Christine Toppenberg - Barstow

IMAGES
of America

BARSTOW

ON THE COVER: Horses and the time-honored cowboy way of living were hallmarks of the people who have inhabited the Barstow area since the early settlement of the town in the 1700s. The riders in this 1955 rodeo parade carry the flags at the head of the lineup and are escorting the rodeo queen behind them. Barstows rodeos are now hosted at the Marine Corps Logistics Base arena, east of Barstow. (Courtesy of the Mojave River Valley Museum.)

IMAGES
of America

BARSTOW

Christine Toppenberg and
Donald Atkinson

Copyright 2015 by Christine Toppenberg and Donald Atkinson
ISBN 978-1-4671-3409-5
Ebook ISBN 9781439654293

Published by Arcadia Publishing
Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015938947

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This book is dedicated to the people of Barstow who live in, love, and preserve the Mojave River Valley as rich, precious, and living.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Without hesitation and fancy words, I owe Pat Schoffstall unlimited appreciation for her initial guidance, wisdom, and experience. The project began several years ago when I found and contacted the Mojave River Valley Museum in my search for the places of my own life story in Barstow. Pat found those places for me without delay. And when I learned that books were being written about high desert towns for Arcadia Publishings Images of America series, I sent the publishers an e-mail, and the contract to do this book landed in my surprised and willing lap.

I want to especially sincerely thank Judy and Nick Borkman for graciously lending me writing space in their aerie home near Barstow for the duration and Judy for reading, proofreading, and hugs down the backstretch.

Much appreciation and gratitude goes to these Barstow folks for their time, attention, information and advice: Mayor Julie McIntyre Hackbarth, Clifford J. Walker, Kate Rogers-Boyd, Bob Hillburn, David Mott and Steve Smith at the Mojave River Valley Museum, Deb Hodkin and Bill and Lavella Tomlisons at the Route 66 Museum, Elena Rivera and Joseph Hisquierdo at the Barstow Chamber of Commerce, Fran Elgin at Victor Valley College Archives, and all those who contributed photographs from their personal collections.

And finally, I am grateful without limit to Donald Atkinson for joining me on this project. I asked him along the way to take a few photographs in Barstow, and he ended up being designated driver and expert Barstow trail guide, and then full partner on the project as the master photograph technician and, lucky for me, the missing half of my brain.

INTRODUCTION

People have been following trails to Barstow for thousands of years. Tribes of prehistoric people inhabited the Mojave Desert region as long as 3,000 years ago. They hunted and fished and gathered turquoise. They left barely discernible footprints along faint pathways as they traveled as far away as the Mexican territory to trade goods.

The written history of the Mojave Valley traces back to the 1700s and the missionary excursions of Francisco Garcs. He followed those first faint footpaths to the Mojave River Valley and from there across the desert near Barstow on his way to Spanish missions beyond the mountains of California. Waves of incomers followed his footsteps into the desert and on to the river valley.

Jedediah Strong Smith was one of those path followers. He trapped and explored his way west over the same trails in the 1820s. He too was followed, and the trails became deeper with the prints of hooved animals brought to the New World on European ships. Traders from New Mexico brought their business to these trade routes. Horses became a most valuable coin. And camels were tried out as beasts of burden. John Charles Frmont joined the action by the mid-1840s. And a Mormon battalion took the first wagonload of goods from the West Coast to Salt Lake City, Utah, over the ever-widening trails around and through the Barstow area.

Mormon colonists traveled through the Mojave River Valley on their way to San Bernardino. Covered-wagon caravans began carving the trails into rutted roads. As the Civil War took shape, civilians formed volunteer armies and established forts, including Camp Cady near Newberry Springs. Silver ore was discovered in the calico-colored hills, and the famous Silver King Mine was established. Robert Waterman and John Porter filed the claim that became the Waterman Mine.

The railroads came into the valley to carry the ore and transport more incomers to take up the huge increase in jobs in the mines and on the railroads. Daggett was started up as a transportation center. Borate had been discovered in Death Valley, and operations spread to Calico and through Barstow to Boron. Rail lines crisscrossed the valley and steamed up the Cajon Pass and back, through a junction known as Waterman Junction, soon renamed Barstow.

Automobile travel was not far behind, as intrepid souls began to drive their new experimental horseless vehicles over the dirt roads alongside the railroads. One of those dirt roads was named the National Old Trails Highway. More trails became highways for automobiles. Macadam surfaces began to appear on those highways. US Highway 66 was inaugurated, as well as US Highway 91. And those two roads met up on Main Street Barstow. People were streaming in on those highways, and Barstow was launched. The growth was exponential.

Enhancing Barstows phenomenal growth was the establishment of two major military bases. One was the US Marine Corps Supply Center and the other was Camp Irwin. Both were installed in proximity to Barstow. Goldstone Tracking Station was developed, adding more jobs and bringing the area into the space age.

Barstow had laid down its first township along the railroad tracks near the Mojave River. This became a major railroad junction. Businesses grew up along the tracks. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt visited Old Town Barstow and regaled the residents with his enthusiasm for what he saw there. When some of those buildings were repeatedly lost to fire, the citizens of Barstow gathered up and formed a fire department and made quick work of moving the town and buildings to a new center, up onto Route 66, which became Main Street in Barstow. And it continued to grow. At one time, there were five service stations at the junction of US Highway 91 and US Route 66.

The next turn of events was ironically inopportune because of that growth. So many automobiles were traveling across Southern California and the country as a whole that plans were made to improve roads through changing routes to circumvent downtowns. Barstow was hit hard when Interstate 15 was built, bypassing Main Street, taking through traffic up the hill and around the town and its businesses. The new highway was faster and wider, and some establishments in downtown Barstow lost up to 90 percent of their business. The people of Barstow had to reinvent themselves, and they did. Barstow slowed down but thrived even though many neighboring towns have declined into shadows of the towns they once were. In addition to economic assets such as farms, ranches, military bases, mines, and railroads, Barstow developed a healthy tourist industry fed by the worldwide publics fascination with Route 66 and the glittering, movie starstudded lifestyles of the 1950s, which Barstow has experience with by the trainload.