Mitchell Caverns in Eastern Mojave reopening in November

California State Park officials have announced that remote Providence Mountains State Recreation Area and its popular Mitchell Caverns in the eastern Mojave Desert will reopen November 3 after nearly seven years. The recreation area will initially be open Friday through Sunday. (COURTESY OF CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS)

By SUZANNE HURT
The Press-Enterprise

Popular Mitchell Caverns in the eastern Mojave Desert’s Providence Mountains will re-open on a limited schedule in early November, a state park official said Friday, Sept. 8.

Providence Mountains State Recreation Area between Barstow and Needles – and its limestone caves — have been closed since January 2011 over infrastructure issues, including a bad well.

Park officials are hiring, while fans of the caverns, one of only two public “show caves” in Southern California, are rejoicing via social media.

State parks’ Tehachapi District Acting Superintendent Russ Dingman said he was thrilled to announce the re-opening, which comes in time for the fall busy season.

“I think it’s one of the hidden jewels of the state parks department,” he said.

The remote park will be open for day use only from 8 a.m. Friday through Sunday and on holidays starting Nov. 3 until more staff is hired.

Two tours will be offered daily, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The campground is expected to open in about six months. The closest campground is nearby Hole-In-The-Wall Campground in Mojave National Preserve. There also are motels in Barstow and Needles, Dingman said.

Park officials are now hiring seasonal park aides and maintenance aides.

State park officials had hoped to reopen the state recreation area in May or June. That was delayed until a septic tank could be replaced and trail work finished after the heat of summer passed.

For more information, check out parks.ca.gov/ or call 760-928-2586.

The Snake Oil Salesman of Zzyzx

Lake Tuendae at the Cal State University Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx.

Commentary by Linda Castro
SCVNews.com

The sign for exit 239 on Interstate 15, six miles southwest of Baker, says “Zzyzx Road.” Have you ever gotten off at that exit to explore? Have you wondered what is down that road?

First, you might be wondering how to pronounce this strange word. Zzyzx is pronounced “Zī – zĭx,” with the emphasis on the first syllable. Zzyzx is a made-up word.

The Zzyzx area has had human inhabitants since prehistoric times due to the spring (Soda Springs) and Soda Lake, now a dry lake bed. Projectile points and rock art have been found in the area.

The Mojave Road runs near Zzyzx. The road began as a trail used by Native Americans, Spanish missionaries, explorers and settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries. The land passed into U.S. hands in 1848, and in early 1858 what had become known as the Mohave Trail became the Mojave Road, a wagon road that connected with other significant trails such as the Santa Fe Trail.

In 1859, the Mojave Road came under the purview of the U.S. military. Army posts were established along the route to protect settlers and travelers from the attacks of the resident Paiute, Mojave and Chemehuevi peoples until 1871. This also opened the way for large mining development in the Mojave Desert region of San Bernardino County. The Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, built in the early 1900s to carry ore from the California deserts to ports in the Los Angeles area, also had a station in the area named Soda Springs.

All of this history is similar to that of many other places in California’s desert. However, in 1944, this area was used for a rather unusual purpose: a health spa.

Curtis Howe Springer opened the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Healing Center in 1944 at this location, which was federal land, after filing dubious mining claims for about 12,000 acres surrounding the springs. He gave the area the made-up name of Zzyzx, claiming it to be the last word in the English language.
Springer was a self-professed medical doctor and Methodist minister, but he did not hold a license to be either. He was a radio evangelist in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, and he used that platform to convince his faithful followers to move to Zzyzx so they could begin a utopian way of living with an abundance of miracle cures.

