Portion of El Garces restoration to move forward

El Garces Hotel in 2009 (Wikimedia Commons)

By JENNIFER DENEVAN
Needles Desert Star

NEEDLES — The transportation element of the El Garces restoration project will be getting underway as soon as possible based on Needles City Council’s decision March 13 to move forward with using federal grant money the city has for that portion of the project.

Allan Affeldt, of El Garces LLC, gave an update to the council at the March 13 meeting. He gave a brief background of the project and how the project hasn’t progressed in the last two years. He said the company and the city had been trying for a joint development agreement to allow for a transfer of the title of the building to El Garces LLC. That has been in the works for nearly two years.

Affeldt said there’s finally been a response to the letter regarding the JDA. The FTA stated they couldn’t see why the city couldn’t move forward with the project for the transportation part, such as parking and a visitors center, but indicated they weren’t likely to approve the JDA.

He said what that means is it’s highly unlikely any private investor will help with the project. It doesn’t matter how much time or money the private investor spends, they will have no security in that investment, which means no bank will back the project, he continued.

There was a conference call about a week prior to the city council meeting to see what should happen next, Affeldt said. There is still about $5 million in grant funding available, which is substantial; the catch is the city can’t spend it on anything such as restaurant or hotel. The city can spend that money on basic infrastructure and the shell of the building, he continued.

An additional challenge is Congressman Jerry Lewis is retiring at the end of the year, Affeldt said. All the funding for the project is federal and Lewis has been a big supporter. It is possible the city could lose that support once he retires, he continued.

“My advice to you as an elected official is to spend the money before you lose it,” he said. There is no expiration date on that funding, but given the economy, there is a good chance the grant money will disappear, he added.

The recommendation is to spend the money and get as far as the city can and somewhere along the line perhaps a third party will want to participate, Affeldt said. About 80 percent of the architectural engineering has been done for the building and there’s already been a process for a construction manager. It is believed the city could go to bid with all those documents within a couple of months, he added.

It’s estimated that the entire building could be completed within a year’s time since the scope of work has been reduced, Affeldt said. There isn’t any reason the city couldn’t have all the money spent within a year’s time, he continued.

Dan Lutzick, of El Garces LLC, said it is important for the city to be sure to place the proper electrical and utilities so they can expand in the future. If done correctly, they won’t have to reconfigure anything in order to expand at a later time, he added.

Tony Frazier, council member, said he wanted to thank Affeldt and Lutzick for all their time on the project. “I think that for at least a long time, Allan’s dream, Dan’s dream, was our dream,” Frazier said. They helped us along as far as they could, he added.

Haenszel became 'the source' on San Bernardino County's past

Nick Cataldo, Columnist
San Bernardino Sun

During my years researching San Bernardino County's colorful past, more than a few historians have helped me out immensely. But without question the scholar who made local history the most exciting for me, not only through her own amazing work, but also through the encouragement she gave me, was the late Arda M. Haenszel.

Born on Sept. 24, 1910, in Ebenezer, N.Y., the only child of Dr. Allen and Arda C. Haenszel became fascinated with history early on when she moved with her parents to the semi-abandoned Nevada desert mining town of Searchlight in 1919. Dr. Haenszel was the company physician for the Santa Fe Railway as well as the lone town doctor. In fact, he was the only doctor for miles around.

The region's mining boom was over by nearly a decade, so young Arda grew up around the ghostly reminders of abandoned buildings, mine shafts, and rock dumps. This unique environment may have sparked her interest in the past.

The Haenszel family left Searchlight in 1922 and moved to San Bernardino, which is where Arda called home for most of the rest of her life, until moving to Redlands' Plymouth Village, where she resided during her last years.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, Arda launched a 33-year elementary school teaching career in San Bernardino. No doubt, her kids learned a thing of two about our region's "olden days" during her tenure.

After her retirement in 1966, she often was honored as the No. 1 consultant on our county's rich heritage. A longtime associate of the San Bernardino County Museum, she amassed a famous set of files - an unbelievably extensive historical collection on any and every topic regarding San Bernardino County as well as parts of Southern Nevada - that have provided material for countless other researchers (including yours truly) in their quest of exploring this region. She efficiently and willingly shared information on local Indian tribes, old trails, pioneers, historic sites, nearly forgotten towns, the Mojave Desert ... the list goes on and on.

Arda also had a strong interest in archaeology and, although not blessed with great health, was no "couch potato" writer. Up until about 10 years before her passing, she always was driving her Jeep out into the most remote areas of the desert, photographing abandoned sites, documenting her findings, and analyzing ancient petroglyphs.

Over the years Arda wrote numerous articles pertaining to archaeology, paleontology, anthropology and history for the San Bernardino County Museum Association. She also wrote many articles for the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society's publications, "Heritage Tales" and "Odyssey," an amazing accomplishment considering her busy schedule volunteering with the County Museum and San Bernardino Public Library. Even more remarkable was that this was mostly done while she was practically deaf and her vision was failing.

