Once-abandoned Searchlight subdivision may soon be buzzing with drones

Aerial view of Searchlight airport on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Jonathan Daniels, founder of Praxis Aerospace Concepts International, plans to open a drone testing site at the airpark. (Michael Quine/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

By Eli Segall
Las Vegas Review-Journal

SEARCHLIGHT — The once-abandoned subdivision off the side of U.S. Highway 95 is tucked out of view, but there isn’t much to see anyway — just some house-less streets next to a mile-long airstrip.

But in time, if Jonathan Daniels has his way, the property will be buzzing with drones.

Daniels, founder of Henderson-based Praxis Aerospace Concepts International, recently leased about an acre of land at the Searchlight Airpark for his drone-testing business.

He plans to start working from temporary trailers — the site has water and power hook-ups — by mid-May and eventually build a permanent facility. As part of his agreement with the property owner, Daniels also will manage the tower-less airport.

At first glance, Searchlight seems an unlikely place for aviation technology. It’s a pint-sized town some 60 miles south of Las Vegas with abandoned mines and mobile homes and rarely gets new bursts of commerce.

But the area has open airspace for drone testing, Daniels said, unlike the more-restricted Las Vegas Valley, as well as a paved airstrip next to paved streets with utility service. His goal is to make the airpark a launch point to fly back and forth from a Boulder City droneport — test flights that could open drones to a range of commercial uses, he said.

Government officials and industry executives are trying to make Nevada a major hub of drone development and testing. It’s too early to say whether Daniels’ arrival in Searchlight will spark a big inflow of other unmanned-aircraft businesses, but he would at least bring some life to a boom-era real estate project that crashed with the economy and looks like a ghost town.

“If I could have designed a turn-key, instant airport for unmanned aircraft, it would look just like that,” he said.

‘The golden ticket’

Daniels, a 45-year-old former Army helicopter pilot and infantryman, founded Praxis in 2011. The company mostly provides testing, training and other services for owners and operators of drones and other robotics.

He also is part of the group that plans to develop and operate the Eldorado Droneport in Boulder City, a 50-acre property designed to include a 15,000-square-foot terminal building and 860,000 square feet of warehouse, hangar, training, office and research and development space.

His goal is to have people flying drones from Searchlight to Eldorado and back, a roughly 35-mile trip each way.

Drone operators typically can fly only within their line of sight, but Daniels said he wants authorization to let people fly back and forth without needing to drive alongside the aircraft.

He said he stumbled across the Searchlight Airpark when his group was looking for places to expand beyond Boulder City. As Daniels sees it, being able to link the two is “a sheer serendipitous event.”

If drone operators can show the Federal Aviation Administration that they can fly longer distances without visual line of sight, he figures it could help them secure approvals for such commercial uses as parcel delivery or inspections of pipelines, railroads, power plants, farms and forest fires.

“The golden ticket to get there is being able to prove the technology to the FAA,” he said.

Boom, bust, then drones

Daniels contacted airpark owner Bill Turnbull of Seattle and pitched him on the proposed use. Turnbull, whose company RC Aerodyne sells remote-controlled helicopters and airplanes, said he hasn’t determined what to do with the rest of his roughly 40-acre spread.

Located at the south edge of Searchlight, the airpark was designed to have dozens of houses and aircraft hangars, a community where people could fly in and out as they pleased, similar to the tiny town of Cal-Nev-Ari about 10 miles south.

The developers, who teamed up in 2004 during the housing bubble, built roads and installed street signs, power boxes and fire hydrants. But by 2010, after the economy crashed, one partner had sued the other, and by 2011 the airstrip was “in disrepair and deteriorating” because the developers had defaulted on their loan, county documents say.

Lenders foreclosed on the project site in 2011. Turnbull and his wife, Joan, bought it in 2015 for $400,000. Their holdings include a portion of the airstrip, the rest of which is owned by the federal government.

Asked if he could design the airpark to his liking, Daniels said he would want traditional airport facilities such as hangars, flight training and fuel service, with a cluster of companies that work in small-aircraft aviation.

“That’s important for an airport,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s just a chunk of dirt.”

Helicopter crash marks troublesome cattle roundup near Searchlight

Wild, feral, and menacing cattle of the McCullough Range near Searchlight, NV.

By Henry Brean and David Becker
Las Vegas Review-Journal

The wild remnants of one of southern Clark County's last cattle herds are now being cleared from the mountains between Henderson and Searchlight, but the work so far has not gone smoothly.

A crew of cowboys from Utah is gathering stray and feral cows from the McCullough Mountains under a contract with the Nevada Department of Agriculture.

Flint Wright, animal industry administrator for the department, said the operation started Friday and has no scheduled completion date. As of Monday, just 17 cows had been collected.

"They're essentially wild cattle, and it's going to take some time," Wright said.

The roundup hit a major snag Sunday, when a helicopter being used to find and chase cows crashed just off state Route 164 west of Searchlight.

On Tuesday, the wrecked helicopter and its pilot could still be found at a motel in the town 60 miles south of Las Vegas.