Once Springer decided upon the location of his utopian desert healing center, he began to recruit laborers to carry out his dream. He would drive a bus to Skid Row in Los Angeles to find recruits and promise them food and shelter in exchange for work. Some of the workers quit upon learning of the policy prohibiting alcohol, but many stayed for years.Springer promoted his healing center on his syndicated religious radio show and asked listeners for donations for his miracle cures. The miracle elixirs were marketed as the cure for everything from hemorrhoids to cancer. Springer’s most popular potion was one that he claimed cured baldness: Mo-Hair. After users rubbed Mo-Hair onto their scalps, they were instructed to bend over and hold their breath for as long as possible. When the blood rushed to their head from lack of oxygen, Springer would claim that their red faces proved his miracle potion was working.

For the next 30 years, hundreds of visitors came to Springer’s spa in search of a healthier lifestyle. But Springer’s scheming business practices would eventually catch up to him.

Springer attempted to sell land adjacent to Zzyzx, despite the fact he did not own the land. This, along with lawsuits brought against him by disgruntled users of Mo-Hair, eventually brought government attention to him and to Zzyzx. The Bureau of Land Management evicted Springer and his followers and reclaimed the land in 1974.

Since 1976, the BLM has allowed the California State University to operate its Desert Studies Center at the site of the old spa. A consortium of CSU campuses uses the area for their study of the desert. The buildings and pond developed by Springer are still there today.

Zzyzx is open to the public. Exit at Zzyzx Road and travel on the road for about five miles along the western shore of Soda Dry Lake until the road ends at a parking lot. You can stroll around Lake Tuendae and along the shore of Soda Dry Lake. If classes are in session, please be courteous and do not disturb participants.

Zzyzx is now also included in the Mojave National Preserve, established in 1994.

Zzyzx is a short detour off of Interstate 15 and is a quirky part of California’s desert history.

Providence Town Site nominated for federal historic designation

Ruins of the Bonanza King Mine (darthjenni)

By Jose Quintero
Desert Dispatch

SAN FRANCISCO — The Providence Town Site near the defunct Bonanza King Mine and Mitchell Caverns is one of 11 nominations to be considered to the National Register of Historic Places on Monday.

The California State Historical Resources Commission will consider the nominations for federal historic designation during a quarterly meeting in San Francisco at 1 p.m. on Monday.

Providence Town Site is an 81-acre district in the Providence Mountains in the Mojave National Preserve.

California Office of Historic Preservation officials say the buildings and structures in the Providence Town Site are “almost in a state of ruin.” the buildings and structures at the site comprise a nearly intact village near the Bonanza King Mine, a former silver mine, located roughly 100 miles east of Barstow.

“Practically all of the buildings and structures dating from the period of significance remain in place and are further connected by the town’s original road and trail system. The property is significant in the areas of settlement, commerce, transportation, architecture and archaeology,” the nomination reads.

The California Office of Historic Preservation is responsible for administering federally and state mandated historic preservation programs to further the identification, evaluation, registration and protection of the state’s “irreplaceable resources.” The mission of the California Office of Historic Preservation and the California State Historical Resources Commission is to provide “leadership and promote the preservation of California's irreplaceable and diverse cultural heritage,” the website reads.

The meeting is scheduled to be held at the Golden Gate Club’s Ventana Room, located at 135 Fisher Loop in San Francisco.

On the Road: Museum hosts program on history of Mojave Road

MOJAVE ROAD: Speaking at the Colorado River Historical Society Museum earlier this week, eastern Mojave Desert historian Dennis Casebier gave a presentation covering the history of the Mojave Road, from its beginnings as a trail used by native tribes, to its present-day status as a recreational trail. “We’re extremely proud to have Dennis here,” said Karole Finkelstein, CRMHSM vice president. “There is no one more qualified to talk about the Mojave Road and the history of the eastern Mojave Desert.” - DK McDONALD/The Daily News

By DK McDONALD
The Daily News

BULLHEAD CITY — G.K. Chesterton called history a road to be reconsidered and even retraced.

For Mojave Desert historian Dennis Casebier, the history of one road has been his focus for more than 60 years.

Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd at the Colorado River Historical Society Museum on Monday, Casebier covered the history of the road, from its beginnings as a trail used by native tribes, through time to its importance in moving troops for training during World War II, to its present-day status as a recreational trail, generously illustrated throughout with historic and personal photos, anecdotes, and stories of his drive to preserve history through the cultural center.

“It was an excellent presentation,” said Nancy Nelson, who attended with her husband, Barry. “We traveled the Mojave Road without knowing much of its history, so this is kind of after-the-fact. Just about everything he told us we didn’t know. The history is fascinating.”

Casebier and other proponents of preserving the route founded the Friends of the Mojave Road in 1981; working with the Bureau of Land Management, Casebier and the group identified the route of the trail.

The Mojave Road is unique in that for most of its 138-mile length it is in much the same condition as it was when formed more than 150 years ago, he said. Bisecting the Mojave National Preserve, the twin tracks functioned primarily as a supply, rather than migration, route, and the road was overlooked while many other early major Western routes were upgraded into state and national highways.

The Friends insisted that the BLM place no signage to mark the route; in order to help preserve the road from overuse and prevent the unprepared from attempting its crossing, navigation is only possibly by locating strategically placed rock cairns and through the travel guide.

“It’s a four-wheel-drive-only road,” Casebier said. “In order to travel the road you have to buy the Mojave Road Guide, which tells you how to access the road, and how to behave while on it. It is a dangerous place; people have died out there.”

The road guide is available at the Colorado River Historical Society Museum, 2201 Highway 68.

“It was a wonderful presentation,” said attendee Leroy Jackson. “I am so interested in his stories of earlier pioneers homesteading the region. It’s amazing to think you could be standing in the same places those people walked.”

Casebier, a retired U.S. Navy physicist, is the driving force behind the most complete archive of Mojave Desert history in existence — the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association in Goffs, Calif.

“He’s a historian above all historians, as far as I’m concerned,” said Elsie Needles, Colorado River Historical Society and Museum president. “He’s devoted his life to that area, and no one is better than Dennis at finding Mojave Desert history.”

Casebier began gathering archival materials pertaining to the Mojave Desert in 1954. When the Friends group transitioned to registered nonprofit status in 1993, his personal collection became the seed of the most complete library known on the history of the eastern Mojave Desert; the cultural center now houses more than 108,000 photographs, 6,000 historic maps of the region, 3,000 files on individuals and cultural sites of interest, 1,300 oral history files, and 6,000 volumes of published literature, including the library and personal papers of desert bibliographer E. I. Edwards, the library and collection of Harold and Lucile Weight, and the collection of San Bernardino County historian Germaine L. Moon.

MITCHELL CAVERNS: Seeing state budget cuts up close

Mitchell Caverns are in the the Providence Mountains of eastern San Bernardino County (Mark Muckenfuss/staff photo)

BY JANET ZIMMERMAN
Press-Enterprise

California’s budget crisis hit me full-force recently when I realized Mitchell Caverns in the Mojave Desert’s Providence Mountains State Recreation Area are closed indefinitely.

These unique caverns, developed as a private tourist attraction in the 1930s, are not someplace I go often — I’ve only been there once. But on our spring break vacation in the desert, my husband and I wanted to take our children to see the caverns’ stalagmites, stalactites and other limestone formations.

We called, but the phone went unanswered. A little research turned up the reason.

The Providence Mountains State Recreation Area was closed in January 2011, along with 69 other state parks; 208 parks remain open. The area, which is within the boundaries of the Mojave National Preserve, became a state park in 1956.

According to the National Park Service, which includes notice of the closure in its newsletter for the Mojave preserve, said there were serious problems with the water system at the caverns, which coincided with state budget cuts.

The closures were necessary to meet $11 million in funding cuts that year, and $22 million this year, state officials said.

Sad to think, the only way my children may ever see this desert treasure is on video.