Arda was well known for her book donations; she is responsible for the creation of the California Room at San Bernardino's Feldheym Library.

For decades Arda Haenszel had been the "the source" for local history and when she passed away on Jan. 9, 2002, the 91-year-old San Bernardino County resident became part of that story she loved to research and write about.

Her estate included a very generous donation of $749,000 to the City of San Bernardino Library Endowment Fund. On Dec. 13, 2007, the San Bernardino Library Board of Trustees unanimously approved the naming of the California Room as the Arda Haenszel California Room.

Take a 'monumental' tour of Cajon Pass

Santa Fe and Salt Lake Trail Monument (parks.ca.gov)

Mark Landis, Correspondent
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

For centuries, the Cajon Pass has been a primary corridor into Southern California, and a series of little-known monuments commemorate the pioneers who blazed the trails over the rugged mountain barrier.

There are nine unique monuments set in historic locations throughout the Cajon Pass. Each one tells a story of the hardships and triumphs faced by the pioneers who made the difficult journey.

The routes through the Cajon Pass began as simple footpaths used by Indians traveling from the inland deserts to the coastal regions of Southern California.

The first white explorer to travel through the Cajon Pass was most likely Spanish military Captain Pedro Fages in 1771, who was leading a band of soldiers hunting for deserters.

Other famous explorers including Padre Francisco Garces and mountain man Jedediah Strong Smith followed various routes through the Cajon Pass.

The most prominent group of settlers that traveled through the pass was a party of 500 Mormons who came by wagon train from Utah in June 1851. The task of hauling their heavy wagons down the steep slopes of the Cajon Pass was the final test of their grueling 400-mile journey.

The monuments are spread throughout the Cajon Pass, and all but three are easily accessible by car. Those that are accessible can be seen in an enjoyable afternoon road trip.

Stoddard-Waite Monument: The first monument set in the Cajon Pass was dedicated May 18, 1913 to commemorate the early pioneers who came by horseback and wagon train through the passage. Sheldon Stoddard and Sidney P. Waite, two of the most well-known pioneers who traveled through the pass in 1849 were honored attendees.

This spire-shaped monument, listed as California Historic Marker No. 578, was placed along the former Santa Fe/Salt Lake Trail. It is located in a thick grove of Cottonwood trees near the CHP truck scales on the southbound I-15, about three-quarters of a mile south of Highway 138. The monument is on private property owned by the San Bernardino County Museum, and is only accessible by special permission.

Santa Fe and Salt Lake Trail Monument: A second monument of similar size and shape was erected in 1917 just a few hundred yards northeast of the Stoddard-Waite Monument. A festive ceremony was held to dedicate the monument, once again attended by pioneers who had traveled the early wagon roads.

The concrete spire, listed as California State Historic Landmark No. 576, is located at the end of Wagon Wheel Road (south of McDonalds), just east of the northbound I-15 CHP truck scales.

Sycamore Grove Monument: This large spire-shaped monument was built in 1927 to mark the site of the 1851 Mormon camp at Sycamore Grove, known today as Glen Helen. The 500 Mormon settlers camped here while the leaders of their party negotiated the purchase of Rancho San Bernardino.

This monument, listed as California Historic Marker No. 573, is located just inside the grounds of Glen Helen Park, on Glen Helen Parkway, .8 mile south of Cajon Boulevard.

Mohave Trail Monument: The Mohave Trail Monument was set on Sept. 19, 1931, on a remote mountaintop northeast of Devore, fittingly named Monument Peak. This small stone and mortar monument was placed by the San Bernardino County Historical Society to commemorate the explorers and frontiersmen who traveled this ancient footpath.

A 4-wheel drive vehicle is required to reach the 5,290-feet elevation Monument Peak site. Take Palm Avenue north from the I-215 until the paved road ends and becomes Bailey Canyon Road. The 5.9-mile trip up the dirt road can be readily found on Google Maps. The monument is located at GPS coordinates: 34 14'43.95"N, 117 21'12.33"W.

Mormon Trail Monument: A modest stone and mortar monument topped by a wagon wheel was built in the West Cajon Valley by the Sons of Mormon Pioneers, and dedicated on May 15, 1937. A small, weathered plaque commemorates the Mormon settlers who passed through this area in 1851. The monument, listed as California Historic Marker No. 577, is located on Highway 138, 4.2 miles west of I-15.

Pioneer Women Monument: On April 16, 1977, this simple concrete and marble monument was placed near the former Mormon campsite of Sycamore Grove to commemorate pioneer women. The plaque is a memorial to the hardships the pioneer women faced as they traveled across the untamed country by ox team and covered wagon.

The monument is located on Glen Helen Parkway at the onramp to the northbound 1-15 freeway.