Richard Dick of Hutchinson, Kan., said he was hovering about 12 feet off the ground, trying to move a pair of stubborn bulls, when a gust of wind pushed his helicopter into a Joshua tree. The 1962-vintage Bell model 47G ended up on its side in pieces, but he walked away with bumps and bruises.

The pilot said it was his first domestic accident in 17,000 hours of flying, though he crashed three times in Vietnam.

When he climbed out the wreckage Sunday, Dick said, the bulls were just staring at him.

The cattle now being rounded up have roamed the range untended since 2006, when rancher Cal Baird relinquished his federal grazing permit and sold his water rights to the county to preserve habitat for the desert tortoise and other federally protected species.

According to the Bureau of Land Management, Baird moved most of his livestock from the 111,000-acre federal grazing allotment to Arizona, but a few stragglers were left behind.

For the past several years, officials say, those survivors and their unbranded descendants have been damaging springs and menacing people in the mountains and desert between Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 95 south of the Las Vegas Valley.

BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said the animals are aggressive and "present a danger to the public recreating in the area."

Wright said: "We've had some complaints from people who were hunting deer and were run off by the cattle."

Baird could not be reached for comment.

Under Nevada law, unbranded stray or feral livestock are considered state property. The BLM has been asking the state to remove the unclaimed cattle from the McCullough Range for several years.

In 2013, the state rounded up and sold off approximately 30 animals, but an unknown number remain. Last year, the BLM counted about 40 unbranded cows spread across two wilderness areas west of Searchlight. Wright guessed there could 100 to 200 feral cows still out there.

He figures it would cost the state as much as $200,000 to try to collect that many animals. The Department of Agriculture has been "trying to get this deal cleaned up for a number of years," but it never seems to have the money or the resources, he said.

The animals are now being rounded up by Sun J Livestock, a ranching operation from Vernal, Utah. Wright said the ranchers aren't being paid directly, but they have plenty of incentive to do a thorough job.

"They get to keep the livestock," he said. "They'll get every cow they can."

Lawsuit Filed Against Wind Energy Project Near Mojave Preserve

Spirit Mountain from Wee Thump Wilderness. The Searchlight Wind project would fill the middle distance with wind turbines (Chris Clarke photo)

by Chris Clarke
KCET Rewire

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have been sued over the recently-approved Searchlight Wind Project in southern Nevada, with plaintiffs charging that the federal government conducted an inadequate review of the project's likely effects on desert wildlife. The project, which would generate a maximum of 200 megawatts of electrical power, would place 87 turbines on almost 19,000 acres of public lands within view of the Mojave National Preserve and the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The suit, which also names former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as a defendant, was filed April 10 in the U.S. District Court in Nevada by the groups Basin and Range Watch and Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains, along with Searchlight, NV residents Judy Bundorf and Ellen Ross, and the Reverend Ron Van Fleet, an elder in the Fort Mohave tribe.

Plaintiffs charge that the project, to be built by Duke Energy, would (in the words of the suit) "pose significant adverse harm to a wide array of sensitive and protected species ... including desert tortoise, golden eagles, bald eagles, and residential and migratory birds and bats... through direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts" which weren't adequately addressed in the project's final environmental impact statement, nor in FWS's Biological Opinion on the project. The plaintiffs maintain that Secretary Salazar issued a positive Record of Decision for the project based on that inadequate review of the project's ecological impacts, and that mitigation plans for the ecological dmmage the project would cause have not been developed.

The suit also alleges that the project would cause irreparable damage to cultural resources important to local tribes, whose origin stories center on a prominent peak some miles south of the project's footprint.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to set aside Interior's Record of Decision on the project, as well as FWS's Biological Opinion and the BLM's Environmental Impact Statement, and to issue an injunction halting work on the project, which could start construction this year.

Opposition Grows To Wind Development Near Mojave Preserve

Avikwame seen from Wee Thump, January 2010. This view would be filled with wind turbines in the distance | Photo: Chris Clarke

Commentary
by Chris Clarke
KCET

To those tracking proposed wind turbine developments in the Mojave Desert, it's become clear that developers are increasingly eyeing the area just north and east of the Mojave National Preserve. There are active wind proposals in the Silurian Valley north of Baker. Element Power has a permit to test for wind resources in Mountain Pass, on a site almost completely surrounded by the Preserve. Oak Creek Energy Systems has a similar testing permit at the northern end of the New York Mountains, just inside the Nevada line, in land that would certainly be part of the Preserve were it not for that state line.

But the application that's farthest along is Duke Energy's Searchlight Wind Energy Project, which would place from 87 to 96 turbines, each 427 feet tall, on almost 19,000 acres surrounding three sides of the little Nevada town from which it takes its name. The turbines would be just east of the Mojave National Preserve, as close as a mile and a half to the boundary of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and in an area of supreme cultural significance to Native people across the desert.

The BLM issued the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Searchlight Wind Energy Project in December, and as the project has the backing of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- a local, at least on paper -- a Record Of Decision (ROD) from the Interior Department in favor of Searchlight Wind is almost certainly a done deal.

