows of a long-closed Helendale service station are quintessential elements of the Route 66 ghost town in the desert Southwest.