Organizations Support Mitzelfelt Land Sale Policy

From Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt’s
JoinBrad.com blog

This week I received a big boost in my effort to limit what have been virtually free acquisitions of land by conservation groups and the federal government in order to remove such property from public access and private ownership. Three well-established and highly respected property rights groups have came out in support of my proposed policy, which will be considered by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The first organization to support my proposal was the Property Owners Association of Riverside County (POARC), the leading land rights organization in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. The Lucerne Valley Economic Development Association (LVEDA) and the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association (MDHCA) also have voiced their support.

The POARC was formed to protect the rights of landowners. The association is a nonprofit, public policy research, advocacy, and educational organization founded in 1983. The organization serves owners of large and small properties, including farmers, homebuilders and others whose interests are affected by land use regulation.

"We strongly support the proposed county policy," said Bruce Colbert, Executive Director of POARC. "Property often goes into tax-default due to government restrictions placed on property to serve conservation group constituencies. These restrictions deny the landowners all economic use of their property. It is becoming an all too common racket that needs to be stopped by policies such as you are proposing."

The Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association is an 800-member non-profit organization devoted to the preservation of the natural and cultural resources of the Mojave Desert. The MDHCA currently manages 900 acres in and around the Mojave National Preserve, including historic open space.

MDHCA President Chris Ervin said his group’s support is based on both a concern for the disposition of land acquired by the federal government as well as concern about a shrinking tax roll. "We are alarmed by the neglect and destruction of resources as they come under the control
of the National Park Service," said Ervin. "Erosion of our tax roll revenue is a real threat as the loss of income would likely affect county services or require their elimination."

Chuck Bell, secretary of LVEDA, expressed his group’s concerns about Chapter 8 tax sales. "We support these efforts by Supervisor Mitzelfelt because this has been a long-standing issue of concern for our group," said Bell. "These outright gifts of land to the federal government need to be stopped."

Existing tax laws allow qualifying non-profit organizations to purchase residential or vacant property that has been tax defaulted for five years or more prior to the property being sold by the County at auction. The organization must then agree to use residential property for low-income residential purposes, or to dedicate the vacant land to a public use. These types of sales of tax-defaulted properties to non-profits are set forth in Chapter 8 of Part 6 of Division 1 of the California Revenue and Taxation Code and are commonly referred to as "Chapter 8 Sales". This process is often used to acquire land at below market prices because only the taxes due and an administrative fee are typically charged.

Land conservancies have been acquiring large amounts of private land in San Bernardino County, only to transfer the land to the federal government, thereby removing the property from county tax rolls and in some cases closing off access to public lands. Our county has lost 735,807 acres of tax base and ranches since 2000 to conservancy acquisitions for parks, wilderness inholdings and habitat mitigation.

The intent of my proposal is to return such tax defaulted properties to viable residential and other economic uses, and to maintain the properties on the tax rolls of the County whenever possible to help pay for public services. The policy would give supervisors more say about which groups can acquire land using the Chapter 8 provisions, where it can be acquired and to what use it would be dedicated.

The policy would allow the Treasurer-Tax Collector to approve Chapter 8 sales in many cases where conservation is the only possible beneficial use, and under other limited circumstances. But the policy would also close a loophole that the federal government has used by having non-profits acquire land on its behalf. The Federal Government is not allowed to acquire land under Chapter 8.
Removing private property from the county tax rolls results in a loss in revenue to the county - revenue that could be used to build roads, hire Sheriff’s deputies and firefighters, or to provide other public improvements.

We have lost about 150,000 acres of private land in the Mojave National Preserve to such conservation acquisitions. There are only about 100,000 acres of private property left there.
Private property ownership not only helps the County provide services by bringing in property tax revenues. It also has a role in protecting the natural environment.

Human activities such as ranching have been beneficial to the environment in the past by providing "eyes and ears" on the ground in case of fires, vandalism and other concerns. Humans have also developed and maintained water sources that have benefited species recovery and provided additional sources of water for firefighting.

Livestock grazing has helped keep fire fuels (vegetation) under some degree of control in the past. However, with the continued acquisition of ranches and grazing rights and with water sources being dismantled, we are losing this benefit. We have seen this phenomenon contribute to disastrous wildfire conditions.

Even if denied a tax sale under Chapter 8 — which wouldn’t always be the case depending on circumstances and the supervisor whose district the property is located within — non-profits would be able to still buy the land at auction at a regularly scheduled county tax sale. In that case they would have to pay the going price and potentially have to compete with private bidders. Implementation of my proposed policy would give more private citizens an opportunity to buy such lands. Currently under Chapter 8 sales, the public doesn’t get the right to bid on such properties.

If we are going to lose properties in perpetuity from our tax rolls and possibly lose public or private access, I want to at least make sure the taxpayers receive the market value of the property.

Preserving a town time almost forgot

Old railroad town, bypassed by Route 66, gets a helping hand from devoted couple

Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

GOFFS - "Hooch" Simpson has been dead for nearly a century, but this cantankerous desert character has not been forgotten.

In a photograph, Hooch's lifeless and shackled body hangs from a noose. A sign shown in the picture states that the dead man was hanged on Easter Sunday 1908 in Skidoo, a Death Valley mining town that no longer exists. The black-and-white image hangs on a wall inside a museum in Goffs, another desert town that itself could have been lost to history, but instead became a place where the past is remembered.

Goffs, once a railroad town west of Needles, is now the home of Dennis and Jo Ann Casebier and the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association. The Casebiers founded the association in 1993 and have restored the ghost town's red-roofed schoolhouse and transformed it into a museum that boasts a variety of Mojave Desert exhibits. Dennis Casebier said the association's collection includes 6,000 books, 50,000 photographs and the transcripts of 1,000 oral-history interviews.

"We've gotten ourselves embroiled in the history," he said.

Hooch, just one character in the Mojave Desert story, was executed after committing murder in Skidoo, Jo Ann Casebier said. Next to his picture is a display case containing a noose that, according to the museum, was the very instrument of Hooch's demise.

The National Park Service has more to the tale. According to its version, there is a desert legend saying that Hooch was hanged twice by townspeople. The first hanging killed him, but he was supposedly strung up a second time for photojournalists who weren't around the first time. You could call it an early version of the "perp walk."

Goffs has a story, too. The history of the town, as summarized by the association, is the tale of a railroad town that was founded in 1883 and owed the first decades of its growth to the Santa Fe Railroad.

National Old Trails Road also led to Goffs and became part of Route 66 in 1926. But five years later, Goffs began to fade. Route 66 was realigned about six miles south of the town and in 1937, the last classes were held in the schoolhouse that now houses the Mojave-themed museum.

During World War II, Army troops trained around Goffs, and inside the museum, a mannequin wears the green uniform of the 7th Infantry Division, a pack of Domino cigarettes tucked inside the band around his helmet.

"They trained here but they never went to the North African desert. They went to the Aleutian Islands and South Pacific," Jo Ann Casebier said.

Dennis Casebier, 71, grew up in Kansas and joined the Marines as a young man.
In a roundabout way, the military played a role in bringing him to the desert. He entered the service in 1953 before the end of the Korean War, but fighting a war on the other side of the Pacific wasn't in his future.

"The North Koreans knew I was coming so they signed the armistice," he said.

Instead of Korea, Dennis Casebier wound up stationed in Twentynine Palms, where he "got bit by the desert bug." After the Marines, he went back to college in Kansas, took a job in Norco and retired in 1990. He and his wife moved to Goffs that same year.

The Casebiers are visited in Goffs by volunteers who help maintain historical records. Jackie Ridge of San Diego is one of them. She said she comes to Goffs once a month to help catalog records. She began her work in the desert after the museum helped her find Brant, a place where her husband's great-grandfather worked as a railroad-station manager in the early 20th century.

Brant was east of Kelso, Ridge said. Kelso, inside what is now the Mojave National Preserve, was an old railroad stop whose depot still stands. Time has been harsher to Brant. Little remains except for what may have been a chicken coop and burro pen and a rock foundation for a house.

"The railroads have been regraded but it's amazing how close that house was to the railroad tracks," Ridge said. "It wasn't a quiet place to live."

Goffs is quiet, but Dennis Casebier is working to bring the noises of construction to the town. He wants to build a replica of Goffs' railroad depot to serve as a library. In 2005, he received a grant of about $500,000 for the project from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment. The groundbreaking for the depot project was in July, and Dennis Casebier said he's collected about $200,000 of the $250,000 he needs to fully fund construction.

