by Jim Hinckley
Ludlow maintains a faint pulse in the form of a café, service stations, and a motel that serve the occasional Route 66 or Interstate 40 traveler. These businesses, as well as the array of remnants in various stages of decay, hint of better times but offer little clue that—long before the designation of a highway as U.S. 66—this was a town with a promising future.
Ludlow, as with most Route 66 towns in the Mojave Desert, owes its founding to the railroad and the establishment of sidings at regular intervals during the early 1880s. Moreover, the town named for railroad employee William Ludlow, as with other railroad stops in the desert, owed its initial growth to mining. There the similarities end.
A shortage of dependable wells in Ludlow necessitated the shipping of water by rail from Newberry Springs to the west. By 1900, the limitations on growth were resolved, and Ludlow began to prosper as a supply center. Further fueling growth and the town’s prominence in the summer of 1905 was the establishment of the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, which linked the main line with the mining boom in the area of Tonopah, Rhyolite, and Beatty in Nevada. Following this line was the establishment of another spur line, the Ludlow & Southern Railroad, which connected the main east–west line of the Santa Fe Railroad with the Buckeye Mining District eight miles to the south.
The boom fueled by the railroad spurs was beginning to ebb when motorists began rolling through town on the National Old Trails Highway. In his 1946 guidebook, Rittenhouse notes, “Although quite small, Ludlow appears to be a real town in comparison to the one establishment places on the way here from Needles.”
While most of Ludlow’s remnants date to the glory days of Route 66 (roughly 1946 through the 1960s), there are a few notable exceptions. Among these are the 1908 Ludlow Mercantile, severely damaged in a 2006 earthquake, a few old homes, and a haunting desert cemetery.
Gas stations like this once crowded both sides of the highway in Ludlow, but today only one remains open. Joe Sonderman collection
The listing of generator repair as a service offered dates the ruins of a garage along Route 66 in Ludlow. Jim Hinckley
Built in 1908, the Ludlow Mercantile/Murphy Brothers Store stood as an empty shell for more than half a century until an earthquake reduced it to rubble. Jim Hinckley
NEWBERRY SPRINGS
AFTER DECADES OF EMULATING LUDLOW in its downward spiral, Newberry Springs (Newberry before 1967) is experiencing a resurgence of sorts. Still, the town remains littered with empty remnants from when it sported five gas stations, four motels, several garages, a barber-shop, numerous cafés, souvenir shops, bars, a general store, and a grocery store.
However, even these ghostly vestiges represent modern history here. The springs that gave rise to the town were an important oasis for Native American traders who followed the trade route from the Pacific coast to Hopi and Zuni pueblos in present-day Arizona and New Mexico.
Intrepid Spanish explorer Father Garces followed the trail and stopped at the springs in 1776. In the era of America’s westward expansion, the trail became the Mojave Road. Fort Cady was established at the springs to control the vital resource as well as to subjugate the native tribes that had turned to raiding along the trail, and farming became a lucrative endeavor.
This darkened neon motel sign must have once seemed a welcome lighthouse beacon for those crossing the sea of desert on Route 66.
With completion of the railroad in the early 1880s, the shipping of water enabled the development of several mining centers in the desert, including Ludlow. It also gave farmers access to a wider market for their produce.
With the establishment of Route 66, serving the nearly endless stream of travelers supplanted farming as the financial underpinnings of the springs. Subsequently, the town was devastated by the bypass.
Newberry Springs today stands suspended somewhere between renaissance and ghost town. For fans of the double six, it is a treasure-trove of dusty mementos from better times.
At the long-closed Whiting Brothers station in Newberry Springs, gasoline still sells for forty-nine cents per gallon.
DAGGETT
JUST TO THE EAST OF DAGGETT stands a former agricultural inspection station, now a storage facility, built by the state of California in 1953 to replace one built in 1931, which replaced the original built in 1923. As a historic footnote, director John Ford brought the cast and crew of Grapes of Wrath to Daggett’s inspection station in 1939 to film the scene where the fictional Joad family is stopped for a second time by inspectors.
