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.

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.

The Route 66 Chronicles: Unraveling mysteries

Camp Beale's Springs, Kingman, Arizona. Photo by D.P. Flanders, 1873. (Courtesy, Mohave Museum of History and Arts)

By Jim Hinckley
Kingman Daily Miner

History is a lot like a good pot of stew. If we merely skim the surface, we miss the meat and potatoes at the bottom. This leaves the impression that the stew is a bit thin and without a great deal of flavor. Then we tell folks that the stew wasn’t very good and the story is repeated until it becomes fact.

With the passing of time, even photos are not always enough to separate myth from fact. Recently, the Route 66 Association of Kingman initiated an ambitious plan to partner with property owners in the historic business district to restore facades, as well as historic signage.

One of these projects was the Old Trails Garage owned by the Graves family. As historic research is something I engage in regularly, I was asked to assist in determining the date of construction and to find images of the garage that would allow for a more accurate recreation.

The earliest view of the garage was a postcard from about 1918 in the possession of the Mohave Museum of History & Arts. However, something did not seem right as the garage was supposed to have been built in 1912 or 1914, and I didn’t see the Brunswick Hotel that was built in 1909. This was accredited to a bit of photo editing, common in many early post cards. Then, with assistance from Steve Rider, a prolific collector of National Old Trails Highway era postcards, a similar postcard was discovered, but this one indicated a Needles, California location.

Even though the owners have decided that the facade renovation of the Kingman garage will mimic its 1940 appearance, complete with towering neon Packard sign from about 1930, it was interesting to have a more complete photo record of the facility’s evolution.

As the association’s initiative progresses, I am confident that further adventures in historic research will take place. In fact, I am currently in search of a mystery contractor that added a unique signature to his work – the use of white quartz to frame windows and doors.

To date, I have documented this signature at the Siesta Motel, 1929; the recently razed Bell Motel, 1946; the Assembly of God church, 1939; a circa-1930 cafe, and the last remnant of the pre-1937 Richards Auto Court. Perhaps the most intriguing of these buildings is the old church, as stones with Native American petroglyphs were used in the construction!

A few days ago I delved into the new Facebook live and posted several early morning discussions. A regular morning broadcast is something I may do in the near future. To have direct interaction with followers and Route 66 enthusiasts from throughout the world was a most interesting experience.

In the most recent of these I noted that a video from the site of Camp Beale, a mid-19th century military outpost on the Beale Wagon Road and Mohave Prescott Toll Road, would be shared. Recently, I went live with this short video and in the coming days will post a more detailed video on the Jim Hinckley’s YouTube channel.

This historic site is another location where the passing of time has greatly obscured its actual location, size, and even years of operation. The Mohave Museum of History & Arts has created some superb then-and-now photos that have resolved a few of these mysteries. The area is another gem in the Kingman region as the springs, a veritable desert oasis, and the miles of trails for hiking or mountain biking in the Cerbat foothills.

In school we may have been given the impression that history is as dull and boring as a three-day insurance seminar. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unraveling mysteries, chasing ghosts, and discovering tangible links to the dreams and vision of people long passed empower us to look toward the future with eager anticipation.

Until we meet again on the road in Jim Hinckley’s America, adios mi amigos.

Cajon Pass brought first black pioneers to San Bernardino Valley

Bridget “Biddy” Mason (1818-1891) traveled through the Cajon Pass and arrived in San Bernardino as a slave belonging to Robert Smith. Automatically freed in California, she fought for her freedom in the courts when Smith tried to take her and other blacks back to the slavery state of Texas.

By Nicholas R. Cataldo
San Bernardino Sun

The Cajon Pass has played a prominent role in Southern California since prehistoric times. Indians, explorers, trappers, settlers, rail passengers and early motorists have all passed through on their way to or from the desert.

This well-used passageway also brought the first African-American pioneers into San Bernardino County.

In 1826, 27-year-old Jedediah Strong Smith (1799-1831) and his fur trapping party from northern Utah became the first Americans to make an overland journey to California. Anxious to explore the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the party traveled southerly to the Mohave villages and then followed what has become known as the Mohave Trail, a footpath used as a trade route by Indigenous tribes for centuries. Among his expedition of 15 men was Peter Ranne, the first black man to enter San Bernardino County.

During the 1830s and ’40s long pack trains of mules making their way between Santa Fe and Los Angeles clomped through the narrow, twisting east canyon of the Cajon Pass along the Old Spanish Trail. Men brought blankets and manufactured goods from New Mexico in exchange for southern California’s much prized horses and mules. It is highly probable that among these traders were African-Americans, whose presence was not recorded.