That's angered a number of locals, as well as frequent visitors who appreciate the views across the Southern Nevada desert. Those views are more than just scenery to some. From much of the area of the Preserve, including the Wee Thump Wilderness Area northwest of Searchlight, the turbines would intrude on the view of Spirit Mountain. Also known as Avikwame, that mountain -- a striking white massif rising above the desert -- is the center of the origin myth for a number of desert Native people from the local Mohave to the Quechan farther south, as well as the Yavapai, Hualapai, and Havasupai of Northern Arizona.

What Federal land planners somewhat prosaically call "visual resources" are of supreme importance to the tribes along the Colorado River: being able to see and describe the surrounding mountain peaks is an important part of Native ritual, as for example in the Chemehuevi's Salt Songs. As Avikwame is traditionally considered the home of Mastamho, the son of the Creator, Spirit Mountain plays about the role in local religion that the Vatican or Mecca play in certain other faiths.

Judy Bundorf of the grassroots group Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains related to me two weeks ago how the BLM had answered her queries about the impact of the Searchlight Wind project on native practices. "They told us that the sightlines between Spirit Mountain and the Native people wouldn't be affected, because the turbines would all be north of the mountain, and the reservation is in the other direction."

I ran into Bundorf at an event in Ward Valley commemorating the 15th anniversary of the defeat of the nuclear waste dump once proposed for that site. Also in attendance was my friend Rev. Ronald Van Fleet, an elder in the Fort Mohave Indian Tribe. I asked Ron whether the view of Avikwame from the reservation to the south was the only one that mattered to the Mohave. He just laughed.

Added to the cultural impacts of the project are the likely effects on large birds, especially eagles. The Searchlight Wind project would place turbines on either side of the pass leading down to the Colorado River along Cottonwood Cove Road, a potentially important migration corridor for birds and bats heading between the Eldorado and Newberry Mountains to travel between the river and the vicinity of the Mojave Preserve. Both Duke Energy and the BLM state that raptor populations in the area are relatively low, with only three golden eagle sightings recorded in the vicinity of the project site since 2007. (I lived in the area for much of 2008 and saw that many golden eagles in a week, although admittedly not directly on the project site.) The project area, largely composed of Joshua tree forest, is also habitat for desert tortoise, with 122 torts found in the project area during a 2011 survey. Eleven species of cactus grow in the area, and I've had personal communications from locals citing individual Gila monsters seen along roadsides in the area.

Though a green-light from Interior is near-certain given Reid's backing, Friends of Searchlight Desert and Mountains hasn't given up on its opposition: it's organizing a demonstration in Searchlight on Saturday, February 23 to urge the BLM to go back to the drawing board with the EIS. The group wants a wider range of alternatives considered in the document, including distributed generation, siting on private lands moving the project away from private property and valuable habitat.

It would also be sensible for the BLM to pay closer attention to potential cumulative impacts of the Searchlight site combined with those proposed for the Castle-New York Mountains, Mountain Pass, and the Silurian Valley. Fringing the northern edge of the Mojave Preserve with 200-foot turbine blades just seems on the face of it to be something we could think through a bit more carefully.

Final EIS Published on Searchlight Wind Energy Project

Searchlight Wind Energy project map (BLM)

Press Release

LAS VEGAS -- A Final Environmental Impact Statement for a proposed wind energy facility near Searchlight, Nev., was released Dec. 14, starting a 30-day review period before a final decision on the project is made. The BLM’s notice was available on the Federal Register electronic desk on Friday and it will be published on Dec. 18.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Las Vegas Field Office released the EIS, which recommends cutting the size of the original proposal from 161 wind turbines to 87. That change and others came through extensive public comments periods on the Draft EIS as well as discussions with the area tribes and State and federal agencies.

The Searchlight Wind Energy, LLC proposal is to construct and operate a wind energy generating facility, which would produce approximately 200 megawatts of electricity and deliver power to the electrical transmission grid by 2015.

In addition to the wind turbines, the proposed project would require the construction of pad mounted transformers at the base of each turbine, underground collection lines, new access roads, two electrical substations, an overhead transmission line connecting the two substations, an electrical interconnection facility/switchyard owned and operated by Western Area Power Administration, an operations and maintenance building, and temporary and permanent laydown areas.

Three meteorological masts would remain on the site to measure the wind speed and direction over the life of the project.

The right-of-way application area encompasses approximately 18,789.71 acres of BLM-administered public lands along U.S. Route 95. The permanent footprint of the project, as proposed, would be approximately 163 acres.

The Final EIS is available for public inspection at the BLM Southern Nevada District Office. Printed or electronic copies of the Final EIS are available by request from the BLM Southern Nevada District Office, 4701 N. Torrey Pines Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89130, phone (702) 515-5173, or email: BLM_NV_SNDO_SearchlightWindEnergyEIS@blm.gov. Interested persons may also review the Final EIS on the Internet.

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.

'Tea party' protesters in Nevada target health law, Reid

Palin and other speakers at the protest defend the conservative movement and try to stir up opposition to the Senate majority leader's reelection.