One of Dennis Casebier's other priorities is interviewing as many Mojave Desert old-timers (or their descendants) as possible before their knowledge of desert living is lost.

"Oral history is a wonderful thing," he said. "We're trying to track down people who have first-time experience here."

The Great Mojave National Preserve Fire

22-27 June 2005

Between 22 and 27 June 2005 a fire that will change the crown of the East Mojave forever destroyed more than 70,000 acres. Before it was over, more than 1,100 fire fighters and associated equipment, aircraft, and support vehicles were involved. It is always difficult to estimate the cost of something like this, but the authorities involved are already admitting over $4,000,000 just to "fight" the fire ... and then there'll be rehabilitation and restoration costs.

Starting out with the good news (or "best" news I guess since none of it is good), I consider it remarkable they were able to contain the Hackberry Fire to the mountain range of that name. I was concerned the fire would get into Lanfair Valley. It didn't. Of course we have the rest of the fire season to be concerned about.

The fire destroyed at least 50% of the piñon & juniper habitat in the East Mojave. Included were historic piñons that were hundreds of years old that were used by Indians in prehistoric times as a source of pine nuts. In that sense these trees were more than simply part of the botanical landscape. And it must be understood that these trees will not be back in my lifetime, or in the lifetime of my children, or my children's children's lifetime. It might be noted that the fire burned only 70,000 acres out of the 1,600,000 acre preserve. But that 70,000 acres likely included half or more of the piñon/juniper habitat. It was part of the crown that gave the high country of the East Mojave such great natural charm. For many of us, the East Mojave will never be the same. We are left with our memories and the photos on file in Goffs.

The fire also consumed innumerable priceless historical sites. And when I say "consumed" I mean they are gone - not even much in the way of ashes. These include Bob Hollimon's home site, Pettit's Well, the Stotts Stamp Mill site, part of the Government Holes Corrals, Barnett Mine, up to a hundred other mine sites, and much more. These things are gone. They will never come back. When you combine these losses with the losses of cultural resources deliberately destroyed through the action of the National Park Service, it can be seen the preserve that started out so rich in that regard will soon be destitute of historical sites. I used to think the information and photographs we are collecting here at Goffs would serve as an interpretive adjunct to the historical sites themselves. Instead, our information and photographs will, in many cases, be all there is.

Residences were consumed by the fire in Round Valley. The fire entered the valley from the S and SW. I have no way of knowing whether that phase of the fire could have been prevented. The destruction is too complete and of course MNP NPS filters and spins any facts that come out. Anyway, a number of residences were completely and utterly destroyed. The landscape was completely changed from one of a lush piñon/juniper region to something that looks like it is on the moon. Many use the word "moonscape."

Mid Hills Campground was mostly destroyed. As I understand it (the way in is blocked by MNP NPS so I haven't actually seen it), only one tier of camp sites remains. Mid Hills represents 50% of the camp grounds in the MNP and the most popular one, especially by experienced desert campers. I imagine some grand new plan will be needed to make up the difference.

Hardly a thing can be found in the more intensely burned areas. Jo Ann and I noted three weeks after the burn a complete absence of lizards and even insects while walking across a badly burned area in Round Valley. The charred remains of rabbits and smaller rodents that couldn't get out of the way are encountered here and there. More agile critters likely fared better.

To exacerbate the situation, on Friday 22 July and again on Sunday 24 July heavy rains fell in the Round Valley/Gold Valley region. The rain served to soften the bleak black coloration of the countryside, but the black slurry rushed down the hill sides forming raging torrents that washed the road out through the narrows in Black Canyon and did other damage. We can expect that to continue. The rain extended out some into Lanfair Valley which might help with the dryness there. (Later note: rains have continued in this area up to the time of writing - 3 August 2005.)

As we leave this fire behind us, we must worry about what lies ahead. We are maybe a month into the fire season with two or more months ahead. There's much yet to burn in the East Mojave. My most urgent worries would be Lanfair Valley and Cima Dome. Keep your fingers crossed on these. It has already been demonstrated that the force and will available to confront fires in the East Mojave is not sufficient to stop them.

As to the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association and its properties in the East Mojave, none were burned. President Chris Ervin and Executive Director Dennis Casebier each have personal property in Round Valley that was very badly burned - or, the phrase is, "the land is toast." Several of our long-time members and close friends lost their residences in this fire.

Mojave National Preserve is attempting to come out of this looking like it was not a failure and making it appear they have a grip on things. On Saturday 23 July 2005 they hosted a get-together amongst their "neighbors" to "share information about the recent fire, discuss concerns, and learn how to prepare for future fires and other emergencies." Although I do not commonly attend affairs like this, considering them to be mainly a waste of time, I decided to go to this one for two reasons: (1) Because I wasn't invited and yet I own four pieces of land in the preserve and the Goffs Cultural Center shares a border with the preserve, and, (2) I had a house guest who wanted to attend because he, too, owns land in the preserve.

Park Service is putting as good a face on this as they can. Comments like "we did all that was humanly possible," "it was an act of God," "it was the wettest winter on record and hence the undergrowth expanded to an unusual extent," "there was too much dead material on the ground and it needed to be burned." Every once in awhile MNP NPS tries the approach of "the fire was started naturally so it is OK" but that doesn't fly, especially with people who really care about the East Mojave and those who lost their homes or cabins. This meeting was definitely a propaganda and posturing affair.

As it turned out a large number of people were there and we all did get to visit with many of our acquaintances. You could get along OK at this meeting unless you made the slightest suggestion that the response to the fire was less than perfect. Yet there was an undercurrent from the "neighbors" pointing to poor management practices and other bungling that permitted the fire to become much larger than it might have been. For example the things I heard at this meeting included: (1) There were arguments among the various factions in the command center at various points as whether to fight the fire or to just let it burn - valuable time was lost in the discussions. (2) Fire fighting units were held back because of uncertainties about whether they were supposed to drive in wilderness. (3) At the onset it was thought water would be available in the big tank at the mouth of Carruthers Canyon, but it was dry - as were many other potential water reserves around Lanfair Valley (this because MNP NPS has cut off all the waters previously maintained by ranchers). They had to wait up to five hours for water to be hauled in. (4) Communications between various elements of the huge fire-fighting force were poor. (5) The formal fire plan drawn up last year by MNP NPS was a waste of time. (6) There were major errors in certain of the multi-colored maps MNP NPS had drawn up, but when "neighbors" attempted to comment on that (or anything else for that matter) the MNP NPS people became very defensive. (7) While the fire was raging there was government equipment including a front loader with a blade being used to tear out corrals and fence lines only a few miles from the fire but this equipment was not brought into play. (8) Someone had heard from a fire fighter that certain properties were to be protected at all costs, while others received little or no attention. (9) A critical group of fire fighters were not informed there were residences in 4th of July Canyon which placed the residents at risk. We'll likely never know the truth about these things because of the standard NPS practice of withholding data (just make a formal request for something sometime and you'll find out what stonewalling and the shell game really are).

However, the data provided by MNP NPS (just for show and tell, you couldn't take it home) made one scenario clear that might well have gone another way. I'll try to explain.

The fire came into Round Valley from the south. It went down both sides of the valley and was an inferno along Black Canyon Road. It was heading for Cedar Canyon Road which was a natural fire break to prevent it from going farther north into the southern end of the New York Mountains. As the fire approached the northern end of the valley and Cedar Canyon Road, it slacked off - that is, the inferno died down as the fire approached the natural barrier of Cedar Canyon Road. That was the place to make the stand. But that was not done. By the time the fire reached Cedar Canyon Road there were just two small relatively harmless fingers to stop, one just east of Black Canyon Road and the other over near Rock Spring. But the fire was permitted to go on.

Having been over that ground several times since then, it can be seen the fire might have been stopped there. There are places in that area where the fire was stopped naturally by a small two-tracker desert backroad. And most of that area didn't burn at all. It is still green. Anyone who wants to, can go out and see that. Or you can see it on the special multi-colored maps MNP NPS has prepared. Why a stand wasn't made here is a question for the people who have all the data (including command structures &c) and we all know MNP NPS are reluctant to share data with us lay people. My guess would be it was an error on the part of those in direct charge and that when the inferno that had been experienced in the southern part of the valley started to fade, just at that moment when a decision should have been made to make a stand, someone faltered.