In 1851, a wagon train made up of 437 Mormons from Salt Lake destined to develop the future city of San Bernardino came through the Cajon Pass.

This caravan followed the Salt Lake Road (which evolved from the Old Spanish Trail) as far as Baldy Mesa before detouring through West Cajon Canyon after hearing about a longer, but less steep and rocky route developed by a Banning teamster named William T. Sanford a year earlier. Sanford’s route was smoother than the trail through the east canyon. However, it was seven miles longer and so steep of a ridge at one point that wagons had to be lowered with ropes.

Among this group entering the “free” state of California were 26 soon-to-be ex-slaves who helped get the wagons down that ridge — and became the first black pioneers to make their homes in the San Bernardino Valley.

According to Byron R. Skinner, author of Black Origins in the Inland Empire, published by the San Bernardino Historical and Pioneer Society in 1983, the names of these individuals that made the trek were:

1. Harriet
2. Hark
3. Charly
4. Jane
5. Nelson
6. Lawrence
7. Ann
8. Harriett
9. Anna
10. Ellen
11. Biddy
12. Hannah
13. Tennessee
14. Fluleman
15. George
16. Nancy
17. Rose
18. Henderson
25. Liz
26. Green
19. Mary
20. Nelson
21. Oscar
22. Grief
23. Toby
24. Vilote

While the life stories for many of these individuals have seemingly fallen into oblivion because of the lack of documentation, here is testimony to a few who we know of who played major roles in the area’s development.

Lizzy Flake Rowan (1834-1908) traveled with the wagon train to San Bernardino with James and Agnes Flake and after they died, took care of their children for a while in addition to her own.

Lizzy later married another ex-slave, Charles Rowan, and together built a home for their three children and also acquired some land on D Street near downtown San Bernardino, where she worked as a laundress. Charles ran a barbershop inside the Southern Hotel, approximately where the American Sports University stands near the corner of D and Fourth streets.

Their daughter, Alice Rowan Johnson, became the first black student at the Los Angeles Normal School, was one of 16 graduates in 1888 and was possibly the first black teacher of white children in California when she taught in Riverside.

Bridget “Biddy” Mason (1818-1891) traveled through the Cajon Pass and arrived in San Bernardino as a slave belonging to Robert Smith. Automatically freed in California, when Smith tried to take her and other blacks back to the slavery state of Texas, she fought for her freedom in the courts.

On January 19, 1856, Biddy petitioned the court for freedom for herself and her extended family of 13 women and children. Los Angeles District Judge Benjamin Hayes took three days before handing down his ruling in favor of Mason and her extended family, citing California’s 1850 constitution that prohibited slavery.

Biddy eventually became a nurse, a California real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist. She was also founder of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

Grief (1812 or 1813-1873) and Toby Embers arrived with Bishop Crosby, who also owned Grief’s wife, Harriet. What little is known of Toby Embers concerns his immediate family.

Toby’s wife, Hannah, who had been the “property” of Robert Smith before her freedom, was an expert horse rider who became the unofficial midwife of the new settlement, answering any call to help deliver a newborn baby day or night. Toby’s daughter, Martha, married an ex-slave named Israel Beal, who became an esteemed member of the valley’s early history.

In fact, the Beals became the first black residents in the Redlands area when the community was still known by the name of Lugonia.

Of the two siblings, much more is known about Toby’s younger brother.

As roughly 60 percent of the Mormon community answered Young’s urgent recall with strict orders to sell their homes and property for whatever they could get in late 1857, Grief bought some land at what is now I Street just south of Mill, as well as in the vicinity of the Carousel Mall, thus becoming the first African-American owner of real-estate in the Inland Empire.

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.

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.

Museum plans events for Arizona Centennial

COLORADO RIVER MUSEUM: The Colorado River Historical Society and Museum, between the Laughlin Bridge and Davis Camp, is planning two days of events for local celebration of the Arizona Centennial.

By JAMES CHILTON
The Daily News

BULLHEAD CITY — With the Arizona Centennial less than two weeks away, the Colorado River Historical Society and Museum is preparing two days’ worth of events for the public to enjoy.