In 1946, Rittenhouse found Daggett to be a “tree shaded little old town that was formerly the location of smelters which handled the ore brought down from nearby mountains. Some of the old store buildings remain, but the town is now quiet.” Today, the town is even quieter, with the Desert Market being the busiest place in town.
The first settlement of the site dates to the immediate post–Civil War years of the 1860s. The discovery of rich silver and borax deposits in the Calico Mountains six miles north and a dozen years later gave rise to the town known as Calico Junction. It was renamed Daggett after the 1882 completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad from Mojave to Daggett, transforming the site from a roughhewn, hardscrabble camp into a boomtown.
The colorful Desert Market, opened in 1908 as Ryerson’s General Store, stands in stark contrast to the faded remnants from Daggett’s glory days.
Completion of a ten-stamp mill near Elephant Mountain fueled further growth. The large mill required ten- and twenty-mule teams for transport, and freight companies hauled supplies, ore, and water to and from area mines. As a historic note, special Death Valley–Mojave specifications devised to handle the excessively heavy loads gave rise to another industry: the construction and trade of huge wagons. One of the primary builders of these monsters was Seymour Alf. His shop, which served as a garage for motorists on the National Old Trails Highway as well as Route 66, still stands on 1st Street with the ghost sign of Daggett Garage on the wall.
The Daggett-Calico Railroad expedited the shipping of borax and silver ore to the mill, and the line also helped the community survive the collapse of silver prices and the exhaustion of profitable ore bodies during the 1890s. By 1902, the borax mines alone employed two hundred men, and the business district in Daggett consisted of Alf’s Blacksmith Shop, a railroad depot, a drugstore, a lumberyard, the Stone Hotel, three general merchandise stores, two Chinese restaurants, a café, and several saloons.
Just as borax ensured the town’s survival after the collapse of silver mining, the National Old Trails Highway, Route 66 after 1926, provided a new revenue stream as borax faded from prominence. Attesting to this was Kelly’s Café and Shell Station, the leading national sales outlet for Shell products on several occasions.
With Barstow’s prominence as a rail center and as the crossroads for U.S. 66 and U.S. 91, business was slowly siphoned from Daggett. By 1960, it was less than the quiet town noted by Rittenhouse.
Fire and time have claimed a number of historic structures in Daggett, including the old railroad depot. Still, a delightful number of structures survive, including the Desert Market, opened in 1908 as Ryerson’s General Store, several now closed cafés and stores, and the circa-1880s Stone Hotel.
The Stone Hotel, built circa 1875, was originally a two-story structure with a second-floor balcony and a large glass dome over the lobby.
From Barstow, drive east seven miles on Interstate 40 to exit 7, then turn north.
A Lost World
THE VESTIGES OF A LONG and very colorful history along the thirty-mile portion of Route 66 between Barstow and Victorville on the banks of the Mojave River are fast vanishing. In 2007, demolition erased Potapov’s service station and auto court, built in 1931 by Spanish-American War veteran Guy Wadsworth. Urban sprawl is rapidly transforming the old town of Helendale—started as a water stop for weary travelers around 1862 and the former site of Exotic World, a burlesque museum—into a suburb of Barstow.
The Do Drop Inn is an empty shell. T
he Bar Len Drive In Theater is again an empty desert field. Hulaville, once an eclectic roadside attraction, is now but a faded memory preserved in old photos and a diorama at the Route 66 Museum in Victorville.
Still, since this section of road was where the Mojave Trail, the Spanish Trail, and the Mormon Trail converged as they headed for the Cajon Pass, a wide variety of tangible links, many that predate Route 66, keeps the drive interesting.
Counted among these are the row of storefronts from the late nineteenth century in Oro Grande; the Iron Hog Saloon, formerly a dealership for Case farm equipment; and Burden’s Store and post office, built in 1926. Other tarnished gems to watch for are the Sagebrush Inn, started as a service station in 1931, and Oro Grande’s depot and 1890 schoolhouse.
Anchoring both ends of this drive are two fantastic museums: the Route 66 Mother Road Museum in Barstow and the California Route 66 Museum. The former is housed in the beautifully restored Casa del Desierto Harvey House that originally opened in 1911, and the latter in a former Route 66 roadhouse, the Red Rooster Café.