As a comparison, we can take a look at the same Cedar Canyon Road a little to the west. The fire burned hard from the south right up to Cedar Canyon Road and was stopped there, thus clearly showing the Cedar Canyon Road had the potential as a fire break to stop the fire. Instead, a little to the east in Cedar Canyon, it was permitted to cross the road and continue around Pinto Valley and into the New York Mountains sacrificing additional tens of thousands of acres of piñon/juniper habitat. I asked one fire fighter why, if they felt Cedar Canyon Road itself wasn't enough of a fire break, they didn't use a blade (like bulldozers or front loaders) to widen the fire break and he said the use of such blades for this purpose was against "park" policy. He quickly reversed himself saying there weren't any available anyway, although we all have knowledge that there is a perfectly good front loader nearby being used to destroy fence lines and corrals.

There is no question on my part about the quality of these fire fighters. Likely they are the best that can be had. They worked hard, faced some danger, went without sleep, did a good job as they were told, and made a lot of money in five days. But as with a military engagement (and I wouldn't make this analogy except a MNP NPS person did at the open house) you can have the best soldiers in the world and lose the battle if they are not given the right orders at the right time. The ability to sense out what the right order is at the right moment is what leads to success and makes a brilliant field commander. Anyway, the two fingers of fire coming down the central part of Round Valley were permitted to cross Cedar Canyon Road with the loss of more piñon/juniper habitat and creating a major threat to 4th of July Canyon (which was mostly saved by the fire fighters).

On 21 April 2005, almost two months to the day before the MNP Fire started, MNP Superintendent Mary Martin was here for a meeting. I asked her a question: "What do you plan to do when the big fire starts?" With a great show of confidence, she replied: "We have a plan, we'll implement the plan - do you want a copy?" I said "yes" and she subsequently sent me one. Through the days of the great fire, I wondered how many people were sitting around thumbing through this tome - none I hope. To face up to a great challenge like this fire, you don't need a detailed plan. You need to know what to do and you need to have the courage to do it - truly great people win. Others fall by the wayside studying their plans. Following are just a couple of paragraphs from that plan:

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE - FIRE MANAGEMENT PLAN

B. WILDLAND FIRE USE

Opportunities for Wildland Fire Use

Fire is not thought to play as significant a role historically in the Mojave Desert as it does in other western ecosystems, most notably the southern chaparral or Sierran mixed conifer zones. Within the true Mojave Desert vegetation types, small infrequent fires characteristic of the historic fire regime are a function of the low fuel loads and wide spacing that characterizes the Mojave Desert flora. Within the Mojave Preserve, however, a number of vegetative communities reflect a transition between Mojave and Sonoran or Great Basin desert types. These communities do support fire and their historic fire regimes and characteristic fire adaptations differ from true Mojave plant communities. Lightning ignitions do occur and resulting fires are a natural, albeit relatively infrequent, disturbance regime.

The objective for wildland fire use within the Mojave National Preserve is to allow the natural process of fire to occur with minimal interference, thus fostering landscape and biotic diversity. Acceptable results include the creation of vegetative mosaics and edges, removal of decadent shrubs and grasses to encourage growth of new and vigorous individuals, promotion of nutrient cycling, and creation of improved short and long-term foraging opportunities for certain species of animals.

Fires from natural ignitions will be allowed to burn within given areas and under specific circumstances where there are minimal values at risk. Approximately 342,927 acres are zoned for fire use, including portions of all Fire Management Units except the Cima Unit. In all cases, fire use zones are coincident with designated wilderness. In these areas, a timely suppression response would be unlikely or has the potential to result in adverse impact to wilderness values. Natural ignitions in these areas are expected to be infrequent and isolated with fire spread contained by natural barriers. Fire use will only be implemented where the current spot weather forecasts indicate no wind events that could cause spread of spotting that would pose a risk to life, property, or sensitive resources. A number of pre-determining factors would also be weighed, including natural preparedness levels, air quality restrictions, and current local resource availability. Maximum manageable area per wildland fire use incident will not exceed 200 acres. In all cases, wildland fire use incidents will be monitored by fire personnel. The fire management strategy will transition from fire use to suppression when a) conditions change, b) the fire threatens to exceed the maximum manageable area, c) or the fire poses a threat to other values.


It can be seen from these words that MNP NPS doesn't (or didn't) really understand the power of a wildfire. Their tremendously exaggerated opinion of themselves and their abilities, precludes them from seeing the truth. Then apparently the National Park Service heritage prevents them from speaking the truth when things go wrong. (I believe it is a bigger problem than just our local Mojave National Preserve.)

The two paragraphs quoted above raise many questions. One question that comes to my mind from my own experience that reflects a misguided policy on the part of MNP NPS has to do with the prohibition against burning "dead and down" in campfires. If you want a campfire in the MNP, you must bring in your own wood and fire pan. Maybe in other parks that makes some sense. I've been camping in the East Mojave for over forty years and frequently I have used the same camping spot many times. Just as a matter of course and concern about the possibility of fire, I would clean up around my camp site. I even got to bringing along a small rake so I could get the weeds from under larger bushes. This undergrowth facilitates the spread of a wildfire in the desert and it serves to ignite the larger bushes. Over a period of time my camping areas would be neat and tidy for some distance around. I always had open camp fires and never had a problem. Under NPS management (and we've had ten years of that now) that isn't permitted. In fact, if you even looked like you wanted to gather a piece of dead and down wood for a fire you'd be approached by Big Brother armed to the teeth and ready to haul you off to jail. So they would prefer to burn 70,000 acres at a time?

Early in the fire, I guess before MNP NPS people realized the wildfire was out of control, you'd hear words from NPS people like: "It is a natural event so we will let it burn." Or that no fire suppression efforts would take place until it was out of wilderness. In the early stages, it was not necessarily viewed as a bad thing. One MNP NPS person spoke in very defensive words about the naturalness of the fire and went on to swoon: "I am thrilled (not my word) to be part of such a dramatic event." The word "thrilled" stuck in my mind. How about being "appalled?" or how about feeling remorse or even guilt?

I don't especially mean to say that if MNP NPS had permitted burning of "dead and down" the outcome of this fire would have been any different. How could I know? But it does point up how inappropriate many of the regulations they bring with them from other parks have no application in the desert. And, from the very beginning, MNP NPS has steadfastly refused to listen to any desert expert or resident. They still seem not to understand that there are many people out here (permanent residents and visitors) that know a lot more about this place than they do.

Another inflammatory issue is to suggest in the presence of MNP NPS people that the removal of cattle and burros from the East Mojave made any difference. The point is that if cattle had been present they would have eaten much of the grass and other fuel making it more difficult for the fire to spread. This of course reflects on another disaster MNP NPS is responsible for, i.e., removal of cattle from the East Mojave. There are, however, cattle yet on the 7IL Ranch, so MNP NPS is quick to point out that fires burned in areas where cattle are yet grazing. And that is true. Yet you don't have to be a rocket scientist to deduce that if cattle have grazed an area, that area will be less susceptible to fire. But, with characteristic behavior, MNP NPS seems to be totally unable to be objective about any issue that reflects upon them in any way. If you carry that thinking another step, then it is safe to say there is no scientific basis for anything they say or do since objectivity is the essence of science. And I believe that to be the case. There is no person involved in this trained in science that is free to speak the truth.

Now that the fire is over, MNP NPS is busy making reports of all the damage. They are even compiling lists of cultural resources. This isn't because they care about those resources, it is because they can now apply for funds for restoration. Funds that would be outside their normal budget process. I'd be surprised if this doesn't amount to another four million. And what good will it do? You cannot replace things that are priceless.

Thus ends the first decade of National Park Service management of the East Mojave. And this fire is just one more in a long ten-year list of disasters out here. I don't know if we can stand another ten years. And yet NPS guardianship is touted as the highest level of protection the nation can provide.

Life could be so much nicer for MNP NPS, and everyone around them, if they could just kick back and accept the reality of their situation in the East Mojave. If they could accept that they are the Johnny-come-latelys here. That nothing is gained by their deceit ... their unwillingness to be honest and straightforward ... their difficulty with accepting and respecting the multitude of people who have vested interests here.

