More relics of the Desert on our way to Mojave National Preserve

When I mentioned to a local Seattle friend that we were headed down towards Joshua Tree, she got so excited, as we would be right near her home town of Desert Center. Her parents were school teachers out at the nearby Eagle iron ore mine in what I’m guessing (hope I get this right) was probably the 60’s. Anyway, she was telling me all about growing up out there and that the mine was now abandoned and it piqued our curiosity. 

After much digging, it turns out the entire community of Eagle Mine, that was built specifically around the mine, houses, schools, etc. is no longer accessible by the public. The mine ran from 1948 -1983.  They had built an entire town around this mine and when they closed, it literally became a ghost town. A handful of people have stayed through the years, but with very few services being provided, it’s rough living. From 1988 - 2003 they tried using the shopping center in the town as a minimal security prison. That failed after fatal riot, among other issues. They’ve also talked about building a power plant out that way. I wasn’t able to confirm what the status of that is now. We would have loved to have visited this modern ghost town, but the entire town is fenced off and, again, not open to the general public. Bummer.

Anyway, Desert Center was a community built right off the interstate, my friends hometown. It too has literally become a ghost town. There’s a sign on the interstate for a petrol station, but this has since closed and there are no services available. The cafe still has sugar containers visible on their counters, with several years of dust. It turns out the post office, that we thought was closed, is still functioning. We only fond this out when someone drove up to the door and went in. 

I sent the pictures below to my friend who lamented how much she’d loved growing up in this little town. It got me thinking, it’s not often in this world that you’re hometown becomes a ghost town, not in this era anyway. 

Amboy Crater

As we headed north through the desert, we traveled the way we always do, Gav drives and I usually have 2 or 3 maps or references books on my lap. Sometimes we have internet to help guide our next stop, sometimes we don’t. We always have my dad’s Delorme Gazetteer atlases on hand. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a series of atlases for each US state that have an amazing amount of detail, including contour lines, water tanks and old railroad grades. For anyone that knows my dad, you know that this is totally his jam. You have to have a map that shows you all the things. I’ve learned a lot of awesome things from my father, his love of maps is definitely one I can get on board with.

So, what did the Gazetteer reveal for this next part of the trip? A crater. A big crater. Amboy Crater as it turns out. Not from a meteor, but from a volcanic eruption, perhaps as recently as 10,000 years ago. The recent origin and its near perfect shape, was enough to make it designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1973. It sits on public land managed by the BLM and on any given day, there’s a parking lot, toilet, picnic area and a 3 mile trail out to the crater and back. The day we arrived, it happened to be an annual event that celebrates the site. We were greeted by geologists, Route 66 aficionados, biologists and BLM staff, among others. Not only did we have a fun hike out and around the crater and back, but had the benefit of all these different people that were able to answer all of our questions. There was even a free lunch being offered by a local Mexican restaurant & live music. Sometimes you just get lucky, being at the right place at the right time.