Even though this faded sign may be more than half a century old, its modernity seems out of place under the desert skies at Oro Grande.
Forlorn desert hills and building storm clouds reflected in the windows of a long-closed Helendale service station are quintessential elements of the Route 66 ghost town in the desert Southwest.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CREDIT FOR A BOOK often goes solely to the one named on the cover, but such accomplishment is never the work of one person. There are the talented editorial and layout people at the publisher who transform a rough work into a polished gem. There are marketing people who transform that gem into a marketable commodity.
Then there are those who contribute their knowledge, support, encouragement, and resources ranging from access to collections to contacts. Heading this list is my wife of twenty-seven years, Judy, my best friend.
Without her encouragement and unwavering support, without her gentle nudges to keep me focused and on track, without her slipping a plate under my nose when I become too engrossed in the work, I do not see how it would be possible to transform loose thoughts and ideas into a book. It is for these reasons and so many more that I refer to each book published as “our” book.
Others who contributed so much to this project include Laurel Kane, Jerry McClanahan, Jim Ross, Francis Ryan, Gary Turner, Jane Lee, Joe Sonderman, Tom Huber, and Debra Holden. To each of these individuals and everyone else who contributed so much to transforming an idea into a book, I say thank you very much.
How long has it been since a tube was patched in the garage or the bell rang as a shiny new Packard pulled up to the pumps at Kobel’s station in Foss, Oklahoma?
SUGGESTED READING
Curtis, C. H. The Missouri US 66 Tour Book. Lake St. Louis, MO: Curtis Enterprises, 1994.
Hinckley, Jim. Route 66 Backroads: Your Guide to Scenic Side Trips & Adventures from the Mother Road. Minneapolis, MN: Voyageur Press, 2008.
Julyan, Robert. The Place Names of New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996, 1998.
Kaszynski, William. Route 66: Images of America’s Main Street. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2003.
McClanahan, Jerry. EZ66 Guide for Travelers. Lake Arrowhead, CA: National Historic Route 66 Federation, 2008.
Rittenhouse, Jack. A Guide Book to Highway 66. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1946, 1989.
Robinson, Jon. Route 66: Lives on the Road. Minneapolis, MN: MBI Publishing Company, 2001.
Ross, Jim. Oklahoma Route 66. Arcadia, OK: Ghost Town Press, 2001.
Shirk, George. Oklahoma Place Names. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965.
Sonderman, Joe. Route 66 in New Mexico. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010.
Taylor, Paul. “Route 66 Place Names.” Route 66 Magazine (2006).
Trimble, Marshall. Roadside History of Arizona. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1986.
Wallis, Michael. Route 66: The Mother Road. Revised ed. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2001.
Witzel, Michael Karl, and Gyvel Young-Witzel. Legendary Route 66: A Journey Through Time Along America’s Mother Road. Minneapolis, MN: Voyageur Press, 2007.
INDEX
4 Women on the Route, 54, 55
7-V Ranch Resort, 122
66 Super Service Station, 84, 85
100th Meridian Museum, 73
Acme, AZ, 128
Acme Court, 60
Adamana, AZ, 118
Adrian, TX, 91
Afton, OK, 59–63
Aires, Afton and Anton, 60