Mormon Pioneer Trail: This small stone and mortar monument was placed in July 1985 to commemorate the wagon train of 500 Mormon settlers who passed by the site in 1851.

The monument is located on the Old Salt Lake Trail near the 1912 Stoddard-Waite Monument and is accessible only by permission.

Blue Cut: This large concrete monument was erected alongside old Route 66 in a narrow gap of the Cajon Pass known as Blue Cut. The monument, dedicated July 23, 1994, was placed by the Billy Holcomb Chapter of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E. Clampus Vitus. The inlaid brass plaque describes the explorers and immigrants who blazed the trails and roads through the pass, as well as some of the historic events that occurred in the area.

To reach this monument, exit I-15 at Kenwood Avenue and go south to Cajon Boulevard (old Route 66). Turn right onto Cajon Boulevard and go 3.7 miles north. Look for the monument on the left in a wide turnout area, set back among the shade trees.

Summit Train Station Monument: This carved marble monument was placed near the site of the Summit Train Station in 1996 by the Hesperia Recreation and Park District. The weathered text carved into the marble commemorates the site of the Summit Train Station on the Santa Fe Railway, and the nearby site of the Elliot Ranch settled in 1927.

The monument also is near the entrance to Horse Thief Canyon where thousands of stolen horses were driven through this section of the Cajon Pass in the 1800s.

The monument is located in Summit Valley on Highway 138, 4 miles east of I-15 on the north side of the road. It is part of a series of monuments placed by the Hesperia Recreation and Park District to commemorate historic sites in the area.

A touch of paint brings a desert town to life

A traveling muralist brightens buildings — and maybe prospects — in Needles.

Dan Louden paints a mural on an office wall in Needles. A relative newcomer in the town, he is popular among residents. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times)

By Phil Willon
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Needles, Calif — Along old U.S. Route 66, the once-kitschy Overland Motel is crumbling, vacant lots pock downtown and, as if this remote desert outpost weren't suffering enough, the last car dealership folded up and left behind a blanket of empty asphalt.

Not a pretty picture for travelers who might pull off the highway for a burger or to spend the night.

Then, about five months ago, a man with a sun-stained face and paint-crusted fingernails drifted in, and the tiny old railroad town of Needles started looking a little brighter.

The first mural popped up on a bare cinder-block wall at the Wagon Wheel Restaurant: A giant Santa Fe locomotive chugging by a roadside sign for the "Route 66 Original Diner."

Another appeared at the Valero gas station, with two space aliens that look like ET driving down Route 66 in a 1950s Buick. Elvis and Marilyn took over the side wall of the Econo Smog with their two-tone Ford Fairlane convertible parked at the Colorado River. Marilyn sported aviators and the King, white leathers.

All pay homage to U.S. Route 66, the Mother Road, which ran from Chicago to Los Angeles and right through the heart of Needles before it was retired from the federal highway system in 1985. Other larger-than-life odes appeared seemingly overnight at the Needles Point Pharmacy and Liquor Store, Deco Food Service, the local Chevron station, the Miranda Car Wash and the local Best Western — more than a dozen murals in just a few months, and more are in the works.

The man behind the brush, Dan Louden, spent 30 years bouncing around truck stops in the West, hand-painting any long-hauler's piece de resistance on the cabs or trailers. He painted Harleys for the Hells Angels in San Bernardino — until that got a little too dicey for him — and hand-lettered signs for fish markets, high schools and auto parts stores all the way up to Seattle. He's pinstriped more hot rods than he can remember.

"I do it because there's a lot of fringe benefits that come with this. You travel, you do what you want," said Louden, 52, who grew up in Diamond Bar. "I just love the desert. I don't like living in big cities. I don't like the traffic. Out here you can sleep with the door unlocked."

Susan Alexis, owner of the Wagon Wheel, said that a couple years back, Louden did odd jobs for her and others around town, but they didn't know he was a master with a few cans of paint.

When he mentioned it to her while breezing through town earlier this year, she hired him on the spot. Alexis had wanted to paint the restaurant's side wall ever since noticing how ugly the bank of cinder blocks looked on Google Maps' street view.

"I just wanted to bring some nostalgia to the building. We have so much history here, but our town doesn't reflect it," Alexis said. "Now, everyone around town is talking about the guy."

Louden said he's been drawing and painting ever since he was a kid but never pursued it. Then one day, when he was about 20, he delivered paint to an "old school" sign shop in Yucaipa and his life changed forever.

Louden has a house outside of Kingman, Ariz., that he shares with his girlfriend, Vicky Bowden, a former nurse from Lone Pine.

With work pouring in, they have camped out at the Needles Inn for weeks at a time, working almost every day. It help that he's affordable — $500 for a mural covering the side of a small building — and fast. Most jobs are wrapped up in a day. When they overheat in the scorching Mojave sun, they take a dip in the Colorado.