Protesters numbering at least 9,000 voice opposition to the healthcare law at a "tea party" rally in Searchlight, Nev., a few miles from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's home. (Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images / March 27, 2010)

By Kathleen Hennessey and Ashley Powers
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Searchlight, Nev. - Gathered amid the dust and sagebrush of the Nevada desert, thousands of conservative "tea party" protesters responded Saturday to their critics with what might be called the young protest movement's unofficial motto.

Don't tread on me.

Dozens of yellow flags bearing that defiant message, along with the image of a coiled snake poised to strike, whipped in the wind above the crowds rallying in the tiny highway hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Along with repeating familiar tea party themes -- government is too big, the healthcare overhaul is socialist -- the protesters pointedly answered critics who say the group's rhetoric has fueled violence and threats against Democratic lawmakers in an increasingly poisonous political climate after the passage of healthcare legislation.

"Don't ever let anybody tell you to sit down and shut up, Americans!" said former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. A hearty crowd huddled in a dirt lot for the "Showdown in Searchlight" cheered.

The rally was originally intended to stir up opposition to Reid's bid for reelection this fall.

But the parade of speakers seemed equally focused on defending the young protest movement from its detractors, an acknowledgment that any association with the vandalism, threats and slurs reported by Democrats could harm tea party aims and drive away allies.

No tea party group has been found to be involved in any of the incidents.

Several websites, including Palin's, have been cited as examples of the incendiary tone. In announcing her efforts to try to unseat key Democratic members of the House, Palin’s site used the image of a rifle scope. She told her supporters via Twitter, "Don't retreat, instead - RELOAD."

On Saturday, Palin dismissed as a "bunch of bunk" suggestions that she was promoting violence.

"Our vote is our arms," she said to cheers. "We're not inciting violence. Don't get sucked into the lame-stream media lies."

Palin's outlook matched that of many who inflated the population of Searchlight, home to fewer than 1,000 people.

The pit-stop town was overrun by visitors in RVs, motorcycles and, in the case of Nevada political candidates, buses wrapped in campaign slogans. A few vendors hawked T-shirts, flags and a book-and-DVD series called "The Constitution Made Easy."

Adherence to what supporters deem to be a strict interpretation of constitutional principles is a key tenet of the tea party movement, a loose confederation of local groups that arose in opposition to bank bailouts. It found its momentum as the loudest voice against President Obama's healthcare overhaul, which Reid championed.

Saturday's group, largely older and predominantly white, quickly packed a dirt lot the size of a football field and spilled onto a nearby hill topped with an abandoned mine shaft.

Interspersed were Revolutionary War re-enactors, plastic pitchforks, cut-out torches and skull-and-cross-bones flags with Obama's face superimposed over the skull.

"The real pirates are in Washington," said Judy Hoelscher, who sold the flags for $10 each.

Fred Kubitz of San Diego carried a sign branding Obama, Stalin and Hitler "three socialists."

"I believe that we're heading down the same road" as Stalin and Hitler, he said, adding that he did not see his sign as exaggerated and that, although a small number of people may resort to violence, "this is a movement of beautiful people, of laid-back and easygoing people."

No problems were reported to police, despite the logistical challenge of accommodating the crowds on a plot just off the highway 60 miles south of Las Vegas.

Many people arrived about dawn, staking out seats in collapsible chairs. A traffic jam clogged five miles of the highway much of the morning. Las Vegas police, who patrol Searchlight, reported no arrests and one call "regarding a individual with a gun in an open holster," a police statement said.

Police put the crowd estimate at about 9,000, while organizers claimed more than twice as many.

The rally is meant to kick off a national tour of smaller events organized by Tea Party Express, a Sacramento-based political action committee. The group is run by GOP political consultant Sal Russo. Another rally was held later in the day in a Las Vegas suburb, headlined by conservative author Ann Coulter.

Just down the road in Searchlight, about 50 Reid allies greeted cars heading to the rally with chants of "Harry! Harry!" Drivers responded with honks, thumbs down and a few middle fingers.

The Democrats' signs -- "Welcome to Reid Country" -- were somewhat misleading. A recent poll showed that roughly one-third of Nevada voters had a positive opinion of Reid. Democrats struggle most in the state's rural outposts, known for the sort of libertarian leanings and anti-tax views that match the tea party message.

"I like what they're saying. It's common sense," Robert Shawn said of the tea party activists. The 51-year-old assistant kitchen manager at the Searchlight Nugget Casino, where some tea party backers asked him for directions, said he didn't want to see the movement taken over by fringe views.

"If it becomes radical, it won't work. They've got to focus on issues like keeping jobs here and lowering the cost of prescription drugs," he said, adding that many protesters had asked him where the senator lives. "I'm not going to tell no one where he lives."

Several tea party leaders have denounced violence and vandalism as a protest tactic.

At the same time, some of those leaders also cast doubt over whether reports of intimidation and window-smashing were exaggerated or made up by opponents to damage the tea party movement's image. Conservative activists point to the incidents as another reason not to trust mainstream media and to blame the left.