Museum president Dave McDaniel said the society has been hard at work on creating an interactive pathway around the museum grounds that will provide snippets of history from Arizona’s century of statehood. The path will include items that hearken back to the area’s history, with numbered markers that correspond to a brochure visitors can reference to read about Bullhead City’s past, from the first Native American settlers, to the Colorado riverboat days of the mid-19th century, to the founding of Hardyville, the area’s original white settlement.

“The new pathway that runs around the museum is going to be designated the Arizona Centennial Pathway, and along the pathway we’re going to have little snapshots of history,” McDaniel said. “Along each stop there are numbers, and in the brochure, they give information about Hardyville, steamboats in the area, the Beale Wagon Road, and we have a mural that was painted by Paul Jackson, who is the tribal artist for the Mojaves.”

Inside the museum, McDaniel said, visitors will find both current and historical maps of the state dating back to 1912, as well as some other artifacts that are indicative of local life during the early part of the last century.

“On Feb. 11, we’re going to have an open house from 11 in the morning until 2, and the city council’s and some of the Fort Mojave tribal members are invited,” McDaniel added. “And we’re going to have some souvenirs we’re going to give out. We’re going to have coin envelopes with wheat pennies in them that mention the Colorado River Museum and the ‘cent’ennial.”

Then at 1 p.m. on the Feb. 11, McDaniel said the museum will host a going-away celebration in honor of Bullhead City’s first elected mayor, J. Michael “Mike” Love, who will be departing to Sacramento, Calif., with his wife Gloria after spending the last 32 years here. On Wednesday, Love dropped by the Bullhead City Hall, where he bid his formal good-byes to current mayor Jack Hakim and City Manager Toby Cotter, receiving a certificate of appreciation and the key to the city for his service.

Following the open house, on the day of the actual centennial, Feb. 14, McDaniel said the museum is planning a host of programs for the day, running from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The programs will include presentations on a number of subjects including Hardyville and Original Bullhead, as well as a video presentation on the steamboats of the Colorado River and a hike to “Museum Rock,” a nearby Indian petroglyph.

The museum’s regular hours of operation are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, or a full schedule of centennial events, call 928-758-7643 or 928-754-3399.

Cut off, Goffs a study of Route's past

Route 66

By Claudia Heller
Pasadena Star-News

The 1914 Goffs Schoolhouse has been renovated and now houses a museum. (Alan Heller / Correspondent)

Part 5 of an ongoing series

We are about to visit an extremely significant Route 66 town, despite the fact that it has been expelled from the famous highway.

On our trip on Route 66, we leave the California border town of Needles and head for my personal favorite.

At first glance there isn't much left of the little town of Goffs, that is until you drive under the sign that reads "Study the Past." On the other side you will emerge into a different world to find a treasure which is under the tender care of the Mojave Desert Heritage and Cultural Association (MDHCA).

A related organization, The Friends of the Old Mojave Road, is dedicated to preserving a 138-mile trail once traversed by pioneers. This road was abandoned when railroads and more modern roads displaced it. Today the Mojave Road winds through the East Mojave Preserve in much the same dusty, bumpy and sometimes barely passable condition as it was in the 1860s.

Goffs became an important railroad stop because it is where steam engines could replenish their water supply.

The National Old Trails Road was established in 1912 (also called the ocean-to-ocean highway) and in 1926 it was designated as the first national highway system for automobiles and renamed Route 66. Several years later Route 66 was realigned to bypass Goffs when an eight-mile shortcut was carved through the Piute Mountains, skipping Goffs altogether.

Abandoned, Goffs' main landmark, a 1914 mission-style schoolhouse, fell into disrepair.

As fate would have it, a lone man, Dennis Casebier, set out to save Goffs and recapture its fading history. Today the MDHCA, under Casebier's direction, has renovated the schoolhouse to its former glory and established a museum within its walls. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the Federal Government.

The Goffs Library, a replica of the historic Goffs Santa Fe Railway Depot, 1902-1956.
(Alan Heller / Correspondent)

Unlike many Route 66 towns in the area, Goffs is not waning. To the contrary. A recent addition to the Cultural Center is the Library, a replica of the historic Goffs Santa Fe Railway Depot (1902-1956). Within its walls is the massive Mojave Desert Archives.

"There is no assemblage anywhere of material relating to the history of the Mojave Desert like the collections that exist at Goffs," Casebier said.

Visitors to the 75-acre Goffs Cultural Center will find hundreds of artifacts rescued from the area's rich history such as an Atlantic & Pacific Railway box car, a small courthouse which served the Amboy-Ludlow Judicial District in the 1940s, a Fraser-Chalmers 10-stamp mill, a Gilmore gasoline pump, and a miners cannon subject to a variety of claims regarding its origin.

