We originally referenced 100 of our favorite desert books five years ago. We still enjoy browsing museum gift shops and used book stores for nuggets of gold in the form of guidebooks, nature guides and history books. Discovering obscure out-of-print books is extra fun. Many new books have been published recently that also deserve our…
Update: The Mother Road Route 66 Museum has since re-opened under new management. Route 66 has lost another gem. On July 23, 2024, the Route 66 Mother Road Museum in Barstow, California, announced on their Facebook page they were closing. The museum’s webpage says that they are “closed indefinitely,” stating water repairs in another part…
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, a stout young man was an attorney by trade in Ventura, California. Although Erle Stanley Gardner immersed himself in juris prudence, he needed what millennials nowadays call a “side hustle” to make ends meet. 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…
Update, November, 2025: Claudia and Jim Spotts have officially retired. We thank them for their years of dedication to the museum and wish them the best on their well-deserved retirement. 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,…
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…
Although we may be new residents of Texas, my relatives trace back to Texas for five generations. My Cherokee GG-Grandfather, Lewis Andrew Mulkey was one of those Texas Rangers…
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…