"Thuggery is a tactic of the left wing," Mark Williams, a Tea Party Express organizer, said from the stage. "We will not stand for it!"

Many activists were skeptical of reports that a racial slur was directed at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) during a healthcare protest in Washington last weekend. In video of the noisy protest that has emerged on the Web, the purported obscenity is inaudible.

"They don't have no true evidence of that," said Joyce Bough, 64, a retired accountant from Bullhead City, Ariz. "I think that's all made up."

Her husband, Mel, nodded in agreement while holding a sign asking, "Is our freedom lost forever????"

Reid stayed clear of his hometown Saturday, instead campaigning at a Las Vegas shooting range. His campaign issued a statement: "Ultimately, though, this election will be decided by Nevadans, not people from other states who parachute in for one day to have a tea party." The statement also thanked the tea party supporters for the economic boost they gave his hometown.

Tea Party protest goes to Reid's hometown in Nevada

By the CNN Wire Staff




Tea Party activists plan to protest against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Saturday in his hometown in Nevada.


(CNN) -- Caravans of Tea Party activists will roll into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hometown in rural Nevada on Saturday to rally for his defeat in November.

Sarah Palin, who derided big government spending and "the Obama Pelosi Reid agenda" on Friday, will headline the event dubbed "Showdown in Searchlight."

The stop is part of the latest cross-country protest against big government and health care reform. Activists hope the protest will carry a strong symbolic message.

Reid, the four-term Democratic incumbent, is from the small town, which has one gas station and a McDonald's restaurant. Earlier in the week, activists in RVs started arriving at the rally site, an undeveloped piece of land down a mile-long dirt road.

The town is not equipped to handle the crowd if it's anywhere close to the 10,000 people organizers predict will show up, County Commissioner Steve Sisolak said.

Sisolak said he also has other concerns."There are abandoned mines people could fall into, it's a habitat for the desert tortoise and people need to know it's a $25,000 fine if they pick one up," he said.

Reid is arguably the Tea Party's top target. He is one of the key Democratic leaders responsible for pushing President Obama's priorities through Congress and carries a lot of political baggage in a year that finds much anger directed at incumbents.

In January, a Mason-Dixon poll showed 33 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Reid while 52 percent had an unfavorable opinion -- some of the worst numbers he has faced in years.

"I don't think many voters in Nevada dislike me. I think we have an economic situation in Nevada that is very difficult," Reid told CNN in a recent interview in Las Vegas.

The state's economy is in dire straits. It leads the nation in foreclosures, and its 13 percent unemployment rate is second only behind Michigan's.

Those vying to challenge Reid on the Republican side are pouncing.

"He has lost touch with what is going on here in Nevada," said businesswoman and former state GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden, who is leading the pack among the Republican hopefuls.

"It is all about jobs. His solution is to put the country more in debt, to tax the country more, to put our children and grandchildren at risk for years and years of being in debt," Lowden said.

Earlier in March, Lowden told CNN she's a proud member of the Tea Party Movement.

Another Republican challenger, businessman Danny Tarkanian, said Reid has "alienated himself from the people of Nevada, and the economy is getting worse and worse and worse."

Also not helping Reid were two recent quips by President Obama about not wasting money in Las Vegas.

Reid, who is not facing a serious primary challenge, aired ads last year aimed at promoting what he has done to help improve the economy as well as introducing himself to thousands of new voters who have moved to Nevada since his last election.

"To say Harry Reid is going to run a scorched-earth campaign against whomever this nominee is ... he has a reputation for doing whatever it takes to win -- no more so than this year. And he is going to have all the money to do it," said Nevada political newsletter editor Jon Ralston.

For his part, Reid, known as a tenacious fighter and who has come out ahead in previous close elections, will push the message against his opponents of how much he has done for the state.

But he said he will not campaign differently than he has in the past.

"People in the state of Nevada know me," Reid said. "I'm not going to be changing who I am for an election. I'm just who I was when I started this a long time ago, and I continue to be the same person I used to be, as I am today and will work very hard to meet the additional requirements that come with a changing economy that we have."

The Tea Party Express is scheduled to end up in Washington on April 15, which is Tax Day. The group's travel plans are part of its "Just Vote Them Out Tour" Some local organizers prefer to call the Searchlight gathering a "conservative Woodstock."

Renewable energy plan creates rift

Environmentalist David Myers says eSolar does energy right at its Sierra SunTower location, which has not used pristine land. (Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY)

By Andrea Stone
USA TODAY

AMBOY, Calif. — The morning heat hits triple digits as a whiptail lizard darts below a creosote bush near Route 66. Gazing across the desert valley, power company executives, environmentalists and federal land managers stand beneath a cloudless sky and argue over the landscape.
PG&E project manager Alice Harron says she is "comfortable" with the solar power plant her utility wants to build on government land here along 4 miles of the Mother Road that connected Chicago and Los Angeles long before the interstate system.

David Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy is not. Renewable energy projects such as this one — which could power 224,000 homes — sound good in theory, he says, but if they tear up pristine vistas, they're not "green."