"It's certainly brightened up downtown, and hopefully it'll help bring more tourists in," said Needles Mayor Edward Paget. "It's not like this was planned. People are doing it on their own — and they're being greatly encouraged by both myself and the City Council to improve downtown."

Most of the businesses hiring Louden have stuck to a Route 66 theme, honoring the highway that lighted up Needles during its last heyday. In November, the town also is celebrating the 85th anniversary of the road. Needles earned a certain fame when it was named in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

"It was outrageously reasonable, and I think he captured the feel of the small town," said Needles accountant Michael Burger, who hired Louden to liven up his office building earlier this month. "It's a nice thing he's doing for the town."

Burger had a snapshot of his restored '57 Chevy truck and handed it to Louden, telling him to use that and then "do whatever you want." Twelve hours later, his building was covered with the gang from the Peanuts comic, including Snoopy's brother Spike from Needles — one of the town's biggest celebrities. Charlie Brown is at the wheel of the truck.

Louden also was hired to paint a memorial inside the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Station in Needles honoring Deputy Russell Dean Roberts, who was killed in 1995 while investigating an accident in the town.

Capt. Marty Brown of the county Fire Department also wants to hire Louden to paint the station in Needles.

"We just need to give the front a facelift — maybe to look like an old-school fire station," Brown said. "The firefighters will probably have to pay for it out of pocket, since it's pretty unlikely we're going to pay for that with public funds."

Louden says times are tough for everyone these days, which is why he keeps his prices low. He can afford to, he said, because there's more work than he can handle.

"The first sign painter I ever ran into told me that if you learn how to do this, you'll never go hungry. And he's absolutely right," Louden said. "You'll always find someone who needs something done."

Trains connect many parts of San Bernardino history

Trackside of the original San Bernardino Santa Fe Depot, 1915.

The Press-Enterprise

For parts of the 200 years it's been a city, San Bernardino has been linked to rail lines.

Now, in the year it is celebrating its 200th year, organizers of the celebration say they will honor that history with Railroad Days, May 8-9. The 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. event takes place both days at the San Bernardino Depot, 1170 W. Third Street.

According a statement released about the event, Steve Shaw, president of the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society, and leader of the group organizing Railroad Days, "The railroads were crucial to San Bernardino. The first railroad arrived in San Bernardino in 1883, putting San Bernardino on the map. The city's population grew by leaps and bounds because of the railroads."

During the Bicentennial Railroad Days, the San Bernardino Depot will be open throughout the day. Steam locomotive Engine 3751, a fully operational locomotive, will pull historic railroad passenger cars, including one "dome car" during Railroad Days. For tickets of $85, or $105 for seats allowing views from the glass domed car and another special car.

Riders can either ride the special train pulled by Engine 3751 on its journey from Los Angeles on Saturday, May 8 or on its return to Los Angeles on Sunday, May 9. The ticket price also includes transportation in the opposite direction by Metrolink train.

"We will time Engine 3751's return to Los Angeles so that riders can spend the day in Los Angeles, perhaps checking out its historic Olvera Street, have dinner there, and return by Metrolink that night," Shaw said.

At the San Bernardino Depot during Railroad Days, there will also be historic photographic displays, model trains similar to those used in San Bernardino in the 19th and 20th centuries, and food and merchandise vendors. Admission is free.

The 1918 Moorish-style San Bernardino Depot was once one of the busiest train depots west of the Mississippi River because Santa Fe Railways used it as a transportation hub. As train travel decreased in the mid-20th century, the depot was shut down in 1972, said sponsors.

In 1992 the San Bernardino Associated Governments (transportation agency for all of San Bernardino County) bought and renovated the San Bernardino Depot, reopening it in 2004. One of the key attractions at the 2004 Grand Reopening, and again at this year's Railroad Days, will be Engine 3751.

This steam locomotive served Santa Fe Railways from the 1920s through the 1950s. Built in 1926, it was the first of the 484 series owned by Santa Fe Railways and was in active duty for about 30 years. In 1958, Santa Fe sold the locomotive to the city of San Bernardino. It was on public display at Viaduct Park until 1985, when the city sold it to the San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society.

The San Bernardino Railroad Historical Society restored Engine 3751. Today it is a fully functioning locomotive, but only travels the rails on special occasions like Railroad Days. It is usually kept in storage in Los Angeles.

A Look Back: San Bernardino Depot once served 26 trains a day

The Santa Fe Depot in San Bernardino was once the largest train depot west of the Mississippi, employing 5000 people. (Special to The Press-Enterprise)

By NITA HILTNER
Special to The Press-Enterprise

Once, the Santa Fe Depot in San Bernardino was the largest train depot west of the Mississippi, employing 5,000 people and serving 26 trains per day. It was the first place train travelers to California saw before planes and cars replaced the train's popularity.

