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…
We get asked quite often, “How do you find all the places you write about?” Here’s our secret. It’s all about guidebooks. Some armchair experts may try to tell you how challenging it is to get to a particular site, but if you have the right information about how to get there and what to…
We had an amazing adventure exploring lovely Afton Canyon. The Mojave River flows above ground here and ranges from a small creek to a couple of feet deep depending on seasonal rainfall totals. Afton Canyon lies in part along the old Mojave Indian Trail, near the 35th parallel, that extended from the Colorado River to…
Originally, this path was an ancient Native American trade route that eventually led to the Pacific Ocean. In 1776, a Spanish Franciscan Friar, Francisco Garcés, traveled the same trail as he explored the desert on behalf of the Pope and the Spanish crown. By the time of the Civil War, the trail had evolved into what we now know as the Mojave Road…
The Mojave Road. It still stirs the imagination like few other places in this amazing desert. Before the railroad came along in the years after the Civil War, the Mojave Road was the preferred, and often dangerous, route from all points east, to the Southern California coast. Rock Spring was an important stop along the trail. So much so that the U.S. Army designated it an official military post…
Did you know there’s a fascinating connection between Seligman, Arizona, the Panama Canal and President Lincoln’s widow, Mary Todd Lincoln? Despite Seligman Cemetery’s close proximity to busy Interstate 40 and nearby railroad tracks, the cemetery imbues a sense of peace and majesty of the not-forgotten past…