You may be familiar with the mysterious Chinese Guardian Lion statues between Route 66 and Kelbaker Road but did you know Amboy may have once had its very own living African lion?
“Old Man Miller,” as he was known in the Amboy area, was the first person to spot a large African lion near a running spring located close to his cabin west of Amboy according to The Colton Courier, on June 9, 1959. Miller ran to his cabin, retrieved his shotgun and fired. He missed and the lion sprinted away with a roar.
Deputy Charles E. Jones responded to the sighting. Miller told the deputy, “It wasn’t a mountain lion, it was a real cool African cat with a shaggy mane.” Instead of wondering if Old Man Miller was hitting the bottle a little too hard, Deputy Jones revealed an African lion had indeed escaped from a circus in the area two weeks before.
On June 15, 1959, The San Bernardino County Sun said the deputies at headquarters laughed when desert deputy Charley Jones sent in word he was going lion hunting after taking a report from Mr. Miller near Bagdad. They said Jones had been solitary under the hot sun for too long. They stopped kidding when they were informed an African lion running westward was reported by Edward Mosell in Phelan on the evening of June 10.
By June 18, 1959, The Desert Dispatch ran an article titled Real African Lion in the Desert, confirming the existence of the beast and called upon lion hunters. It claimed the Barstow Sheriff’s Department had received three different reports that a lion with long hair on its back and a long tail was roaming the desert in the Amboy area. The lion had escaped from an overturned circus truck on U.S. Highway 66.
The fugitive lion continued to make it into newspapers all around America. Flashy headlines about an African lion in Amboy continued to grab attention nationwide. The Cincinnati Enquirer on June 27, 1959 reported the lion was roaming the lava beds and arid wastelands of the Mojave Desert. According to the article, the lion was showing up regularly, much to the consternation of miners, homesteaders and travelers on U.S. Highway 66.
It was believed the lion had survived on a steady diet of desert jackrabbits but was looking thin with his ribs protruding from his spartan diet. There were no ranches in the area, and no reports of loss of sheep or goats had been reported. The favorite food of an African lion in its natural habitat is wildebeests, a species of antelope also called gnus, followed by zebras and occasionally buffalo or giraffes.
The worry was that the 120F heat would force the lion into populated areas in search of water. The lion had been spotted four times in the past six days. African lions can adapt to a wide range of habitats, including semi-arid deserts and very dry habitats. Some residents claimed they attempted to shoot the wayward lion, but always missed.
On July 9, 1959, The San Bernardino County Sun reported the lion roaming the Mojave Desert near Bagdad was more elusive than the lion hunters who pursued it. One hunter, a Norton Air Force Base employee, Norman E. (Mike) Macy of Yucaipa, and his “safari” buddy, Yucaipa jeweler Harold Rouse, were camped outside near the cabin of “Pop” Miller, near Bagdad, where the lion was first spotted.
The pair had spent a ferociously hot day in vain searching for the lion and were weary. Suddenly, they heard a hair-raising roar come from the area of the nearby spring. As soon as they aimed a spotlight into the darkness toward the noise, the lion fled down the canyon yowling in indignation all the way. He vanished like a ghost in the darkness. They both scoured the canyon at daybreak but found no signs of the lion; no prints, no hair, no scat. It didn’t dim their resolve though, and they planned to return.
The article went on to say that possible African lion pawprints had been found southwest of Kelso, about 25 miles north of Bagdad. The lion had also been been reportedly been seen near Phelan, about 100 miles from the Bagdad-Kelso area. In the wild, a lion’s territory can range from 19.3 to 386 square miles depending on the availability of prey and water.
On the same day, the Desert Dispatch ran a piece about Ernest Nies, Fish and Game Warden in Barstow, discussing the ethics of killing the Mojave Desert’s African lion. He rallied against it by clarifying the African lion was not on the hunting regulatory list of predatory animals that could be hunted in California at any time. He stressed that only a heavy bore gun could take a lion down, and a wounded lion roaming in the desert could be especially dangerous.
Nies said since the circus owned the lion, it was considered private property as it had likely been purchased for $1,000 dollars (equivalent to $10,000 dollars in 2025). He recalled there had been similar stories about big cat sightings several years earlier about a black panther in the Palm Springs area that never turned up, but added it wasn’t an impossibility.