Today, the depot houses a train museum and the office of SANBAG (San Bernardino Associated Governments, the county's transportation agency). Only two trains, one at 5:30 a.m. and one at 8:30 p.m., stop to take on and let off passengers Monday through Friday. The depot stands as a monument to the building of San Bernardino, where so many of the passengers left the train and decided to make the city their new California home.

A boxcar served as the train depot until it was replaced in 1886 with a two-story wood Victorian-style building that was destroyed by fire in 1916. A new Spanish/Moorish style building with domes and towers and a tile roof was completed in 1918 at a cost of $800,000. The depot earned a reputation for its cleanliness, unlike the train stations in the east.

"The depot is such a big part of San Bernardino and the reason for the city's rapid growth," said Steve Shaw, president of the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society and a director of the San Bernardino History and Railroad Museum.

"At one point in 1886, the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe had a price war and the ticket price for both from the east coast to San Bernardino was a dollar," he said.

Shaw said by the 1920s and 1930s, San Bernardino was recognized as a major city in the U.S. mostly due to the railroad.

"Everyone knew where San Bernardino was," he said.

Shaw said that for a while, the train yards housed the largest maintenance yards for the trains west of Kansas City until the maintenance yards were moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s or 1970s. He said the depot and its yards, including a roundhouse to turn around trains, took up about five square miles and encompassed the area from 3rd to 5th Streets and from I St. west to Rancho Avenue.

Shaw said that in 1922, a large earthquake destroyed many buildings in San Bernardino, but the depot remained untouched, probably due to its hollow clay block construction.

"When you stand inside the depot and a train goes by, the building doesn't shake at all," he said.

The new 57,400-square-foot depot housed baggage rooms, offices, a mailroom and a Western Union office. The domes remained empty except for pigeons. When a $17 million restoration was done on the depot in the early 2000s, a huge amount of pigeon droppings and 300 pounds of honey were removed from the dome and walls of the station.

Most memorable to travelers was the Harvey House restaurant that served travelers 1,200 meals per day in the coffee shop and formal dining room. The Harvey House restaurants were built along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railways between the 1880s and 1930s. The Harvey Girls (waitresses) dressed in starched black uniforms with white cuffs and bibbed aprons and starched white caps to serve hot meals, sandwiches, coffee and baked goods. A movie was made about the Harvey Girls, starring Judy Garland.

"The Harvey Girls lived at the train station upstairs in seven to 12 rooms, two to a room. They had to sign a contract not to date or get married while they worked for the restaurant," said Shaw.

The Harvey House at the depot opened in 1921 and closed in the 1950s.

Trains traveling through the station bore such names as Super Chief, the Navajo, El Capitan, Scout, Grand Canyon Limited and the Chief. Today, only the Southwest Chief passes through the station heading east and west.

During World War II, troop trains passed through the station, and in the depot, it was often standing room only. Train travelers, be it movie star or president of the United States, passed through the station to come to California. Business grew up around the station including bars, boarding houses and restaurants such as The Pirate's Den and Cave Cafe and hotels such as the St. Augustine, the Maryland and the Planet.

In the 1960s, the rail industry began downsizing and Santa Fe turned its passengers over to Amtrak in 1972. Most of its workers were transferred to Topeka and its switching operations to Barstow in the San Bernardino County high desert. Today, the depot hosts the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway's intermodal freight transport yard, where freight from trains and trucks are loaded from one to the other. A few hundred yards from the depot is an outdoor station for Metrolink.

Shaw said the 10,000-square-foot San Bernardino Historical and Railroad Museum, housed in the depot and open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., is not open during the week because of Metrolink passenger need for the parking. He said a model train club may move into the depot, and he thinks that one day the Harvey House area could serve as a restaurant once again. There is a coffee bar currently in the depot, and across from it, a new supermarket and strip mall. Nearby, a parking structure for Metrolink will be built.

Though the train station's glory days are behind it, in 2007, Angelina Jolie filmed scenes at the depot for her movie The Changeling, thus bringing some new notoriety to the depot.

The History and Railroad Museum marks its arrival at the Santa Fe Depot in San Bernardino

By IMRAN GHORI
The Press-Enterprise






Stan Lim / The Press-Enterprise
At the new San Bernardino History and Railroad Museum, members of the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society, from left, Don Sheets, Glen Icamberry, Tom Marek and Steven Shaw bring in two track inspection cars used by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1948. The society will help operate the museum.

When the Santa Fe Depot opened in 1918, it became the bustling center of a growing city, providing jobs to many and serving as a vital transportation hub.

The depot was bustling again Saturday as a large crowd took in a glimpse of the city's past with the opening of the San Bernardino History and Railroad Museum, timed to coincide with the depot's 90th birthday.