President Obama wants a "clean-energy economy" that relies on renewable sources such as solar and wind power instead of coal and oil. He wants to put these new utilities on federally owned lands like this stretch of the Mojave Desert, one of the sunniest places on Earth.

The administration wants to lead the way by taking advantage of its vast holdings, which account for 20% of all land in the USA, mostly in the West.

That idea is creating a rift among environmentalists, who favor renewable energy but are at odds over where to produce it. Some are willing to compromise with utility companies to build large power plants on remote federal lands to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

Purists are dead set against disturbing pristine landscapes.

Obama's goal is to meet 25% of the nation's energy needs from renewable resources by 2025. Today, the figure is 11.1%, according to the Department of Energy.

One purist is Myers, who worries that the government will industrialize the desert with acres of solar mirrors, trampling treasured landscapes. Groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) counter that large, centralized projects are needed to speed the shift to non-polluting energy.

"It's hard, because many of us have fought to protect the very lands" that could be affected, says Johanna Wald of the NRDC.

Starting 'a new beginning'

In a wood-paneled Washington conference room, under the words "America the Beautiful," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he runs "the real department of energy."

After decades of allowing private companies to lease public lands for coal and oil, "we have started a new beginning" to make room for solar mirrors and wind turbines, he says. As with the older leases, operators would pay to use the land.

Salazar has designated 24 tracts in six Western states as possible solar project sites. There is none on federal lands now.

The Interior Department will open offices to eliminate a five-year backlog of applications. There are 158 pending solar projects on 1.8 million acres of public land. If all went through, they could power 29 million homes.

Not all will be approved, Salazar says, because of environmental and other concerns. Still, the White House plans to streamline approval for at least 10 solar plants it hopes will create 50,000 jobs by 2011.

Nearly half the solar proposals are in the Mojave Desert, home to the threatened desert tortoise, Indian petroglyphs and an intact stretch of Route 66, the historic highway dotted with vintage diners and derelict gas stations.

Not far from the iconic Roy's Motel and Diner, PG&E consultant Scott Galati tells environmentalists that surveys reveal no rare plants or threatened species on a planned solar site. A nearby rail line and access road are proof, he says, the land is hardly pristine.

Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy says an abandoned farm farther from Route 66 would be a better choice. PG&E's Harron says it is privately owned and would be difficult to acquire.

The great advantage of government land, she says, is how much of it there is and the relative ease and cost-effectiveness of building projects on public property.

Too easy, says Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. In a letter to Salazar last month, she said she was "deeply concerned" about a "bias under which solar developers believe they are more likely to receive a permit to build their projects on pristine public lands than on previously disturbed private lands."

Myers fears taxpayers are subsidizing inappropriately large-scale projects. He'd prefer a focus on rooftop solar panels and other small-scale solutions in urban areas that would reduce the clout of big energy companies.

Wald, the NRDC lawyer, says the government is taking a balanced approach. She spent 35 years battling the oil and gas industry and now is working with them to find appropriate sites for wind and solar plants. She agrees that energy self-sufficiency is important but says Myers' approach would take too long. "Even if (some environmentalists) don't like it," she says, large-scale projects "are going to happen."

Monumental roadblock?

Feinstein wants to establish a national monument that would bar energy development on hundreds of thousands of acres of desert between the Mojave National Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park. The area includes former railroad land the Wildlands Conservancy donated to the government a decade ago.

If Congress establishes the monument, PG&E and 22 other companies would have to build someplace else.

Across the border in Nevada, Feinstein's Democratic colleague Harry Reid is taking a different approach. The Senate majority leader supports a proposed wind turbine farm on federal land near Searchlight, his hometown.

That has some of his neighbors livid. Many say they fled to the quiet desert town to get away from California's massive, densely packed wind farms.

They fear the same in Searchlight, where the tallest structure is the 150-foot flagpole at Terrible's Casino.

Duke Energy wants to put up 95 wind turbines with blades that reach 415 feet off the ground. Though few in number compared with older, less efficient wind farms — some with thousands of turbines — that's still too many for some people.

"It's going to ruin our way of life," says Verlie Doing, 85, a friend of Reid's late mother. Doing owns the Nugget Casino.

Twelve miles south in the Nevada town of Cal-Nev-Ari, retired energy company electrician Robert Carty supports the turbines. He sees "the global picture" of climate change and calls opponents "CAVE people — citizens against virtually everything."

Across the Mojave in Lucerne Valley, Calif., where neighbors are arguing over a proposed solar plant on 516 acres, county employee Andrew Silva sighs.

"Folks in the East," he says, "don't necessarily recognize how complex and beautiful and diverse the desert is."

NV Energy to buy power from Searchlight solar plant

By Steve Green
Las Vegas Sun

The small town of Searchlight in Southern Nevada moved another step toward becoming a big energy center Thursday with the announcement of a deal by NV Energy to buy power from a big solar plant planned for the community.

Searchlight, on U.S. 95 between Boulder City and the California town of Needles, is already proposed to be the site of a big wind energy farm to be operated by Duke Energy. With 161 turbines producing 370 megawatts of power on public land totaling 26,000 acres, that project could serve 100,000 homes.