Doug Hammon, a county rabies control officer, his son, Paul, and Thelton Brown of Newberry Springs, camped near the springs where “Pop” Mills made the original six sightings. The Hammon party located paw prints about 5″ wide and their bloodhound followed a trail for 1,500 feet. Although they did not actually see the African lion for themselves, they believed the lion was more than a flight of fancy. In the meantime, the dispatch office continued to receive excited calls from hunters about “safari” expeditions.
The article closed with Captain A.G. Strom, Chief of the Barstow Branch of the California Highway Patrol, stating his office had no official record of an accident last Spring in the Amboy area in which a circus vehicle was involved. According to hearsay, stated the Captain, there was a breakdown of a sideshow truck near Essex, 34 miles from Amboy, which two lions escaped from. Rumor had it, said Strom, that the show people killed one of the lions and the other escaped, however no official report was ever made to the Highway Patrol.
According to the Desert Dispatch on July 14, 1959, stories of an African lion roaming the Mojave Desert had created a tremendous roar from coast to coast. Although some Amboy residents didn’t believe the king of the jungle existed, the rest of the nation had been stirred by reports of the savage beast. The Barstow Sheriff’s Substation had recently been flooded with telephone calls and letters offering advice and assistance.
Sergeant Robert Lorimer, commander of the local station, stated he received letters as far away as New York, Atlanta, Georgia and Lewiston, Idaho. An angry lady from Atlanta wrote he should be ashamed for wanting to shoot a poor, harmless, blue-eyed lion then added a few threats of her own for good measure. A San Francisco man volunteered to organize a safari to capture the lion for a zoo. A professional lion tamer from Long Beach also tossed his hat into the ring.
Parker, Arizona’s Chamber of Commerce contacted the Desert Dispatch with an open letter to the public in the desert area of Amboy offering to send its finest marksmen, hunters, cowboys and trappers of the West. It was signed by James A. Loder, president of the Parker Chamber. While filming Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth at Amboy Crater, movie stars Pat Boone, Arlene Dahl and James Mason had to be protected with armed guards against the possibility of a lion attack. The Chamber letter promised to return the peace, quiet and enjoyment of the desert as soon as possible.
So enamoured with the King of the Beasts’ coddiwomple, Barstow’s Lion Club offered him an honorary membership. On July 16, 1959, the Desert Dispatch reported Lion Club members met at the Katz Cafe and voted to let the African lion join their local chapter because they felt sorry for any lion who didn’t have friends. They declared the homesteading lion had chosen an area far away from other understanding lions. They joked if the lion did not attend regular meetings he would find himself on all the volunteer lists. At the time there were a million Lion members and clubs met on every continent, in more than 45 countries and in 49 states.
On July 20, 1960, the San Bernardino County Sun featured an article about county rabies control officer, Dudley A. Hamman, packing up his 30-40 Springfield rifle and taking along some high powered soft nose shells for a lion hunt. (Note: Another newspaper had spelled his name, Doug.) But it wasn’t an escaped African lion from a circus he sought. Hammon was after the “Mojave Marauder” of Kelso fame, who was a large mountain lion. Resident deputy Charley Jones and Amboy’s Roy Crowl had spotted him from a plane. Hamman believed it was the same shaggy lion “Pop” Miller first spotted over a year before. Miller had recently spotted it again drinking from his spring. Hamman hoped to bag a trophy later that day.
So did an African lion really roam the Mojave Desert? Some contrarians may argue the desert floor is so flat you can watch your dog run away for two weeks, but those more knowledgeable admit the desert has her secrets and landforms. Research didn’t turn up any additional information about this particular lion after the above dates, but we’ll leave it to your good sense and imagination to figure out its fate. If nothing else, stories about the lion brought nationwide attention to the Mojave Desert. One may think a story about African lions in America during that time period was an isolated one but it actually wasn’t rare.
While not occurring in the Mojave Desert, true tales of lion attacks in other parts of the country in 1959 planted seeds of fear and intrigue in the American psyche following Walt Disney’s release of its 1955 documentary called African Lion. It was directed by James Algar and is part of Disney’s True-Life Adventures series. The public sought escape through Hollywood. The Post-Korean War era was rich with stories of UFO sightings, and eerie sci-fi movies depicting hideous, gigantic creatures and fierce wild beasts.