The museum, in the former baggage-handling room at the west end of the depot, features railroad memorabilia, historical photographs, refurbished horse-drawn carriages and model railroad replicas.

The Redlands Fourth of July orchestra played music as the crowd -- a mix of history buffs and residents with ties to the depot -- toured the museum. Outside, a minivan-sized locomotive replica circled the parking lot, giving rides to children.

"I love trains and I love this station," said Jack Brennan, a Yucaipa resident who reminisced about riding Amtrak's El Capitan line to Chicago from the depot in the early 1950s when he was in high school.

The opening of the museum is the latest step to make the depot more accessible to the public since a $15.6 million restoration of the building four years ago. At that time, the city began a fundraising campaign to help with the project that included a chance to have people put their names on commemorative bricks at the depot.

The first of those bricks -- ranging from 4 by 4 four inches to 8 by 16 inches for donations between $75 to $500 -- were unveiled Saturday outside the southern entrance of the depot.

Joyce Miller, a San Bernardino resident for 65 years, posed besides the brick that she purchased with her husband and daughter in memory of her mother Bunny Sonnichsen.

"It's nice to come and see the different names of people you know and have been here for a long time," she said.

San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris said more improvements are planned for the depot, including a project to resurface the exterior of the building to eliminate cracks and landscape the parking lot. The city also hopes to bring back Santa Fe Engine 3751, an 80-year-old steam locomotive that was once based at the depot.

Morris jokingly made Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, raise his arm and pledge to help get funding to display the steam engine, a promise readily agreed to by Baca.

The San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society plans to have the museum open to the public Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

High Desert Corridor project seeks engineering bids

FROM STAFF REPORTS
Daily Press

Planners for the High Desert Corridor, which one day will link the Victor Valley and Palmdale, are now seeking bids from engineering firms to outline how the project can be financed and built.

The expressway would improve travel safety, spur economic growth across the High Desert and divert truck traffic from Southern California freeways and High Desert highways, proponents say.

“The High Desert Corridor is a giant step closer to becoming a reality,” said 1st District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. “It is my goal to have this highway built within 10 years, but it can’t happen soon enough.”

The corridor, also known as the E220, will be a crucial element for creating an “inland port” complex.

It will connect to a separate project currently spearheaded by the city of Victorville that will link Interstate 15 to Highway 395, including a connection with Southern California Logistics Airport and, in a later extension, to Highway 18 through Apple Valley.

BNSF Railway Company is developing a large railroad yard complex at Southern California Logistics Airport, the former George Air Force Base.

Multi-modal freight distribution centers such as SCLA are vital to lessening dependency on the Los Angeles basin for goods movement and keeping pace with the global economy.

Mojave town recaptures one-room school house history

San Bernardino County Sun
Trevor Summons, Correspondent

Out in the middle of the Mojave Desert, Goffs is one of those dusty, almost forgotten places where people gathered in years gone by to try their luck with the harsh terrain.

It was the railroad coming through that gave some of their workers the idea of a school, and in 1914 the present structure was built on an acre of land to cater to the children of the employees of the Santa Fe Railroad.

Jo Ann and her husband Dennis bought the schoolhouse and surrounding area back in 1990, and have spent the past 17 years turning it into an interesting look at history.

The schoolhouse itself is a sanctuary to daily life almost a century ago, when a dozen or so children would be sitting at their desks under the control of a single teacher. The first of these was Clara Rippeto. The last ones, when the school closed in 1937, were Anna and Daniel Stern. By then, two teachers were employed to teach the first through eighth grades in the single room.

In the following years, the building was at one time used as a cafeteria by World War II troops in the area, but then it gradually fell into disrepair. It was in 1982 that Dennis Casebier passed through the area. He was saddened by what he saw and said that being convinced that it would eventually completely disappear; he took several photos of the dilapidated scene.

A couple called Jim and Bertha Wold bought the place soon after this and began to restore it before they put it on the market in 1990. It seemed prophetic that the Casebiers should then become the owners of the site, and their important work began.

Today, the schoolhouse contains many of the artifacts that were so familiar to the original occupants, and there is an atmosphere of caring and vibrancy that must have been totally absent when Casebier took his pictures.

The name of Goffs is cause for some speculation. It was one of the alphabet towns preceded by Fenner and followed by Homer. These towns were planned to stretch east of Amboy by Southern Pacific Railroad who were in deadly competition with Santa Fe.

Almost certainly it was named after a particular man, and in the records, there is one called Isaac Goff, who was a railroad locator for A&P, a subsidiary of Santa Fe Railroad, who eventually pushed the line through to the Pacific Ocean.

The present scene is shown as it was intended but there were other uses for the building. It was occasionally used for dances, and back in 1928, during one such event, a shot was fired from a Colt .45 and a man was killed. The victim, Leo Sweeney died at the scene and a suspected perpetrator, Doug Craig was charged with murder. The charge was eventually dismissed and Craig went free.