Visitors are welcome at the Cultural Center on certain days or by appointment. For directions and more information call (760) 733-4482 or e-mail goffs@eastmojave.net.

On this, our fifth trip to areas of interest on the historic mother highway, we have now added three more sites to our list: (9 ) The Goffs Cultural Center; (10) The Renovated 1914 Goffs School House; and (11) The Old Mojave Road.

Mojave Desert historian keeps California's heritage alive

Dennis G. Casebier stands in front of the library in Goffs, Calif., that bears his name. The railroad depot replica holds the world's largest archive of Mojave Desert history. Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Over the course of decades, Dennis G. Casebier has assembled the lost voices and hidden histories of a place largely washed clean of its past.

By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Goffs, Calif. — Out on the great swells of the eastern Mojave Desert, that vast sand sea lying between Barstow and the Colorado River, there is no crumb of history, no tall tale, no arcane bit of knowledge too small to escape Dennis Casebier's notice.

"I'm fascinated by who ate rabbits," he said, sitting inside a library that will soon hold his life's work. "Did they eat jack rabbits or cottontails? Did they fry them or roast them? Did they grind them up or make stew out of them?"

"You see, that's the level of history we get into here," he said.

The soft-spoken retired physicist is a legend in this harsh land, a sort of Willy Wonka of the desert who transformed 70 acres of rock and scrub into the Goffs Cultural Center, his personal Xanadu of history and imagination.

In this tiny hamlet of 23 on the barren edge of the Mojave National Preserve, he and a group of volunteers carved roads and towed in ore carts, a defunct wooden post office, a caboose, windmills and boxcars. He bought a collapsing 1914 schoolhouse and turned it into a museum. His own Tales of the Mojave Road Publishing Co. has produced 26 books, 16 of which he wrote.

Yet none of it compares to his masterwork, the recently opened $1-million Dennis G. Casebier Memorial Library. Housed in a replica of the old Goffs Railroad Depot, the two-story, climate-controlled collection of thousands of books, maps, photos and tapes is the exclamation point on his arid passions.

Steve Mongrain, president of the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association, a nonprofit group that has helped raise money for the project, calls it "the most extraordinary historical collection of Mojave Desert history and culture in existence."

"There is nothing like it in the world," Mongrain said. "Anything that pertains to the Mojave can be researched there. It is unprecedented."

The association's 800 members donated $250,000 for the library, and the California Cultural and Historical Endowment provided the rest in grants.

Casebier, 74, has assembled the lost voices and hidden histories of a place largely washed clean of its past. The homesteads are gone, the mines closed, the tiny towns swallowed by sand.

Freight trains, some 6,000 feet long, still lumber through to Needles and beyond, but they rarely stop anymore because there are so few towns to stop in.

A 1920s picture of Rock Springs Land and Cattle Co. cowboys is one of about 108,000 photographs Casebier has collected. The library also has thousands of maps, oral histories and biographical files. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Gone too are characters such as gunfighter Bill Hollimon, who, when he wasn't shooting rivals, liked to pour gasoline down anthills and set them alight.

"The history is just everywhere, yet nobody is here. It's empty," said Casebier, an especially polite man who speaks with great precision.

"The people have gone, their life ways ended somehow. We are gathering the history of this forgotten land, and we have done so with a vengeance."

On a recent morning, Casebier rattled around the library, dipping in and out of the new filing cabinets. Each one contained dozens of subject files filled with personal histories.

Harrison Doyle?

"He's the oldest guy I ever interviewed, 103 or 104," Casebier said. "He was walking the streets of Needles in the early 1900s."

Llewellyn Barrackman?

"Former headman of the Fort Mojave Indians."

Betty Ordway?

"She was like the Rosetta Stone," he said. "She came here in 1914 and knew everyone and remembered everything. She knew the gunfighters and the homesteaders and where the stills were. She was the belle of the valley."

Tucked away in library cabinets are 3,000 biographies, 1,000 taped oral histories, 108,000 photographs, 6,000 books and 6,000 maps, ready for perusal by those Casebier believes demonstrate "an advanced interest in the desert."

Jo Ann Casebier, right, and volunteer Carol Brown sort historical documents. Thousands of soldiers were stationed in the Mojave during World War II, and many of their personal accounts are on file in the library. (Irfan Kahn / Los Angeles Times)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., consulted Casebier and used information from his collection when writing "Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail," a book about his hometown.