One bottom line that seems clear to many who understand the East Mojave is that this area should never have been put under the management of the National Park Service. The area was doing just fine under BLM management and it should be changed back. Senator Dianne Feinstein and her colleagues, the vast majority of the news media, and the multitude of Dark Ages People (Enviros) were all wrong. And to prove that point we are privileged to watch the destruction of the East Mojave before our very eyes with no way to stop it.

Final note. I've agonized over this report for more than a week. That has given me an opportunity to show it to others, including people who were involved in the fire in official capacities. There is general concurrence of the major points described here, including failures in coordination and management and especially in the confusion contributed by faltering leadership on the part of MNP NPS. An investigation by an unbiased third party is in order.

Dennis G. Casebier
Goffs Schoolhouse
37198 Lanfair Road G-15
Essex, California 92332

Mojave fire draws shock, anger

Flames consume 67,000 acres and destroy five residences and two cabins built in the 1800s


Frank Sparks Looks over what's left of his four-bedroom house in Round Valley after it was consumed by the Mojave National Preserve wildfire.
Photo submitted by Richard MacPherson

By LEROY STANDISH/Staff Writer
Daily Press, Victorville, CA

"The old way is being destroyed," Dennis Casebier said.

He remembers the "old way." Days when cattle grazed, juniper and pinyon pine trees flourished, and deer drank from water drawn from beneath the parched desert floor by ranchers. In the last week fire has swept through more than 67,000 acres of the 1.4 million acre Mojave National Preserve destroying much of the old.

Dry grasses here in what used to be the heart of cattle country were ignited by lightning Wednesday and converged into one across a massive area between Interstates 15 and 40 east of the Nevada border. The fire has scorched a path from the Gold and the Round valleys on the west along the New York Mountains on the north to the edge of the Lanfair Valley to the east, said Greg Cleveland, spokesman for the Southern California Interagency Incident Management Team One.

"We haven't seen a fire of this extent for centuries," said Robert Fulton, executive director of the California State University Desert Study Center at Zzyzx Road. "Those of us in the know knew that this was going to be a high fire risk year."

As of Sunday afternoon five residences were lost, two cabins built in the 1800s and six trailers/structures and additional outbuildings were destroyed. "A couple of those buildings that were burned were historical sites, ranch sites from the 1800s," Cleveland said.

Evacuations were still in affect for the Round Valley and Fourth of July Canyon areas. Determinations on letting residents back in those areas will be made Monday, Cleveland said. At the height of the fire more than 1,000 firefighters and numerous apparatus including half a dozen helicopters were brought to bear on the flames, which late Sunday were 65 percent contained. Officials anticipated 100 percent containment by Monday night.

The fire started and remained in lands above 4,000 feet. Of concern to firefighters were abandoned mine shafts and unexploded ordinances left behind by troops training for World War II. As of late Sunday there were no reports of injury, Cleveland said.

Many residents expressed anger toward park management. "It's National Park Service management," said Casebier, executive director of the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association, which owns 640 acres lost to fire in Gold Valley and additional acreage scattered throughout the preserve. "They have gotten rid of the cattle out here as fast as they could. They got rid of all the burros and now they have shut off the water. There is a price to pay for all this and now we are payin' it."

Others see it as nature's way.

"When you take cattle off the range the fuels grow and it increases your fire potential. That is a fact, but we had a 100-year rain this year therefore we had a 100-year fire. Everyone wants to point their finger and say this is someone's fault," said Kate Blair, whose family runs the last remaining ranch within the preserve — on 350,000 acres a hundred miles east of Barstow. "There could have been thousands of cattle here and the same thing would have happened. It is just one of those acts of nature — those acts of God — it just blew up so fast they couldn't get the resources on it fast enough."

Frank Sparks owns 10 acres of land 6,000 feet above sea level in the Round Valley. "This fire has just devastated people," he said. Lost to the flames was his four-room house, trailer, water tanks and several out buildings. He estimated his losses at $50,000, but could only express sorrow for the loss of all that surrounded his property.

"Twenty- to 30-foot pinyon pines and junipers and there is nothing there now. It will take at least 100 years for it to grow back with trees and stuff," Sparks said.

Like many other residents of the preserve he blames the park service, which took over control of the preserve more than a decade ago from the Bureau of Land management, for the devastation.

"I was kind of pissed off at the park service. They have had the attitude that the original people that are there shouldn't be there and they have tried to buy everybody out," Sparks said. "Their theory is it is Mother Nature's fire, but now they have just about terminated all the animal life, the bird life, the turtle life in the Eastern Mojave."

Sixty-year-old Richard MacPherson planned on retiring on his 80 acres in the Round Valley, about eight miles from Hole in the Wall, but now his dream has turned to ash. "The whole thing has just blown us away so bad," MacPherson said.

He estimated his losses at well over $100,000. The total includes a mobile home, two cargo containers, a tractor, generators and solar panels.

When he and his wife visited the property Friday, the scene was one of utter devastation. "The juniper and sage brush are all gone. It will never be (replaced) in my and my grandson's lifetime. They grow very, very slowly," he said.

Fulton, who owns 40 acres in the preserve, said about one-fifth of his property was scathed. In areas were the fire moved slowly and burnt into the roots the junipers won't return for hundreds of years, he said.

"If the fuel load was not too substantial and swept through many of the trees at least in part will survive," he said. "It is going to be a mixed bag in areas where everything will be burned off and take decades to recover." How animals, such as the Desert Tortoise fared, will have to wait until after the smoke clears and studies undertaken, he said.

Though fire of this magnitude is rare here the risk of even greater fire looms. Many areas of the preserve are still green and have yet to dry in the summer heat. "We haven't even started the fire season," Casebier said. "I felt sure we would have a disaster before the season was over, but I never thought it would come before the fire season."

Library to house desert history

Mojave group gets grant for building

By Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

GOFFS - A former railroad depot that six decades ago hosted thousands of troops training in the Mojave Desert is to be reborn as a library to house a rich collection of desert history.

Directors of the California Cultural and Historical Endowment have awarded a grant of $499,500 to build a library to hold the Mojave Desert Archives, gathered by Western historian Dennis G. Casebier during the past 50 years.

The archives, the single largest collection of historical material dealing with the Western migration and pioneering ventures in the Mojave, includes more than 6,000 volumes of published works, 50,000 photographs and 4,500 maps of the region dating to the pioneering quest for the West.

The collection is housed in various buildings at the 20-structure Goffs Cultural Center. The center includes the original Goffs School, which was built in 1914 and is now a museum, and a twice-moved dwelling constructed in 1927 that serves as a library.

It will take about two years to construct the library, which will be designed in the image of the historical Goffs railroad depot, which operated from 1902 to 1956. In the early 1940s, thousands of soldiers training in desert warfare arrived and departed from the depot, which was demolished in 1956, Casebier said.

The grant to the Mojave Desert Heritage Cultural Association, founded by Casebier and his wife, Jo Ann, in 1993, is one of 13 awarded out of 276 applications for funds through the endowment, supported by Proposition 40.

In 2002, California voters approved the Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks and Coastal Protection Act, known as Proposition 40, to set aside $267 million for historical and cultural resource preservation.

Kevin Starr, California historian emeritus, said the endowment's mission is to document the contributions of the many groups of people who make up California. It also helps Californians to deepen their understanding of the state's history, its present society, and themselves.

"The receipt of this generous grant marks the first time we've gotten support from outside our own membership of about 800 people," Casebier said. "The bulk of the work at the Goffs Cultural Center ... has been done by volunteers from California, Arizona and Nevada."

Viewing the upcoming construction project, volunteer Chris Ervin said, "Now the work really begins."

Among the volumes in the collection at Goffs are originals of official reports of the 1853-54 Whipple expedition, which surveyed a route for a Pacific railroad across the Mojave.

"We also have the official reports and map of Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who brought camels to California from Texas in 1850," Casebier said.

"The collection includes everything related to the East Mojave, dating to 1850. There was nothing before that."

Casebier said the center acquired the volumes "one at a time and there is a story behind each one."

The volumes also include 2,000 loose subject files pertaining to individuals of interest and specific cultural sites. It also contains an extensive collection of old area newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets, and material culled from federal records in the National Archives.

"We also have compiled 700 oral histories," Casebier said. "We're constantly looking for volunteers to help us continue this important work, and are searching for desert old-timers to participate in our extensive oral history program."