This was not the only piece of violence in the remote desert area. There is one grizzly artifact on the back wall of the schoolhouse.

In 1908, one Joseph "Hootch" Simpson was hung in Death Valley County by an angry citizenry, tired of his ways. The Press tore out to witness the scene but Hootch had already been cut down.
Nonetheless, in pursuit of a hot story the press persuaded those in attendance to re-hang Hootch so they could get photos. One of these is in the case with the actual noose that sent Hootch to the hereafter.

For the regular youngsters 412 in all who passed their days at the schoolhouse, no doubt there were some happy times away from the heat and dust of the desert, and a lot of evidence to that fact has been gathered by the enthusiastic owners of the site.

Goffs Schoolhouse is opened by appointment and you can find more information at (760) 733-4848 or on the Web site: www.mdhca.org.

Depot plans on right track

Renovations will begin after railroads sign off on project

The Kingman depot once housed a Harvey House Restaurant. [Kathy Weiser, April 2008]

Suzanne Adams, Staff Reporter
Kingman Daily Miner

KINGMAN, Arizona - Train watchers and fans from near and far are eagerly awaiting the start of renovations on the old Santa Fe Depot in downtown Kingman.

"There's so many people interested in trains it's incredible! I've got tons of people with railroad artifacts interested in the project," said Shannon Rossiter of the Mohave Museum of History and Arts.

Plans for the renovation of the old train depot are about 95 percent complete, said Rob Owen, special projects coordinator for the city of Kingman. All that needs to be done is to have BNSF Railway and Amtrak give their final approval for the project.

Owen hopes to have that approval by January so the project can go out for bid at the end of February. The restoration work can then start in March.

The city will be reimbursed for 94.3 percent of the restoration work by a Federal Transportation Enhancement Grant. The city applied for the $500,000 grant in 2001 and received approval in 2002.

The grant is administered by the Arizona Department of Transportation. Kingman will have to match 5.7 percent of the cost of the project.

Despite its age, the depot is still structurally sound, Owen said. The old station will be receiving new doors, windows, paint, plumbing and electrical work, heating and air conditioning, stucco and new landscaping as part of the renovation work.

Ever since 2002, Kingman residents have been asking when work was going to begin.

A lot of people don't understand the grant process, said Bill Shilling, a city grant administrator. It can take many years to apply, receive approval and get funds from a grant for a project.

One extra step that has slowed the process is that the city has to seek approval of the plans from not only ADOT but also Amtrak and BNSF. Amtrak owns the building and BNSF owns the railroad tracks and the right of way next to the depot. Plans for the project have been shuttled back and forth between all three organizations.

The only major request has come from BNSF Railway. The railway has requested a wrought iron fence to be put up between the building and the BNSF railroad tracks.

The fence is designed to keep visitors away from the tracks, which are in constant use.

Once the work is complete, the station will once again see customers lining up for train tickets. Amtrak will be moving its current ticket office from its tiny space on Fourth Street back into the western half of the depot. The eastern half of the building will become a railroad museum with exhibits and artifacts from railroad enthusiasts and the Mohave Museum of History and Arts.

The building is nearly 100 years old. It was built in the early 1900s by the Santa Fe Railway of reinforced concrete and may be one of the oldest concrete buildings in the state.

It's also one of many historic buildings in downtown Kingman on the National Registry of Historic Places.

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."

Blythe Calif Station Burns

Author: Winks
Blythe area paper

The historic Santa Fe Depot, a Blythe landmark that has graced the city since 1926, was destroyed by fire the afternoon of May 2. No one was injured in the fire. Witnesses told police they saw sparks from overhead electrical wires and that is believed to have been the cause of the inferno. Despite being closed for years, the depot still had electric and gas turned on.

Jim Green, manager of the Blythe Food Pantry, which sits adjacent to the former depot, said he and a friend were working on his car out back of the Pantry facing the depot when they smelled smoke.

"I said 'darn, it smells like rubber burning,'" Green said. "I ran around to the other side of the car and was fixing to look at the vehicle when I noticed the smell coming in from the southwest. I looked at the dock of the building and flames were coming up from under the loading dock."

Green's friend dialed 911 and Blythe Volunteer Fire responded.

Fire Chief Billy Kem said it was the first big fire he's been on since being appointed to the position last month.

"It was a shame," he said about the fire that took down the 80-year-old building. "It was just an old wooden structure-type building that had been there a long, long time. We don't know the cause and there was no putting it out - it got up into the top real quick."

Kem said the blaze started at the south end of the building and burned through to the front.

Located at Rice and Commercial streets, the building was first constructed in 1926, 10 years after rail service first came to Blythe. The depot was listed in Riverside County's Historic Resources Inventory by the Riverside County Historical Commission in 1983.

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.