Rare visit to the Mitchell Caverns

Naturalists from the SCV push back the desert to earn a rare visit to the now closed, historic, cave

Deep in El Pakiva Cavern are numerous formations over which the imagination can take flight. One docent saw in this formation “A woman with a flowing gown with crossed arms and a Poodle’s head.”

By Jim Harris
Santa Clarita Valley Signal

It nearly takes my breath away.

Billowy, white cotton candy clouds march eastward, covering the top of Fountain Peak; its red sentinel spires pushing through feathery cloud-fog.

Descending the mountain are wide, uneven strips of crimson, gray and green; rhyolite and limestone.

“See the three layers?” asked Brian Miller, organizer of our trip to the currently closed Mitchell Caverns in the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area.

“The gray band—that’s where the caves are,” he says.

The caverns are opened to us in exchange for work to push back the Mojave Desert at the Mitchell Caverns Visitor’s Center.

Brian Miller, an employee of the state parks system, enticed his fellow docent/naturalists from Santa Clarita with the chance to be the first in three years to descend into the limestone caverns in exchange for pushing back the encroaching desert.

More than 20 volunteers from Placerita and Vasquez Rocks Nature Centers drove up to the remote site, 116 miles east of Barstow on Highway 40 for the chance to go into the deep, historic caverns.

The volunteers spent hours rooting out desert vegetation that was pushing into buildings, as well as intruding on concrete walkways and planters at the Mitchell Caverns Visitor Center.

“I’m tired,” said Laneita Algeyer, school trips coordinator at Placerita Nature Center. She and her husband Bill are veteran hikers who haunt places like Mitchell Caverns, looking for the historic and the unusual all through the West.

Jim and Toni Crowley brought a wheel barrow and extra tools in their pickup. They haul out the vegetation when the work ends.

Exhausted after hours of work, and a hearty lunch including soup provided by Sue Wallendar, the Placerita/Vasquez group was fired up once more when Miller announced, “Time for the Caverns.”

Suddenly, a Grounds Keeper appeared to lead us into the cave. So remote are the caverns in Fountain Peak that he had to turn on a generator to provide lighting for us as we descend into the caverns. The Caverns are off the grid.

We followed a craggy, rocky trail under Fountain Peak’s red spires, dug into the Mountain’s gray limestone band. On the left the trail plunged hundreds of feet below.

But, we were safe with a solid chain guard rail installed during the heyday of park building after the state park system took possession of the Caverns.

The safety rails were among many improvements Jack Mitchell, the original owner of the caverns, could not have imagined when he ran tours there on his own property.

Mitchell started the tours during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Mitchell played at mining, but what he really excavated was the imaginations and spirits of people who wanted to see and experience unique and mysterious works of nature.

And in that spirit, as we descend into the caverns, many among us gasped as the lights turned on. The upward lighting cast strange shadows on bizarre, outlandish limestone formations.

“Breathtaking,” said Dolores Olson, fellow docent/naturalist.

Stalagmites, stalactites, shields, helictites, draperies, curtains and popcorn form intricate, sensational formations that illuminated our imaginations. Like children looking at clouds, we could see in our mind’s eyes that which are not there.

“Do you see the Queen washing her face in the basin, her hair hanging down?” asked the caretaker as he pointed to a complex formation of curtains, and stalactites in a section of the Caverns known as “The Queen’s Chambers.”

“Those formations will continue building. This is a living cave, when it rains,” continued the Grounds Keeper.
He pointed to a single trickle of water hanging on the end of a stalagmite, and then down at a tiny stalactite exactly below the motionless drip. This is at the beginning of our descent into the Caverns beginning at El Pakiva, “The Devil’s House” Cavern.

“This is how the formations grow over the years,” said the Grounds Keeper.

To me it was fantastic to think that such a small thing will grow like the enormous formations surrounding us as we continued.

Through El Pakiva we continue down state constructed steps, a far cry from the days when Mitchell and his visitors had to wriggle and climb over and around rocks and boulders.