Casebier, 72, a Kansan who served in the Marine Corps at Twentynine Palms for 22 years, later was employed as a Navy physicist working with guided missile systems in Corona. During visits to Washington, D.C., he frequented the Library of Congress and the National Archives, conducting research on the East Mojave.

After writing a book in 1970 about the Arizona territory, Casebier started Tales of the Mojave Road Publishing Co., which has produced 24 titles. Sixteen were authored by Casebier.

"In 1980, I started in earnest with the library collection," he said.

A year later, Casebier formed a volunteer group that continues today, called the Friends of the Mojave Road.

"We worked with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to develop the Mojave Road and other historic trails into the back country," he said.

For this work, Casebier and the group received the bureau's highest national award for volunteer service.

Upon retiring in 1990, the Casebiers bought the old Goffs school and 113 acres around it, intent on opening a desert cultural center. Three years later, they helped found the nonprofit, tax-exempt Mojave Desert Heritage Cultural Association to take over the property.

"In 1998, Jo Ann and I deeded the school and the 1-acre school yard to the association, restoring the school to its 1914 condition," Casebier said. "In 2001, the school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places."

The Casebiers donated 70 acres of their property to the cultural association in late 2002.

Cultural center struggles to cope with visitors

By KELLY DONOVAN/Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press

GOFFS — Promoters of the Goffs Cultural Center say they've been almost too successful in their efforts to attract guests.

Visitors have been flocking to monthly open houses at the remote east Mojave cultural center in such great numbers that there haven't been enough volunteers to handle them all.

The cultural center, about two hours east of Barstow, is a 70-acre property with artifacts and historical displays in more than a dozen buildings, one of which is a historic schoolhouse.

More than 600 people visited the center last year, mostly during the open houses, said Helen Baker, a San Fernando Valley resident who organizes the events as a volunteer for the nonprofit Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association.

Although the center had open houses prior to last year, it didn't have a regular schedule and didn't publicize them much. The center normally had about 100 visitors a year.

The center adopted a regular schedule for open houses and got publicity from media outlets in 2003, and more people started pouring in.

"It's just been a win-win, except that we've got so many people coming that we need more volunteers," she said. "There's all kinds of people who come to Goffs — people interested in history, people interested in four-wheeling, people interested in touring the desert."

Goffs had open houses the first weekend of every month last year except in July, August and September, when it's too hot, Baker said. Its 2004 open houses are on the same schedule.

Last year's visitors were a mix of out-of-state tourists and California residents, many stopping off on their way to or from Laughlin, Nev., Baker said.

To volunteer for an open house weekend, or for more information, call Jo Ann Casebier at 733-4482. Information is also online at www.mdhca.org.

The center is in Goffs at 37198 Lanfair Road, just off National Old Trails Road.

TRIP OF THE WEEK: Goffs a forgotten town that's now drawing visitors

Las Vegas Review-Journal

Dozens of trains a day roll through old Goffs on the double tracks of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad across the Mojave Desert in California. None of them stop there these days. They no longer need the facilities of little trackside watering stops such as Goffs.

Diminished, but not forgotten, Goffs today serves other purposes. The ghost town marks a major entry point for the vast Mojave National Preserve. It lies along a well-kept portion of historic Route 66, drawing a growing number of road enthusiasts. It boasts a cultural center and museum housed in a beautifully restored mission-style schoolhouse and extensive outdoor historical displays.

Located about 30 miles from the Colorado River, Goffs occupies the top of a gradual rise in open arid country, noted when survey and mapping parties crossed the Mojave Desert in the mid-1800s. Free of steep grades and mountain passes, the route proved favorable when the railroad sought routes in the 1870s. By 1883, the Southern Pacific built the line, establishing Goffs to service the trains. The railroad built a depot in 1902.

Lanfair Road, heading northward from Goffs, roughly parallels another railroad, now disappeared. From 1893 to 1927, the Nevada Southern short line railroad ran to Searchlight, then central to many active mines. Today, Lanfair Road forms part of a network of remote roads accessing the rugged landscapes of the Mojave National Preserve.

To reach Goffs, about 110 miles from Las Vegas, drive south on U.S. 95 toward Needles. Where the highway crosses the railroad tracks, watch for the well-marked junction with historic Route 66, the original paved highway across the Mojave Desert. On a recent Sunday, Goffs welcomed a road rally of PT Cruisers, just one of many groups making nostalgia runs along portions of old Route 66.

After the railroads converted to diesel locomotives, which did not require the frequent watering stops needed by steam-powered trains, towns such as Goffs began to decline. However, Goffs could still rely on the U.S. 66 traffic to generate business for its garages, filling stations, hotel and eateries. That changed when the highway was relocated a few miles south in 1931.

Today, the handsome restored one-room schoolhouse built in 1914 appears much as it did when constructed by San Bernardino County. It stands as the only reminder of the days when Goffs was home to a couple of hundred people and served a larger population scattered over a huge area. The building doubled as a community center and lending library after school for grades one through eight.

Children attended Goffs School until 1937. The building thereafter fell into private hands. Sometimes lived in, often vacant, the building gradually deteriorated. A couple acquiring it for a home in the 1980s began serious reconstruction, saving the classroom roof from caving in. Repairs continued when Mojave Desert expert and champion Dennis Casebier and his wife bought the school and surrounding acreage in 1990. Casebier brought along his extensive library of books, maps and research concentrating on the Mojave Desert and its history.

The new owners envisioned restoring the schoolhouse to its original state, using historic photos and plans. The sturdy building of wood frame covered by stucco over steel mesh had generous porches for shade, expansive windows for light into the 800 square foot classroom and a fenced acre of playground.

The Casebiers knew they couldn't do it alone. They worked to create the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association in 1993. In 2001, Goffs Schoolhouse attained listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a result of work done by a graduate class from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Now owned by the volunteer, nonprofit group, the museum opens for visitation the first weekend of each month except July, August and September. The schoolhouse museum continues to add materials to its archives and artifacts to its impressive collections. Research includes recording first person historical accounts alluding to the area. The future of the once-derelict schoolhouse now looks bright.

Mojave milestones

Braving the perils of the historic road -- and nearly succeeding.

By Susan Spano, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

A bullet-riddled street sign on Old Mojave Road marks a turn near the Piute Range. (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Baker, Calif. — Some people love the desert. They love it at 110 degrees with the AC off. They love rusted junk, abandoned mines, sand traps, rattlesnakes, old bones and dry washes. You're pretty sure they're touched until you go there with them, as I did in October with my brother, John.

He'd been wanting to drive the 130-mile Old Mojave Road, a dirt, rock and sand path across Mojave National Preserve that passes landscapes you don't get to see on paved roads. It was the historic route from the Colorado River to Barstow for Native Americans, explorers, stagecoach drivers and the Army.

When the railroad laid tracks to the south, the old road was all but forgotten until Dennis G. Casebier, a Navy physicist from Corona with a passion for desert history, decided it should be re-opened for recreation.

In the early 1980s, the Friends of the Mojave Road, founded by Casebier, mapped, repaired and erected stone cairns along the desert route. But with the creation of the 1.6-million-acre Mojave National Preserve in 1994, the group's custodial role diminished.

Now Casebier has moved on to tending a historic schoolhouse museum in the Mojave Desert hamlet of Goffs and collecting oral histories from people who once lived in the East Mojave Desert. But he still sometimes checks the mailbox his group installed near Kelbaker Road, where people record their passage over the old road. Casebier estimates that several thousand make the trip annually.

One tends to think all deserts are the same, places that get only a scant amount of rain. But in North America there are four kinds: the Great Basin, Sonoran, Chihuahuan and relatively small Mojave, all in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest.

Deer keep their distance at the Mid Hills Campground in the Mojave National Preserve. (Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Sailing the desert in an SUV

The Mojave National Preserve has some of the tallest sand dunes and thickest Joshua tree forests on the continent and, better still, a combination of elements — lava cones, dry lake beds, basin and range topography that make it a kind of desert primer.

If a desert has something to teach, I want to learn. Then too, I like tagging along with John on hiking and backcountry driving trips. He has the skills and gear, although when camping he would eat protein bars for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I didn't bring along some real food. For protection in the wilderness, he takes my grandfather's World War I saber, about as deadly as a papier-mâché prop in an operetta. He pores over maps before setting out and then basically ignores them in order, I think, to give expeditions a sense of discovery and adventure.

