Note: We gave a presentation about this subject on September 14, 2023, to the Big Bear Historical Society. This article is the culmination of a month’s long research project. We also debuted a video, which we plan to upload to our YouTube channel. Our warmest thanks goes to historians Anne Roark, Jonni Vindiola, Mark Durban,…
In the midst of the Roaring Twenties, the stout 30-something man was a Ventura, California, attorney by trade. Although he immersed himself in juris prudence, he found that to make ends meet he needed what millennials nowadays call a “side hustle.” Writing fiction suited the gent’s keen wit, colorful oration and flair for the dramatic,…
Have you ever wondered if the vastly different cities of Big Bear City and La Quinta, California, could possibly have anything in common? One is high in the San Bernardino mountains , a few minutes from Big Bear Lake, and the other is near the Santa Rosa mountains in the low desert, approximately an hour’s…
Where did your intrepid Desert Way wanderers go today? Landers, California, of course. Why? Well, we were 31 years too late for the big earthquake, so we headed on over to the Morongo Basin Historical Society Museum’s Grand Opening instead. The Morongo Basin Historical Society was founded in 1999 but the museum itself did not…
Consider the town of Goffs for a moment. You really should. You’ll feel much better. With a current population 23, plus or minus a few jackrabbits, and situated eleven miles from Interstate 40, Goffs is today a wealth of history, and ground zero for any serious study of the Mojave Desert. Originally named Blake, Goffs…
It was a daring idea in 1911. Take 10 seven-passenger Studebaker-Garford Touring cars, add 50 passengers, and follow it with another Garford, decked out as a covered wagon, that was used to carry the baggage. Next, head out from New York, bound for Los Angeles, with stops at all the amazing desert landmarks along the…
Victorville and Route 66: 7th Street meets D Street, and the year 2018 meets the roaring ’50s. The Hotel Stewart was originally the Turner Hotel more than a hundred years ago, and was serving full-course dinners for 35 cents back in 1936. Decades make a difference, and along with fires and demolitions crews, time has…
Update 12/08/21: Efforts to build a new community park at Historic Gilman Ranch in Banning will move forward after it received a grant from State Parks for more than $6 million for Stagecoach Stop Park. James Marshall Gilman was born in Meredith, New Hampshire, on June 9, 1842. As a young man, his parents sent…
Malki Museum, housed in a traditional one-room adobe building on the Morongo Reservation in Banning, California, is a walk through time, displaying in all its grandeur the history and culture of the Cahuilla (spoken as: ‘Caw-we-ah’) Native Americans. The pride shows, and the journey is well worth your time. Morongo is a word of Serrano…
Have you ever wondered what it used to look like in the Mojave Desert of yesteryear? When ingenuity and pure desert grit was king? Do you want to learn secrets the desert has to tell? They’re all around us if we just look. Please join us for one of many trips through time illuminating the…