How many people can say they’ve watched an 8 foot tall Chinese guardian lion gobble the sunset in the middle of the desert? We can. And it was awesome.
According to The Daily Oklahoman on March 27, 1959, a loose lion terrified an audience of 2,000 in New York City when an 800 pound lion named Tonto escaped in Madison Square Garden during a dress rehearsal at Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus. The beast dashed out of the garden arena into the Eighth Avenue lobby and ran toward the 50th Street entrance. He was cornered and caught. His trainer, Hans Naumann, said Tonto was not a danger to his trainers, but definitely posed a risk to the public.
On May 1, 1959, The Republican in Springfield, Massachusetts reported an enraged 450 pound circus lion named Caesar mauled his trainer, 48 year old and 4th generation lion tamer Prince El KiGordo, during the opening performance at the Meha Shrine Circus at the Eastern States Coliseum in Springfield, and nearly killed him. KiGordo insisted the show must go on as he laid in a hospital bed writhing in agony, and it did.
On May 13, 1959, according to The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, a 12-year old Manchester boy, Eddie Shain, climbed over a fence at the King Brothers Circus and was viciously attacked after teasing an African lion. Eddie was seriously hurt with a crushed skull and cuts but eventually recovered.
The Independent, of Long Beach, California, reported on May 17, 1959, a lion escaped from its cage in Santa Fe Springs after it jumped over a barrel, hit the side of the enclosure with its body, and the wall panel gave out. It was hard to tell whether his sudden freedom was more surprising to the lion, or to the wide-eyed audience under the rafters of the large canvas tent. When the lion saw a mob of screaming people running toward him in panic, the King of Beasts turned tail and ran back into the enclosure.
On November 1, 1959, The Daily Oklahoman said a lion attacked trainer Joel Hartman at the Ararat Shrine Circus in Kansas City. Two lions were placed in one cage while the other cage was cleaned. Both lions had been recently purchased. The trainer entered the occupied cage alone in an effort to get to know the lions better. It didn’t go well. Hartman was pinned to the floor for three minutes by one of the lions while the other looked on, suffered a punctured windpipe and multiple lacerations before he was rescued by the lion’s former owners, George and Kelly Fraser.
All that leaves us with is trivia. What? You have to have trivia!
Fact #1: The Nikon F, a popular SLR camera, was introduced in 1959 but few could afford them at $189 dollars, equal to $1,974 in 2025.
Fact #2: Hippopotamuses kill twice as many people every year than lions.
Fact #3: Roy Crowl was owner of many properties in Amboy, including the iconic Roy’s Motel and Cafe. The first church in Amboy was a vacant house owned by Roy Crowl. He donated the land for St. Raymond Catholic Church. Amboy’s economy plummeted after Interstate 40 bypassed it in 1973. The church property was returned to Crowl in 1981.
Fact #4: In 2015, a caller to the Desert Dispatch claimed to have found the body of an African lion in the desert near Fort Irwin Road. Based on photographs from a clandestine dump site where the carcass was found, Barstow Community College Professor Lynn Frazee said the remains were most likely that of a mountain lion.
Fact #5: As of 2025, five states have banned the use of wild animals in circuses, including lions, and other traveling shows; California, Colorado, Maryland, Hawaii and Massachusetts.
Directions to the Chinese Guardian Lions
The guardian lions, also known as royal foo dogs, are located in the Mojave Desert, about 400 feet south of Route 66. They are made of white marble and are about six feet tall. One of the lions has a sign-in book. The lions are not side by side but you can walk from one to the other in the distance unless it’s too hot. An air conditioned vehicle can be a lifesaver. No one knows the statues origin, or who placed them at their locations. Please remember to take only photos and leave no trace. Be a cool cat.
- Drive east from Roy’s Motel and Café on Route 66 for four miles
- Look for a real estate sign covered with grafitti
- From the sign, you should be able to see the male lion
- If you can’t see the female lion, drive another quarter mile east
- If you’re traveling west, look for the female lion just past Cadiz Summit pass
Top Photo: Courtesy of Worldwide Quest