NV Energy and American Capital Energy announced Thursday they have entered into a long-term power purchase agreement for the sale of energy produced from ACE's 20-megawatt solar photovoltaic power plant to be constructed in the desert near Searchlight, 55 miles south of Las Vegas.

The project, expected to be completed by mid-2010, will be larger than the 14-MW photovoltaic plant completed in 2007 at Nellis Air Force Base. The Nellis plant, toured by President Obama on a recent visit to Las Vegas, is the largest photovoltaic facility currently operating in the United States, NV Energy said.

At 20 megawatts, the Searchlight plant will serve about 4,000 homes, said Tom Anderson, ACE's director of Southwest Business Development. In comparison, Acciona's Boulder City solar plant generates 64 megawatts. It uses a different technology in which concentrated sunlight heats a liquid.

"This is another major step in our commitment to bringing power from renewable resources to the citizens of Nevada," Michael Yackira, NV Energy president and chief executive, said in a statement on Thursday's deal. "Our state is blessed with abundant solar, geothermal and wind resources, and expanding the use of these resources through power purchases of this kind or direct investment in renewable projects is one of our top priorities."

Terms of the power purchase agreement, which is subject to approval by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, were not disclosed.

The agreement will assist NV Energy in meeting Nevada’s renewable energy standard, which was recently increased by the Legislature. The standard now requires that 25 percent of energy be generated by renewable resources and energy efficiency and conservation programs by 2025.

The companies said all of the electricity output from the plant will go to customers of NV Energy’s southern service territory.

Construction of the project is expected to create more than 120 jobs and will further develop Nevada’s burgeoning renewable energy workforce, the companies said.

"American Capital Energy is excited about the Searchlight Solar I solar PV project. We are honored to have been selected to work with NV Energy to deliver clean, renewable solar energy to Southern Nevada," Tom Hunton, CEO of Massachusetts-based ACE, said in a statement.

In a presentation earlier this year to the Searchlight Town Advisory Board, ACE officials said the plant is planned for 215 acres of private land 1 mile northwest of U.S. 95 and state Highway 164 headed toward Nipton, Calif.

Anderson said the cost of the project isn't being disclosed and that the deal with NV Energy will help the company obtain financing for the project.

The company plans to work on construction permitting this year and start building the plant in early 2010, assuming the power-purchase deal is approved by the Public Utilities Commission.

ACE, he said, has built about 20 energy projects while its executives combined have built hundreds of such projects.

He said ACE has been working with the Searchlight community and feels it has support there for the project.

"NV Energy is becoming one of the more progressive renewable energy utilities," he added.

Quirky desert town takes pride in what it has to offer

NIPTON - They came here for the gold.

By MARK MUCKENFUSS
The Press-Enterprise

Not that they found much, at least not enough to get rich.

But that didn't keep them from staying in this speck of a town in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Nipton is California's last outpost off of Interstate 15, just 2 ½ miles from the Nevada state line.

Heading south on Nipton Road from the interstate, the town is a small puff of green in the road on the far side of the valley that bleeds into Ivanpah Dry Lake.

Its 30-some residents live in a brutal yet scenic landscape, where the wind whips west from the Mojave National Preserve's barren New York Mountains and trains thunder by on their way to and from Los Angeles.

Coming into town, visitors cross the rails to find a dirt parking lot on one side of the road where the Nipton Trading Post is flanked by a café and the Hotel Nipton. A dusty RV park sits on the other side of the road.

Nipton was once touched by celebrity -- silent-film star Clara Bow occasionally stayed in its tiny hotel. Now it is a curiosity for tourists, a road stop for bikers and a place for people with little love for the city to hide away.

Jerry Freeman, who bought the town in 1984, is working to make it an inviting place for artists. He has begun an artist-in-residence program with the help of the national preserve and hopes to expand it.

While any large mining operations around Nipton have pretty much dried up, Freeman still finds the gold connection interesting.

The first man to settle here, at the turn of the 20th century, was Samuel Duncan Karns, a man who made millions in Pennsylvania oil and then lost it by investing in railroads. He came west to look for gold and established the Nippeno Consolidated Mine, reportedly borrowing a Pennsylvania area Native American name.

Karns died in 1909, four years after the railroad came through and dubbed the spot Nipton.

In 1913, another prospector showed up. Harry Trehearne was a miner from Cornwall, England. He never had much luck finding precious ore, but he opened a store in Nipton, selling supplies to other miners.

That building, not much more than a shack, still stands on the property, behind the Hotel Nipton and across from a dirt road that Freeman says was once a stage route linking Searchlight, Nev., -- 20 miles east -- with the rail line.

A trained geologist, Freeman first came to Nipton in the late 1950s when he was a college student. For a time after he graduated, he would show up most weekends, looking for gold.

"I'd take the train and arrive here in the early a.m.," he says. "I had a Jeep parked here and I would spend the weekend prospecting. At that time, the hotel was in service."

