Author to offer glimpse of ‘Mojave Road in 1863’

By Matthew Cabe
Victor Valley Daily Press

APPLE VALLEY — Author and photographer Jeff Lapides will be the Mohahve Historical Society’s first guest speaker of 2019 when the group meets this week, according to President Jim Mustra.

Lapides will discuss “The Mojave Road in 1863: The Pioneering Photographs of Rudolph D’Heureuse,” a book he edited that includes a foreword by Dennis Casebier, author of the popular “Mojave Road Guide.”

Lapides’ book is, in part, a collection of all the glass plate negative images taken by the German-born d’Heureuse during his travels on the Mojave Road from the Port of Los Angeles to the Colorado River.

In the book, the 155-year-old images are accompanied by newspaper accounts, and reveal an early and wild Mojave Desert, according to the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association website. They were produced only 25 years after the invention of photography.

Ansel Adams included some of D’Huereuse’s work in a 1942 exhibit of frontier photographers at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, according to a California Desert Art report. There, D’Heureuse’s photos were seen alongside those of Timothy O’Sullivan, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Jackson and Civil War chronicler Mathew Brady, among others.

The Sierra Madre-based Lapides “stumbled on” D’Heureuse’s photos while completing a separate project, according to the Mohahve Muse, the society’s newsletter. He will share the story behind his find during the meeting, as well.

The Mohahve Historical Society meets at Redeemer Church, located at 22434 Nisqually Road in Apple Valley. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, with Lapides’ talk to follow. Refreshments will be available.

Visit www.Mohahve.org for more information.

Mojave Desert Archives — Virtual Tour —

The Mojave Desert Archives is housed in the Dennis G. Casebier Library, a state-of-the-art archival repository built in the image of the historic Goffs Santa Fe Railway Depot (1902-1956). This 6,000 square-foot building was made possible by a grant from the California Cultural and Historical Endowment and the membership of the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association (MDHCA).

The entrance to the Library is through the green door, just to the right of the old baggage cart and platform (below) in the two-story part of the building.

Upon entering the Library Reading Room, visiting researchers are greeted by staff and provided with an orientation on Archives rules and procedures. The large library table (below) is is where the researcher will set up, receive requested materials, and conduct their study. (Click on image to see full-size)

This wide view of the Reading Room (below) shows the location of the staff station on the right side of the room. The microfilm reader station is located in between the library table (center) and the staff station. Bookcases containing oral history transcripts and reference books line the walls.

Between the microfilm reader and staff stations is the Archives Citation bookcase. There are more than 130 titles assembled on the shelves in which the Mojave Desert Archives are referenced. The types of publications making up this collection are scholarly theses, historical monographs, government reports, and the in-house publications of the MDHCA. This output is the most visible representation of how the Mojave Desert Archives gives back to our community.

Inside the low and long one-story portion of the Library building, called the Freight House, is where the stacks of the repository are stored. The Freight House is divided into two equally sized rooms. Below is the north room. The file cabinets contain our Subject Files, processed manuscript collections, microfilm, pamphlets, and periodicals, such as a full set of Desert Magazine.

The north room has a scanning station for photographic and microform materials (below). This equipment is typically used to fulfill reference requests for long-distance researchers.

The north Freight House also houses the server rack for the Archives (below). This system runs ArchivesSpace, a web-based archives information management system, used to organize the collections of the Mojave Desert Archives and to develop collection guides for upload to the Online Archive of California. The digital assets of the collections are also preserved and backed up here. [Systems gifted by Smile Brands, Inc., Irvine, California.]

The north Freight House is also home to a small exhibit of framed photographic enlargements from the O. A. Russell Photograph Collection and vintage World War I and II war bond posters.

Interpretive graphic for the O. A. Russell photo exhibit (below).

The south Freight House contains both processed and unprocessed collections. The record storage racks (below) contain accessioned materials that are awaiting arrangement and description. The major collections stored here are those of desert writers Harold and Lucile Weight, San Bernardino County researcher Germaine Moon, and desert land activist Hildamae Voght.

The long tables in the lower right portion of the image below provide an excellent work space for handling oversized materials or for beginning the process of organizing materials from the record storage boxes.

The south Freight House is also home to flat files containing the 7,000 historical maps of the Mojave Desert Archives.

We hope you have enjoyed this virtual tour of the Mojave Desert Archives. In-person tours are typically led by the Archivist at the annual Mojave Road Rendezvous, held at the Goffs Cultural Center in early fall. Thank you!

New MDHCA Logos Unveiled

The 33rd Annual Mojave Road Rendezvous was the occasion for the unveiling of two new updated logos for the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association. MDHCA President Steve Mongrain led the execution of this effort and thus ensured that they would be available to the membership in the form of decals in time for the Rendezvous.

Here is the text of Steve's presentation to the gathered audience:

Earlier this year, Dennis recommended that the Board of Directors develop a logo with a motto for the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association, what marketing types would call a “brand,” a picture that depicts who we are and what we are about. Here’s what we came up with.

The one above will be used for more formal needs; letterhead, envelopes, formal letters, items where we wish to express the historical aspects of the Goffs Cultural Center.

The second one here on the left will be used for more informal items; caps, decals, shirts. The creative folks tell me the maroon color has a close resemblance to red/brown associated with the color of the Earth, the beige with the sand of the desert itself.

The Joshua Tree symbolizes the Mojave Desert, what causes us all to be here. It symbolizes the Mojave Road, the East Mojave Heritage Trail, and the numerous historical sites throughout the East Mojave, our “boots on the ground” work.

The rendering of the Schoolhouse symbolizes our major goal, the preservation of the history and culture of the Mojave Desert and surrounding area. It speaks to the Mojave Desert Archives and the 19 collections housed here, the more than 120,000 historical photographs, the 6,000+ volumes, 5,000 maps, more than 700 oral and transcribed interviews, and numerous manuscripts, periodicals, pamphlets, digital databases, etc. And it speaks to the Dennis G. Casebier Library on the north side of the campus that houses much of this data. It further represents the Goffs Cultural Center campus, and all the wonderful historic antiquities on the grounds here.

The Latin phrase, Non Nobis Solum, was requested specifically by Dennis. Some years ago, a group of us were meeting at the Casebier residence across the way here. We were discussing then, as we continue to discuss today, PRESENCE here at the Goffs Cultural Center. You may have read in either the Goffsgram or Mojave Road Report that we are often in need of people to be here, generally at least four or more people all the time as this place is far too important to leave unattended at any time.

Anyway, someone at the meeting mentioned to Dennis that most people don’t have the passion he does regarding the MDHCA, and therefore not to expect lots of volunteers. I will always recall Dennis’ answer. He said that he didn't expect lots of volunteers because he had learned over the years that committed people show up “one person at a time.”

Dennis remarked that “many people have no passion for anything, and therefore why not be part of a movement far greater than just yourself? Why not pitch in and help an organization that records the history of Americans in the Mojave Desert for the benefit of generations to come? Do a little, or do a lot, but jump in. Give back and participate.”

Those were important words, and hence our motto, Non Nobis Solum, which translated means, “NOT FOR OURSELVES ALONE.”

A special note of thanks goes to fellow Board member John Fickewirth and his associate, Jim Earley, for their design assistance.

Library to house desert history

Mojave group gets grant for building

By Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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