John told me this would be a very rough trip — two days of driving and one night of camping — and that I better not wimp out, the way I did a few years ago when I made him turn back on the appallingly rugged road that leads to the Maze District of Utah's Canyonlands National Park.

I rented a beige Ford Expedition with four-wheel drive and left a day ahead of John so I could see a few sights, including Kelso Depot. This desert oasis at Kelbaker and Kelso-Cima roads (two of the paved arteries that cross the preserve) was born with the completion of the railroad between Salt Lake City and L.A. in 1906, when there was considerable mining in the area.

But passenger trains began bypassing the little settlement after World War II. The handsome early '20s Spanish Revival train station, with its restaurant and regal stand of palm trees, was left to molder.

Now the National Park Service is in the final stages of renovating the building as an interpretive center and museum, scheduled to open this summer. It's a good rest stop between visits to the Cinder Cone Lava Beds about 15 miles north and Kelso Dunes to the south.

Then I headed up Kelso-Cima Road, which rounds the south side of gently sloping, astonishingly symmetrical Cima Dome, a 75-square-mile area of volcanic uplift in the wild heart of the preserve. The two-lane highway, often used as a shortcut between Palm Springs and Las Vegas, is straight and flat, paralleling railroad tracks before branching off across the Ivanpah Valley.

The sun was setting in a pink puddle by the time I reached Nipton, on the northeast side of the preserve, with its bushy tamarisks, pint-sized hotel and general store. I chatted with the clerk and drank a soda before heading for the Avi Resort & Casino, on the Colorado River about midway between Needles, Calif., and Laughlin, Nev.

I am not much of a gambler and had never been to the Needles-Laughlin area, where the tamed Colorado River is a bathtub favored by motor boaters and water skiers. But the eastern portal of the Old Mojave Road is near the Avi, which is owned by the Mojave Indians who settled the river's flood plain and helped blaze the trail that became the road.

They led Spanish explorer Father Francisco Garcés across the desert in 1776 and did the same for the American trapper Jedediah Strong Smith in 1826. But eventually, relations turned hostile between newly arriving white people and the Indians. As a result, in the 1860s the U.S. government built a chain of forts along the old desert trail, which by then had become a rump-blistering wagon road carrying supplies and mail.

I doubt the people at the Avi, propped at slot machines with plastic cups full of quarters, were thinking about history. Together with the casino's garish lights and the gorging at the Native Harvest Buffet, they vaguely depressed me, so I went to my room — big, clean, simply furnished, not bad for about $25 on a weeknight — and went to sleep, anticipating a rendezvous the next morning with John, who wasn't able to leave L.A. until after work.

I banged on his door at 9 a.m. and had a map spread out on a table in Avi's Feathers Café when he showed up for breakfast. Our plan was to drive half of the road that day, camp overnight and finish the next day, coming out at Afton Canyon just south of I-15 between Barstow and Baker. Then we would head back to the Avi, where we were leaving John's car, for a dip in the pool, another go at the buffet and beds with clean sheets.

But we were in no hurry, because two days of driving would easily get us over the road, with time to stop and explore such features as Soda Dry Lake on the west side of the preserve. After rainy weather, it becomes a vast, tire-swamping mud flat. When John saw the Expedition, he said it was probably too heavy to make it across the playa, but he cheered up when I told him it was insured for every conceivable mishap.

We packed the water, food and gear John had brought, spent a cool $50 filling the gas tank and set out. The unmarked turn-off west across the desert was about three miles north of the Avi; we found it with the help of Casebier's "Mojave Road Guide," annotated mile by mile. John made me manage the wheel at the beginning, to prove I could do it. Like most novice dirt-road drivers, I tended to take my foot off the gas when we came to sand. But my brother kept saying, "Follow the ruts. Keep going. Don't stop."

Then he cracked open a liter of Coke and yelled out the window, "No problem anyway! We're fully insured!"

That day was a pure desert joy from start to finish. The temperature was about 80 degrees when we left, and the sky was mounded with clouds. A lop-eared jackrabbit jumped out of a nest of creosote, birds tittered, the air smelled like a spice rack.

And, suddenly, everything sharpened up, as it will in the desert, from the yellow rabbitbrush to the brittle Piute Mountains, as if I'd just had Lasik surgery.

About 23 miles west of the Colorado River (using Casebier's distance calculations), we reached Ft. Piute, one of the military redoubts built on the road in the 1860s. It sits in the shadow of Jedediah Smith Butte, above dependable Piute Creek, and once harbored 18 enlisted men of Company D of the 9th U.S. Infantry.

John went looking for Native American petroglyphs in the creek bed while I ate a packaged cheese-and-cold-cut snack on the knee-high stone walls that are the remnants of the fort. Just before we relaunched our Old Mojave Road sortie, he did a saber dance in front of the Expedition with Grandpa's sword.

The setting sun colors the Marl Mountains in the central section of the Mojave National Preserve, about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles.(Robert Gauthier / LAT)

Mysterious turnoffs

With John driving, we climbed 3,412-foot Piute Pass, infamously rough in the old wagon road days. The view west swoops over the Lanfair Valley, where homesteaders tried to make the Mojave bloom in the early 20th century, to range upon range of desert mountains, separated by basins, in a Western geography lesson.

From there, we tooled across the valley, so thick with Joshua trees you would think they had been propagated. Here and there we saw old stuff scattered over the desert, including a wrecked school bus that made me think of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."

There were also mysterious turnoffs that John said could lead to crystal methamphetamine labs. He likes to put me on edge. When I asked if we needed gasoline, he routinely said we were about to run out.

We crossed paved Ivanpah Road at Casebier mile mark 41.7 and caught graded Cedar Canyon Road west to avoid a more treacherous stretch of the Old Mojave Road along Watson Wash. Eventually, we reached Government Holes, where one of the last gunfights in the West took place in 1925. It's a pretty place in the Round Valley, with a windmill and abandoned corral, and we considered making camp. But it was starting to get chilly and there were no windbreaks, so we turned south on Black Canyon Road, heading for Mid Hills Campground in aromatic forests of pinyon pine and juniper.

There we claimed site No. 25, with the preserve's best view of Cima Dome. A fire pit was stocked with wood, left by some friendly earlier camper, and there was a nice flat place for my tent. John set up his cot outside so he could see the stars. We had steak and apples for dinner, talked for a while and then went to sleep.

I slept like a sunken ship and awakened in time for sunrise over Cima Dome.

Another day in the desert ensued, not quite as good as the last. We lost our way, making an unintended detour north toward Death Valley Mine on a track that kept getting fainter and fainter. Finally, we reached the paved Kelso-Cima Road, where there's a little convenience store and post office run by tiny, wizened Irene Ausmus, who came to the Mojave with her husband in the 1960s and refused to sell out when the National Park Service arrived.

It wasn't hard to find the Old Mojave Road again, with Casebier's help. In fact, the road's rutted route can be seen for miles as it pushes west across Kelso Wash and rounds the Beale Mountains, named for explorer Edward F. Beale, who tried to introduce camels to the Mojave in 1857 but had to abandon the experiment because they frightened the horses.

The views north to Cima Dome and south to Kelso Dunes only got better. But just east of Marl Springs, John realized we had a flat, necessitating an hour of hot, dirty work mounting the humongous spare. There was some cursing, after which we decided to get to Kelbaker Road, about 20 miles west, as soon as possible, so we could drive to the town of Baker on I-15.

With the rigors of Soda Dry Lake ahead, it seemed prudent to get the blown tire fixed so we'd have a spare.

In Baker, we stopped at the Park Service information office, where a ranger gave us more bad news. Autumn rains had made passage over the playa dicey. Several vehicles had gotten stuck there recently, languishing for days awaiting rescue as the salt crust of the dry lake corroded their undercarriages.

John wanted to risk it, but the day was more than half gone. Over a lunch of hummus, fried calamari and gyros at the Mad Greek restaurant, I persuaded him to abort and head back to the Avi. So we can't say we drove the whole road. Our names don't appear in the record book at the Old Mojave Road mailbox, which we bypassed in our rush to Baker.

But John plans to return and conquer the playa. Maybe I'll go with him. I'm starting to understand why he loves the desert. Besides, I'd like to see him brandishing Grandpa's saber again.