"This book is better because of Dennis," he wrote in the preface.

Students working on master's degrees have come to study the homestead period and the military history of the region. Thousands of soldiers were stationed in the Mojave during World War II. Many of their personal accounts are on file in the library.

Casebier's own history in the desert began in 1954, after he left his home state of Kansas and enlisted in the Marines. He was stationed in Twentynine Palms and spent his free time poking around what is now Joshua Tree National Park.

"It was love at first sight when I saw the desert," he said. "It's different for everybody, but for me it was the wide open spaces and maybe the simplicity."

He returned to Kansas in 1956, got a degree in physics from Washburn University in Topeka, and returned to California in 1960. He worked on guided missile systems for the Navy and lived in Corona.

Meanwhile, his passion for the desert led him into the eastern Mojave, where he was smitten by what he dubbed "the forgotten country" encircled by the Colorado River and the I-40 and I-15 freeways.

There, he found an awe-inspiring emptiness.

"All the people had moved away. The schools went away. Everything went away," he said. "You would think that people would be swarming all over this area looking for its past, but they weren't."

Casebier's Navy job often took him to Washington, D.C., where he spent evenings at the National Archives and the Library of Congress photocopying records and maps about the eastern Mojave.

At one point he found a defunct wagon trail stretching 131 miles from the Colorado River to Camp Cady, east of Barstow.

Casebier formed a volunteer group that turned the dirt track into the four-wheel-drive Mojave Road. Soon he was leading caravans down it.

Chris Ervin first toured the road in 1988.

"It was a really fun, educational and a socially uplifting experience," said the Orange County resident, who works on the archives as a volunteer. "Dennis single-handedly rediscovered the Mojave Road and got thousands of others involved. He is an inspiration and a visionary."

In 1990, after he retired, Casebier and his wife, Jo Ann, moved to Goffs and bought 113 acres that included the old Goffs Schoolhouse. Working with the Mojave heritage association, he set to work saving the school and building the cultural center, which he donated to the nonprofit.

At the same time, he traveled the country interviewing former desert residents for his oral histories, persuading many to part with photographs and personal papers.

His disarming approach put people at ease.

"I'd say, 'So, how did a nice girl like you end up in the desert?' "

Some subjects were duds, but others, he said, were "bell ringers." He interviewed Curtis Springer 54 times. In 1944, Springer founded a spa and resort in an area he named Zzyzx, just south of Baker. A road bearing the name still exists.

Betty Ordway was another bell ringer. Casebier, who found her in Auburn, Calif., was so impressed that he put her entire 155,000-word interview into two bound volumes.

"She had 500 photos and she cast light on the big things and the little things," he said. "We had gunfights out here between ranchers and homesteaders, who would help themselves to a cow once in a while. A 1925 shootout killed two gunfighters, and Betty knew both men."

And she liked her rabbit fried like chicken.

"You could see her salivate when she remembered," he said. "I just loved that. Maybe because I'm such a nut or maybe because I wish I lived back then."

With his research constantly expanding and scattered everywhere, Casebier came up with the idea of a central library.

The grants arrived in 2006 and the building was completed in July.

Archival material is still being moved in, and the rules on how people can use the library are still being worked out.

Casebier, who still does oral histories, said anyone interested in visiting must make arrangements first.

"We are targeting researchers of desert history, those who are writing books or papers or scholarly works," said Ervin, the library's project manager. "Our focus is how do we make sure this thing lasts longer than all of us? We are trying to get an endowment -- maybe $10 million -- to pay for and support all these wonderful materials in perpetuity."

Back in Goffs, Casebier hopped into a golf cart and motored down his complex's Boulevard of Dreams. He passed a Justice of the Peace office that once served the towns of Amboy and Ludlow, and pulled up in front of an old library built in 1927.

There are hundreds of books inside that have not been moved to the new library just up the road.

For desert aficionados it's a small, if dimly lit, slice of heaven. Books with titles such as "The Great California Deserts," "Our Desert Neighbors," "On Desert Trails" and "Desert Treasures" stand in dark wooden cabinets behind glass doors.

Casebier likes to sit in the back room and read. If he should ever get bored, which is highly unlikely, he could open the window and drink in unlimited blue sky.

He has spent the better part of his life studying the desert. For years people have asked him why.

"I want people to know the tremendous respect I have for the human beings who lived here and the tremendous respect I have for their self-reliance," he said.

"They were a special breed. I don't want that story to disappear."

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.