But things were on the decline. Trehearne, who took over construction of the hotel from the railroad and later added the trading post, had died in 1949. Subsequent owners let things fall apart.

By the early 1980s, when Freeman noticed a sales ad for the property and drove out to look at it, Nipton was more desolate than he remembered.

"The hotel was a wreck," he says. In fact, the county had condemned it.

"We bought a ghost town and decided to transform it," he says, "to take this clay and reshape it into something I consider more useful and interesting and enduring."

He stops talking as one of the many daily trains rumbles down the track.

"Out here the protocol is don't try to talk when a train goes by," he says. "Nothing you have to say can't wait until after the train goes by."

After investing lots of time and money in the hotel, Freeman and his wife reopened it in 1986 as a bed and breakfast. It has only five rooms. Four eco-cabins have been added out back.

A cactus garden with a geometric design fronts the small hotel, which was built sometime between 1905 and 1910. On its front porch are old round-back wooden rockers. Inside, historic photos dot the walls. An old wood stove is the centerpiece of the long narrow lobby.

Freeman points out Room No. 3.

"Clara Bow, she was the most famous celebrity to visit here and this was her favorite room," he says.

She and her husband lived on the Walking Box Ranch near Searchlight. "Her husband drove their cattle here to load them on the train and they would stay here."

When the hotel first reopened, Freeman says, business was understandably slow. But with the establishment of the Mojave National Preserve in 1994, things picked up. The hotel is usually booked for most of the spring.

Warm Welcome

People began moving in and making Nipton their home, as well.

Initially miners populated the RV park when the area enjoyed a brief boom in the late 1980s. Most moved out, but others came. Those who live here say it has a charm that may not be immediately evident.

Cindy Adams, 57, remembers her first visit. She and her husband moved here six months ago from Colorado when he took a job at the mining operation in nearby Mountain Pass.

They pulled up one evening, hauling a trailer with their belongings.
"I leaned down and looked out the window and then at my husband and I said, 'Is this it?' " she says.

The friendly greeting they received improved her outlook.

"I went into the store and they were like, 'Oh yeah, we knew you were coming,' " she says.
She's now adjusted to the isolation of the desert, even though sometimes it's a little too slow for her. She works in the Trading Post two days a week and helps out at the café.

"Every two weeks we have big excitement," she says, laughing. "The bookmobile shows up on Wednesday and everybody comes down and gets coffee at the store and their books. And on Friday, the Schwan's man comes.

"But there're days when it's very quiet and we're all, 'Hmmm ... ' "

Rosie Davidson and her husband Donald are Washington, D.C., residents who are in their third extended stay in Nipton. Donald is part of the Artists in the Parks program and is working for the Mojave National Preserve as Nipton's current artist- in-residence.

"I fell in love with it the first time I saw it," Rosie says of the town. "I think this place is idyllic in many ways."

Donald says he finds beauty in the stark desert surroundings. He spends most days in the field, cataloging and doing pen and ink drawings and watercolors of native flowers. He may drive as much as two hours into the desert to find the particular species he's looking for.

"There's so much to preserve here," he says. "It's one of the most unsullied desert environments that the public has access to. The programs that I am part of and that I promote are more needed out here."

In addition to providing artwork and information to the park service, Davidson conducts educational workshops, teaching adults and children how to recognize and draw native plants.

"Visitors no longer just want to walk through a park," he says. "They want to engage in an experience such as a hands-on workshop where their work can make a contribution."

Some of Davidson's work hangs in the Trading Post, which is filled with curious items such as old lanterns hanging from the ceiling, American Indian dolls, papier-mache camels from India and plush scorpions and tortoises. If you want to buy a Nipton postcard you have one choice, showing the hotel, of course.

Desert Dwellers

Next door, the Whistlestop Oasis boasts a rooftop sign that says, "Best Burgers Around."

Being as there isn't much else around for 20 miles that might not mean much. But Bill Sarbello, 60, who runs the place, says customers drive from as far as Henderson -- 50 miles -- to eat in the casual hominess of the diner. Then they leave, which is just how he likes it.

"Come in and have a couple of beers, something to eat, play a game of pool and go away," Sarbello says.

The ex-New Yorker by way of Florida came to Nipton three years ago to take over the café.

"I'm making something grow out here in the desert," he says.

He'd been to the area before and knew what to expect when he arrived, not only from the town but the residents. He'd seen the same thing when he lived on St. John, one of the Virgin Islands.

"St. John is a desert," he says, with the only source of water being rainfall. "Everything that grows there has a thorn or a barb, and so do the people. Nipton's the same way. If you're going to come here and live, you're probably going to have some kind of thorn."

Larry Jordan, who has been running the Trading Post for six months, has seen it, too.

"Desert dwellers, they're kind of not in the mainstream," he says. "Maybe they're here because they couldn't make it anywhere else in society and they kind of keep to themselves."

Jordan and his wife are temporary residents. They are part of a program that provides store managers and workers to national parks and private campgrounds. They plan to be gone when the full heat of summer hits.

Until then, he says, he tells friends, "We're conveniently located in the middle of nowhere."

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.

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.”