If a Phone Rings in the Desert...

Leander Kahney
http://www.wired.com/

What happens when a tourist attraction, in this case a phone booth in the middle of nowhere, becomes too popular? The National Park Service removes everything but the ring, that's what.

Located smack in the middle of the Mojave Desert at the end of a dirt road, the Mojave Phone Booth attracted so many visitors to an environmentally sensitive area that the NPS cut the connection and removed the booth last week.

"While the phone and its location proved to be a novelty for some in recent months, the increased public traffic had a negative impact on the desert environment in the nation's newest national park," said the National Park Service and Pacific Bell in a joint statement announcing its removal.

At least 15 miles from the nearest paved road, which runs through the vast nowhere between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, the phone was installed decades ago for workers at a now closed cinder mine.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, except rocks and Joshua trees, can be seen from the booth, according to Godfrey Daniels, an Arizona computer consultant who popularized the outpost.

Three years ago, after a friend told Daniels about the phone, he began dialing it every day, hoping for an answer.

Daniels documented his obsession -- A Pointless Exercise in Telephony -- and the sheer weirdness of it persuaded people from all over the planet to call the booth's number (760-733-9969).

"You can be sitting bored out of your mind at work and it’s like traveling," said Daniels of the attraction the phone exerted. "You can make something happen far away."

For the longest time, the phone attracted only a trickle of visitors. Then came a rash of news stories in the national media, and curiosity seekers flooded the site.

"There were a lot of visitors," Daniels said, "Well, for out there, there were a lot of visitors. Mainly at weekends. The chances of someone answering the phone were significantly improved from in the past."

Now Daniels said he is in two minds about the booth's removal. While its popularity now bores him, he remains skeptical of the National Parks Service rationale for its removal.

"I don’t think the NPS had a right to remove it," he said. "They can’t say what the negative environmental impact is. If there was a negative environmental impact, they should be able to say what it is."

The spokesperson for the Mojave National Preserve, which oversees the park, forwarded requests for comment on the booth situation to Pacific Bell, which didn't return phone calls. Neither did the the NPS.

The official joint statement simply states: "After weighing environmental concerns and public need, Pacific Bell and the National Park Service agreed to remove a pay phone located in a remote pocket of the Mojave National Preserve."

Whatever the reason, fans of the booth aren't buying it. Daniels estimated he has received nearly 200 emails protesting its removal in the last few days. Many came from visitors claiming the land around the booth remains unblemished despite the increased traffic.

"I was very impressed at how clean and untarnished the area was for being so popular," wrote "Robin," who visited last month. "There was no trash or debris, no trampled plants, no broken glass.... It looks to me like the people who have taken the time to visit the booth were very aware of keeping things in order."

Pacific Bell was a reluctant party in the booth’s removal, Daniels said, because of all the publicity it had received. The company had even replaced some of the shot-out windows with ones displaying the company’s logo.

And now, although the phone's gone, the number still rings, which Daniels said is a particularly cruel trick because unsuspecting callers believe the phone is still there.

Daniels said he hopes Pacific Bell will sell him the booth. If that happens, he plans to install the booth in a very remote, secret location and install a telecom link-up. He declined to discuss the details.

"If I had to do this all over again, I would do it very differently," he said. "I would keep it very, very quiet."