Rocking and rolling across the Mojave

GETTING THERE:

Mojave National Preserve is about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles. From L.A., take Interstate 15 northeast to Baker and turn south on Kelbaker Road, or take Interstate 40 east from Barstow and turn north on Kelbaker Road, to reach Kelso Depot, a major historical site in the preserve. The eastern portal of the Old Mojave Road is on Needles Highway about halfway between Needles, Calif., and Laughlin, Nev.

Spring and fall are the best seasons to drive the Old Mojave Road. Consult the Mojave National Preserve or "Mojave Road Guide," by Dennis G. Casebier (Tales of the Mojave Road Publishing Co., Essex, Calif.), for information on how to prepare for the trip.

WHERE TO STAY:

Two campgrounds in Mojave National Preserve, Mid Hills and Hole-in-the-Wall, have drinking water and toilet facilities. Sites are $12 per night. Roadside car camping is also permitted, with restrictions.

Avi Resort & Casino, P.O. Box 77011, 10000 Aha Macav Parkway, Laughlin, NV 89029; (800) 284-2946, http://www.avicasino.com/. This complex on the west bank of the Colorado River has rooms in a new tower or an older poolside building. Doubles start at $19 Sundays to Thursdays, $49 on weekends.

Hotel Nipton B&B, 107355 Nipton Road, HCR-1, Box 357, Nipton, CA 92364; (760) 856-2335, http://www.nipton.com/. This homey desert enclave is on the northeast side of the preserve. It has a general store and five guest rooms with shared baths. Doubles are $69.50, including breakfast.

WHERE TO EAT:

Laughlin and Needles have a range of casino and fast-food restaurants. But if you're driving through Baker on I-15, don't miss the Mad Greek, (760) 733-4354, for serendipitous gyros, souvlaki and fried calamari in the desert. Lunch for two about $20.

TO LEARN MORE:

Mojave National Preserve Headquarters, 222 E. Main St., Barstow, CA 92311; (760) 255-8801, http://www.nps.gov/moja, or the NPS Baker Information Center, 72157 Baker Blvd., Baker, CA 92309; (760) 733-4040.

Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Assn., Goff's Schoolhouse, 37198 Lanfair Road G-15, Essex, CA 92332; (760) 733-4482, http://www.mdhca.org/.

History Captured Alive

Dennis Casebier is an expert at oral histories




Story by STUART KELLOGG
Photo by LARA HARTLEY
Victor Valley Daily Press



Dennis Casebier, executive director of the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association (MDHCA), has interviewed 200 people who once lived in Lanfair Valley.

Starting in 1910, the well-watered valley north of Goffs enjoyed a homesteading boom.

But as will happen, bust followed.

“Of 400 homesteads,” Casebier says, “fewer than 200 ‘proved up.’ The people I interview now have all left Lanfair Valley.

“I do oral history in an empty land.”

On April 26, he met with members of the Mohahve Historical Society and students of Leo Lyman, professor of history at Victor Valley College, to discuss what Casebier has learned about collecting oral histories (“an art form, not a science”).

Much of what Casebier shared has as much to do with courtesy as with research technique.

Equipment

“Oral histories take a lot of time,” Casebier said, “so don’t scrimp on equipment. I use a Bell & Howell recorder and standard-size 90-minute cassettes. A 60-minute tape is too short, a 120-minute tape too thin.”

Remarking that Nikon makes a lens especially for photographing photographs, Casebier urged the amateur historians to have their pictures of documents developed at a top-of-the-line photo lab.

Be prepared

Because every interview subject leads to somebody else, Casebier maintains a computerized list of old-timers’ names, addresses and phone numbers. Every now and then, he prints it out and puts the most recent version in his car.

“And I always carry a tape-recorder,” he said. “Who knows, I may have to go to jail tonight, and there I’ll meet an old-timer on my list.”

Advance notice

To assure a potential interview subject that he and the MDHCA are professional, Casebier may put an old-timer on the organization’s newsletter mailing-list.

“Hopefully,” he said, “when I do call, they’ll have been waiting to hear from me.

“But I never send a potential subject a copy of one of my books (e.g., Casebier’s “Guide to the Mojave Road”). If I did, they’d tell me what’s already in the book.

“But after our interview, I may give them a book.”

Knowledge of the topic

Although each subject contributes something of value, Casebier said, “You need to know more about the topic than any one person you interview.”

Citing a subject who remarked, “My grandfather lived in Blake, not Goffs,” Casebier said, “In fact, Blake and Goffs are the same place. Briefly changed to Blake, the name was later changed back to Goffs.”

Potential for intimidation

No matter how much you know, Casebier said, never correct the subject, for that will surely turn them off: “And don’t flaunt your own knowledge of a topic.”

“Shut up and listen”

In line with the above, Casebier said, if an older person gets a blank look, don’t prompt them: “They are thinking, so let them think. It takes time to remember events of 60 years ago.”

Follow-on notes

Rather than disturb the flow of recollection, write down questions as these occur to you, and ask them later.

“Make sure to tell the person why you are writing notes,” Casebier said. “As it is, most of your questions will have been answered by the time a person stops talking.”

He also warned interviewers to watch for signs of fatigue, “for if the subject is tired, they won’t give their top performance. Suggest a break for a few hours or, if possible, come back the next day.”

Maintain control

If a subject goes off about an old hurt (ranting, for example, against the government or a family member), he permits it — for a while. Then he steers them back to the topic at hand.

Military service

In an exception to his “Maintain control” rule, Casebier lets veterans tell their war stories even if these have nothing to do with Lanfair Valley. “I try to get what I need first,” he said, “but they deserve it.

“For veterans of World War II, I always ask, ‘Where were you when the war ended?’ and ‘What do you think of the atom bomb?’

“A guy who’d fought at the Battle of the Bulge was on a troop ship, heading from Le Havre to the Pacific, when he got word of Hiroshima. ‘I’d been good as dead,’ he said. ‘Now I wasn’t.’ ”

Casebier added: “Always ask a vet what unit he served in. This will help historians who come after you.”

One person at a time

Dismissing family reunions as “having no value except as a chance to add to your old-timer list,” Casebier stressed the importance of not allowing other people to interrupt a subject: “Be willing to say to an adult child, ‘I’d like your mother to answer this.’ ”

But having interviewed two people separately, it can pay to talk with them together.

This is what Casebier did with a man and a woman who’d gone to school together in 1914 and hadn’t met since:

“By interviewing them separately, and then together, I got so much more than I could have gotten from either one alone.”

Raise the comfort index

“Most of my people are elderly, simple folk,” Casebier said, “and so I start with easy questions: What is your full name? Any middle name? Your date of birth and where? Who were your parents (you may get a story out of that)?

“Maybe I’m chicken, but if there is a touchy issue, I put it off. For example, if I already know that the subject’s grandfather made moonshine.

“Once I was scheduled to interview the only man to spend time in San Quentin for cattle rustling. When I rang the bell, an elderly man with an oxygen tank opened the door.

“I thought, ‘Oh, no!’ But he brought up San Quentin right away.”

Transcription

Back home from an interview, Casebier promptly duplicates the tapes.

“Never transcribe from original tapes,” he cautioned. “Instead, transcribe from duplicates. You can also mail dupes to a volunteer transcriber who may not be the best interviewer but is a much better typist than you.”

According to Casebier’s wife, Jo Ann, “All transcription is verbatim. No language or factual errors are corrected.”

Remarking that he prides himself on capturing candor, Dennis Casebier said, “There was once a lot of prostitution in Searchlight (Nev.).

“When I mentioned this to one woman, she said, ‘Go down the street and talk with so-and-so. She was a whore.’ ”

Which may be why it’s Casebier’s policy not to enter a history in the MDHCA data base as long as the subject is alive — without their express permission.

Photographs and documents

To preserve homestead papers, postcards and other ephemera, Casebier brings a photocopier to each interview.

He also solicits photos: best of all as gifts to the MDHCA, next best as loans. Barring that, he photographs pictures on site.

In any event, Casebier said, “I organize the photos in the order that they’ll be copied — and ask the person to talk about each one. I also photograph what’s written on the back.

“The best interview subjects are teachers. They’ve spent their whole lives talking, appreciate what we are doing, and understood the need for caption material.

“I believe the caption is 50 percent of a photograph’s value.”