Bagdad Fades Into the Desert--in California

Postcard image of Bagdad on Route 66 in 1939 (Burton Frasher)

By CHARLES HILLINGER
Los Angeles Times

BAGDAD, Calif. — Ever since Iraq invaded Kuwait, curious motorists passing through the Mojave Desert have stopped to ask the way to Bagdad, the California ghost town named in the 1800s for the Middle Eastern capital.

"Every day they come into our gas station or restaurant and ask, 'Where's Bagdad? We can't find it,' " said Buster Burris, 81, owner of the town of Amboy, population 27, eight miles east of where maps indicate Bagdad is located.

Burris tells them Bagdad is but a memory these days.

Situated in the middle of the desert, Bagdad is 75 miles southeast of Barstow on old Route 66 in a long valley between the Bristol and Bullion mountains.

Today, its only inhabitants are snakes, lizards, scorpions, pack rats and an assortment of other wildlife. There's a lone palm tree, half a dozen scraggly salt cedars and a scattering of sagebrush growing in the desert sand.

Bagdad has always been one of the driest places in the United States. It recorded the longest period of drought anywhere in the history of the country from July, 1912, to November, 1914: 767 consecutive days without precipitation.

There is an eerie quiet here that is broken from time to time by the 30 to 40 trains that rumble through Bagdad each day.

In 1883, railroad officials who dubbed two nearby settlements Siberia and Klondike named this desert town after the Iraqi capital, omitting the "h" in a divergent spelling for the city on the Tigris. As many as 50 Chinese railroad workers died while laying tracks, falling victim to a cholera epidemic. An unmarked burial ground is believed to be somewhere nearby.

A "Bagdad" sign, along the mainline Santa Fe tracks marks the site of the town that boomed from the late 1800s through the early 1900s, finally gasping its last breath in the late 1960s.

Bagdad was an important railhead, a watering place for railroad engines during steam days and a center for nearby gold, silver, copper and lava mining camps--for mines such as the Orange Blossom, War Eagle and Lady Lou.

There were homes, hotels, saloons and stores here, a post office from 1889 to 1923, a school, a passenger railway station and a Harvey House restaurant. By the 1940s, however, all that remained was the depot, a few homes, the Bagdad Cafe, a gas station and cabins for overnight stays on U.S. 66.

Its population dwindled from a few hundred during its heyday to fewer than 20 in the mid-1940s, when Paul Limon worked here pumping gas at 23 cents a gallon. Limon, now 63, lives in Cadiz, 20 miles east of Bagdad. He recalled the town as he knew it during the 1940s and 1950s:

"Bagdad was a lively little place. People from all over the desert would come here because of the Bagdad Cafe, owned and operated by a woman named Alice Lawrence. The Bagdad Cafe was the only place for miles around with a dance floor and juke box.

"The Bagdad Cafe was a happy-go-lucky, popular spot. When I hear or read about the war in the Persian Gulf and Baghdad is mentioned, I think about Bagdad, Calif., and all the good times I had in this town," Limon said during a sentimental visit here. Many who drove U.S. 66, America's main street from the Midwest to California, will remember Bagdad, allowed Limon.

"Overheated cars from every state would stop to get water. Cars in those days were always boiling over. And a lot of those people ate in the Bagdad Cafe."

In fact, the town served as the original inspiration for the 1988 movie and subsequent television program, "Bagdad Cafe"--which was actually filmed at the Sidewinder Cafe in Newberry Springs, 40 miles to the northwest.

Percy Adlon, 55, a German film producer and founder of the Pelemele Film Corp., said he and his wife were driving in the desert in 1985 and, noticing Bagdad on the map, went off in search of the town.

They never did find it, but the name intrigued Adlon so much that he produced a film about "a Bavarian lady stranded in the desert in a cafe next to a dusty hotel," he said Wednesday in an interview. A CBS series that spun off the film starred Whoopie Goldberg and Jean Stapleton and ran 19 episodes before it was canceled in November.

Bagdad was bypassed in 1972 when Interstate 40 opened 20 miles to the north and the two-lane stretch of Route 66 through here became a deserted, seldom-used road.

But Bagdad had died years before the freeway opened. And the cafe, depot and what few structures remained were destroyed by vandals.

A network of dirt streets outline the town that was. Two speed-limits signs--15 m.p.h.--still stand. Concrete building foundations, rusted automotive parts, mining equipment and pipes, shattered glass and dinnerware, old pots and pans and other debris litter the area.

"This is where the Bagdad Cafe and gas station were," said Limon, standing on what is left of the eatery--the front steps.

He drove over the dirt streets to the old Bagdad Cemetery, a handful of graves marked with weathered crosses with names no longer legible. Signs were evident that grave robbers had recently desecrated the final resting place of Bagdad residents who died here in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

"This really sickens me," sighed Limon, as he looked down at holes dug at two of the grave sites.