After El Pakiva, we move in single file through the “Solution Tube” and are stopped abruptly at “The Pit.”
Here, in the 1930s, Mitchell dropped flares which would slowly go out, never to be seen again, said the Grounds Keeper.

“Jack (Mitchell) called it the ‘Bottomless Pit’,” smiled our guide. “It’s not bottomless; it’s about 40 feet deep.”
In those days the tour had to stop, go back, wriggle again through the entrance and walk the trail to the second cavern, Tecopa, named after one of the last Shoshone chiefs.

Now, there is a bridge and an opening to Tecopa, both built by the state.

There was also air-lock doors between the two caverns to eliminate a steady draft that blew through the caves once the state connected them together.

Archaeologists have found the remains of prehistoric animals, including a pre-historic sloth in Tecopa Cavern.
Throughout these caves there is evidence of Native-American life. The caverns were a sacred place for the Chemehuevi Indians, and a number of tools and fire pits have been found.

The Chemehuevi people called the caves the “the eyes of the mountain” because of their double entrances located near the top of Fountain Peak Mountain.

Much later, Jack Mitchell owned the caves (from 1934 to 1954) and operated them as a tourist attraction and rest stop for travelers on nearby U.S. Route 66. He held mining rights to the area and mined several holes and tunnels, which can be seen today.

In 1956 the caves became a state recreation area.

“They are an island of state owned land within the federal Mojave National Preserve,” said Miller.
The Caverns were closed in 2011.

Like the closing of Mitchell Caverns, we ended our tour as we emerge from Tecopa Cavern into the sunlight of Fountain Peak Mountain, and thread back along Jack Mitchell’s old cavern trail, sadly leaving behind our fantastical experience.

And back to our normal lives in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Exhibit opens at Kelso Depot Visitor Center

Photography, poetry on display through April 6

"He Walked Away from His Former Life" (Gabriel Thorburn)

Staff Reports
Desert Dispatch

BAKER • Mojave National Preserve in Southern California invites desert travelers to experience the photography of Gabriel Thorburn and the poetry of Russell Thorburn, now on exhibition in the Desert Light Gallery at the Kelso Depot Visitor Center.

The exhibit, Many Names Have Never Been Spoken Here, will be showing now through April 6, 2013.

The Kelso Depot Visitor Center is on Kelbaker Road, 34 miles south of Interstate 15 at the town of Baker. It is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; telephone (760) 252-6108.

As Mojave National Preserve Artists-in Residence, Russell Thorburn and his son, Gabriel Thorburn, spent two weeks exploring the Mojave. During their residency, they discovered the desert as a place of solitude and self-reflection.

As a poet concerned with lost paths, Russell Thorburn explored desert trails, seeking the significance of travelers who came before, and the forgotten lives of former desert residents. Gabriel Thorburn's photography illustrates the places that inspired the poetry.

Prints from the exhibition will be available for purchase at the Park Store at Kelso Depot Visitor Center for the duration of the exhibit. Russell Thorburn is the author of four books of poetry and lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Gabriel Thorburn is a filmmaker and fine art photographer in Los Angeles.

At 1.6 million acres, Mojave National Preserve is the third largest unit of the National Park System in the contiguous United States. While you won't be able to experience it all in a single visit, taking the time to plan ahead will ensure a safe and rewarding adventure.

The renovated Kelso Depot is now the primary Visitor Center for Mojave National Preserve. Former dormitory rooms contain exhibits describing the cultural and natural history of the surrounding desert.

The baggage room, ticket office, and two dormitory rooms have been historically furnished to illustrate life in the depot in the first half of the twentieth century. A 12-minute orientation film is shown in the theater.

Basement gallery space features rotating fine art collections by local artists, focusing on the cultural history and natural splendors of Mojave national Preserve.

For more information about the current exhibit, Kelso Depot of Mojave National Preserve, visit www.nps.gov/moja/.