Just as he duplicates tapes, Casebier copies every image twice and in the same sequence. “That way,” he said, “I’ve got a backup set in case one batch of negatives is lost at the photo lab.” He added that “a scanned digital-image is no substitute for a continuous-time print from a negative.”

Leads for other interviews

An important part of any oral history is developing leads to other subjects. To make it easy for people to contact him, Casebier leaves cards with everyone he speaks to.

“Another way to get leads,” he said, “is to print an old photo and caption in the newspaper. This is sure to provoke calls from people eager to tell you the truth of the matter!”

Established in 1883 as a siding for the Southern Pacific Railway, Goffs grew in importance when, in 1907, a short-line railroad connected it to the rich mines at Searchlight.

By 1911 there were enough children living in Goffs (the sons and daughters of railway employees) to require a school: at first a rented, frame structure; later a handsome Mission-style building.

The school served a total of 412 students before closing down in 1937, obviated by a new school in Essex.

The old Goffs schoolhouse is now the centerpiece of the 113-acre Goffs Historic Cultural Center (founded by Casebier and his wife, Jo Ann, in 1989) and headquarters for the nonprofit Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association.

“The other day,” Casebier said, “we were having a board meeting, and an elderly lady appeared in the door of the schoolhouse. When I asked, ‘May I help you?’ she said, ‘I’m part of the puzzle.’ “She was one of the 412 students.”

Of their shared passion for oral history, Casebier told his audience: “My only regret is that I didn’t start earlier. It’s taught me how to listen and how to appreciate the elderly.”

Don't fence him in

Dennis Casebier preserves the human resources of the East Mojave

Stuart Kellogg, Staff Writer
Victor Valley Daily Press

Yes, it was rude, but I had to ask: What’s it like to live 30 miles from nowhere?

“We are here,” replied Dennis Casebier, founder of the Goffs Historic Cultural Center six miles north of Interstate 40 and half an hour west of Needles.

“You are the one who lives far away.”

So it came as no surprise when, two seconds later, he admitted a fondness for “desert rats,” heirs to the original mountain men.

“Desert rats aren’t exactly rebellious,” said Casebier, 65. “It’s just that they won’t be told what to do.

“People who live in the back country unconsciously erect barriers to confound city folk. That barrier — whether 30 dogs or junk in the yard — serves as a filter.

“The average flatlander is intimidated. But once you pass the desert rat’s test, you can’t get away.”

Lamenting that the classic desert rats have all gone, Casebier blamed the Bureau of Land Management (“Once the BLM got interested in resource management, the desert rats were doomed”) but also the fact that “today it’s an unlucky combination to be both self-reliant and intolerant of regulations.”

This from a 30-year Navy man.

Goffs was established in 1883 as a siding for the Southern Pacific Railway. It increased in importance when, in 1907, a short-line railroad connected it to the rich mines at Searchlight, Nevada.

By 1911 there were enough children living in Goffs (sons and daughters of railway employees) to require a school. Classes began in a rented, frame structure.

Three years later, a handsome mission-style schoolhouse was built. It served a total of 412 students before closing down in 1937, supplanted by a new school in Essex.

Searchlight had fizzled by 1923. Route 66, which once brought traffic through town, was redirected six miles south in 1931.

By 1937, Goffs had gone bust.

But 20 years later, a kid from Topeka, Kan., was assigned to the Marine Training Center in Twentynine Palms.

“Kansas isn’t the desert,” Casebier conceded, “but it, too, is big and empty. And it, too, had been homesteaded — Twentynine Palms was settled by World War I veterans gassed by the Germans.

“Back then, you could still drive all over Joshua Tree National Monument, so a friend and I explored the old mines. We’d sleep out at night and, in the morning, dump scorpions out of our boots.”

No wonder Casebier fell in love with the desert.

In 1960 he returned to California to work as a physicist on the Navy’s guided missile systems. By then, however, Joshua Tree was choked with tourists and government regulations. So Casebier looked around and discovered the East Mojave.

“It reminded me of the desert I used to know,” he said. “But more desert, and more Joshua trees.”

His work for the Navy meant Casebier spent a third of his time in Washington, D.C. While there, he researched the East Mojave in the National Archives, combing through pension files and muster rolls:

“The Army’s muster rolls detail everyone who ever served here — what he looked like and what he’d been doing just before he enlisted.”

Casebier’s research focused on the 1850s through the 1880s, and especially the Old Mojave Road, an ancestor of Route 66 that runs 15 miles north of Goffs.

“Until 1883,” he said, “the Old Mojave Road was the major route through this latitude for people traveling between Prescott, Arizona, and the Port of Los Angeles.”

Over the course of 25 years, Casebier filled 50 reels of microfilm with records from the National Archives and the Library of Congress.

In 1981, while still living in Corona, he founded the Friends of the Mojave Road with fellow devotees of that road and other back-country trails.

Today the Friends boast 850 members, chiefly in California, Nevada and Arizona. “But the other day,” Casebier said, “someone wrote from Switzerland requesting a (newsletter) subscription.”

Why do people join the Friends?

“Because they think it matters to create something bigger than yourself.”

This “thing that matters” is the cultural center, built around the old Goffs schoolhouse on 113 acres bought by Casebier and his wife, Jo Ann, in 1989.

In 1993 the Friends gained nonprofit status as the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association.

Working from old photos and interviews with more than 40 former students — and funded by $133, 850, all from private donors — MDHCA volunteers restored the schoolhouse to its original, 1914 splendor.

That schoolhouse may be the centerpiece, but the cultural center boasts other gems as well: for example, the tiny Danby courthouse, which once stood next to Judge Johnny Neilson’s service station; a building from the Golden Queen Mine near Mojave; an Atlantic & Pacific boxcar, 100 years old, now used as a cookhouse; and a complete 10-stamp ore mill from Rosamond.

Casebier explained that gold miners used stamp mills to pulverize rock: “Stamp mills won the West, but they contained so much metal, most got scrapped out. Today hardly any are left.”

Another building at the site, now used as a library, has had a most adventurous life.

Built in the ’20s as a maintenance station for the California Division of Highways, it was moved 18 miles to Essex after the realignment of Route 66.

In 1992 the Friends moved it back to Goffs.

“In fact, there are two of these houses,” Casebier said. “The other, built under the same contract, is still in Newberry Springs.”

The library is home to MDHCA’s 6,000 volumes of desert lore, 35,000 historical photographs and 600 oral histories.

Of those oral histories, half were done by Casebier, and half by Harold and Lucile Weight of the late, great “Desert Magazine.”

“The Weights were doing oral histories a generation before I started,” Casebier said. He also acknowledged the work of volunteers who transcribe recorded interviews.

The center’s purview stretches from Barstow to Las Vegas, Arizona and Twentynine Palms. “Vegas is just at the edge of our turf,” Casebier said, “though if I heard of a 97-year-old with a clear mind who lived in Vegas in the ’30s, I’d certainly interview them.”

He’s even interviewed people younger than himself, “if they were significantly involved in a core business or in the highway itself.”

Any tips on collecting an oral history?

“During the interview itself,” Casebier said, “I talk as little as possible.

“We start with vital statistics, such as the person’s full name. If that name is unusual, I’ll ask about it. Then we go on to where and when the person was born, their parents’ names, etc.”

When he interviews an elderly woman, her grown daughter — worried about having a strange man in the house — may sit in the same room. “Then,” Casebier said, “the daughter may finish her mother’s sentences instead of giving her time to collect her memories. That’s hard.”

At other times, two may be better than one:

“I interviewed a man and a woman who’d gone to school together in 1914 — in Lanfair Valley, an elevated, better-watered valley north of here that enjoyed a homestead boom starting in 1910.

“By interviewing them separately, and then together, I got much more than I could’ve out of either one alone.”

Should scholars approach him, asking to read a transcript, Casebier first tries to discover their intentions. “Especially until someone passes on,” he said, “I feel responsible for what they have told me.”

Sometimes friends or family suggest a really good interviewee. Then Casebier sends the prospect an MDHCA newsletter, “to let them see what we’re up to.”

At other times subjects show up on his doorstep:

“During World War II, 16,000 troops were stationed at Goffs. Every once in a while, a guy will come by looking for his roots.

“We’ll sit on the porch and I’ll ask him, ‘Could you see the water tanks? How far were you from the railroad? How would you get into Needles?’

“From this I can figure where his particular camp was.

“You can still see rock streets those boys built during the war.”