Alamo Crossing, 134
Alanreed, TX, 81, 83, 84
Albatross, MO, 45
Albuquerque, NM, 104, 110
Alf’s Blacksmith Shop, 152
Allantown, AZ, 116
Alton & Sangamon Railroad, 29
Amarillo, TX, 80, 81, 85, 88
Amboy, CA, 142, 145, 146
Anderson, William T., 46
Ariston Café, 33
Armijo, Manuel, 107
Arrowhead Highway, 138
Art’s Motel, 33
Ashfork, AZ, 120
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, 141, 145–147
Automobile Club of Southern California, 142, 145
Avilla, MO, 38, 45, 46, 48, 49
Avon Court Motel, 60, 61
Bagdad, CA, 142, 146, 147
Baker’s Café, 60
Bar Len Drive In Theater, 154
Bard, NM, 94
Barstow, CA, 139, 147, 152, 154
Bassett’s Grocery, 60
Baxter, John, 54
Baxter’s Place, MO, 55
Baxter Springs, KS, 51, 52, 54–57
Beale, Edward, 120, 126
Beale, Emily Truxton, 120
Beatty, NV, 148
Beautiful Mountain Trading Post, 112
Big Piney River Bridge, 45
Bliss, Russell, 36
Bloomington, IL, 26
Blunt, Thomas, 54, 55
Boise, TX, 88
Boriana Mines, 134
Bourbon, MO, 45
Braceville, IL, 18, 19, 22–25
Braidwood, IL, 18, 19, 22, 24
Braysville, IL, 22
Bridgeport, OK, 66–69
Brown’s Garage, 45
Buckeye Mining District, 148
Budville Trading Company, 110
Buffalo Ranch, 61
Bunion Derby, 73, 94
Burden’s Store, 154
Burlington Northern Railroad, 64
Burns Flat, OK, 72
Burris, Bessie, 146
Burris, Buster, 145, 146
Cactus Inn Motel, 84
Cadiz Summit, CA, 142, 145
Café on the Route and the Little Brick Inn, 54
Calico Junction, CA, 152
California Eastern Railroad, 138
California Route 66 Museum, 154
Calumet, OK, 66
Canyon Diablo, 114, 116, 118
Carter’s Cabins, 45
Carthage, MO, 38, 46
Casa Alta, 100
Casa del Desierto Harvey House, 154
Casebier, Dennis and Jo Ann, 141
Casey, Sidney, 45
Castle Rock Cabins, 45
Cayuga, IL, 26
Centerville, MO, 42
Chacon, Don Fernando, 109
Chalybeate Springs, MO, 40, 42
Chambers, AZ, 117, 118
Chambless, CA, 142, 143, 145
Chapman, Edwin, 26
Cherry & Johnson, 42
Cheto, AZ, 118
Chevrolet, Louis, 13, 128, 131
Chicago, IL, 13, 28
Chicago, Alton & St. Louis Railroad, 26
Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf Railway, 80, 82, 85, 90
Chief Yellowhorse Trading Post, 117
Choctaw, Oklahoma & Texas Railroad Company, 82, 84
Circle Inn Malt Shop, 45
Circ
le M Motel, 94
Clarendon, TX, 84
Clark, Anna N., 107
Clinton, OK, 72
Coleman Theatre, 73
Commerce, OK, 73
Conant, NM, 100
Conway, TX, 85
Cordell, OK, 70
Correo, NM, 110, 111
Cotton Hill, IL, 28
Cotton Oil Mill, 80
Cowgill’s Market, 122
Crazy Fred’s Truck Stop, 128
Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 82
Cross Roads Court, 80
Crozier Canyon Ranch, 122
Cuba, MO, 45
Cubero, NM, 111
Cuervo, NM, 100
Daggett, CA, 145, 152
Dammer, Charlie, 38
Danby, CA, 142, 144, 145
Davis, Jefferson, 120
De Baca’s Trading Post, 100
Dé-Ja-Vu, 19
Desert Classic “Cactus Derby,” 128, 131, 144
Desert Market, 152
Devil’s Elbow, MO, 45
Devil’s Rope/Old Route 66 Museum, 82, 84
Dillia, NM, 92, 104, 105
Dilts, Don, 122
Do Drop Inn, 154
Dodge City, KS, 85
Doolittle, MO, 42
Dot’s Mini Museum, 91
Dwight, IL, 18, 20, 21
Eagle Service Station, 60
Eagle-Picher Smelter, 52
East Lincoln Township, IL, 29
Ehresman, Homer and Margaret, 90
Eisler Brothers Grocery and Deli, 54
El Camino Real, 13, 104
El Vado de Juan Paiz, NM, 104
Elephant’s Tooth, 130, 131
Elk City, OK, 72
Endee, NM, 90, 94, 95, 97
Erick, OK, 58, 73
Essex, CA, 137, 142, 144
Eureka, MO, 37
Ewing, IL, 29
Exotic World, 154
Exum, Frank, 80
Farmersville, IL, 33
Fenner, CA, 142
Flagstaff, AZ, 115, 116, 118
Foley, John, 61
Ford, Henry, 59