May 2013. Desert Waysides: Burton Frasher's California Route 66

Photographer Burton Frasher (1888-1955) combined a passion for automobile travel and photography into a postcard business that proved popular with motoring tourists. Frasher documented the remote Route 66 roadside businesses that sustained, and natural wonders that awed, anxious travelers across the Mojave Desert in the 1930s and 1940s. This selection of photographic postcards focus on the desert wayside stops and scenic vistas that motorists rushed through on the last leg of their journey west.

June 2013. The MDHCA is pleased to announce two new books for sale:

• Lieutenant Mark Hersey: The Final Days of Fort Mojave, 1887-1890

• Calico Memories of Lucy Bell Lane.

Lieutenant Mark Hersey was assigned to the Ninth Infantry at Fort Mojave, Arizona. Author and historian Jere Baker draws upon Lt. Hersey’s extensive letters from 1887 until mid-1890 and official army re­cords to chronicle Fort Mojave’s final years as a frontier army post. The publication is 106 pages long and is softbound. We are selling this book for $12.95.

Calico Memories is the story of Lucy Bell Lane’s memories of the silver mining town of Calico, California from the mid-1880s through the early 1960s. This 2013 publication is a revision to the 1993 book and has been updated with new pictures, end notes and index. It is edited by Phyllis Kolbly, Patricia Schoffstall, and Alan Baltazar. The publication is 173 pages long and is softbound. We are selling it for $20.00.

Both books can be purchased from our online book store.

18 December 2012. J. Riley Bembry's 1934 Chevy flatbed truck is an important East Mojave Desert mining artifact.    (Photo by Hugh Brown.)

Bridget (Sandoz) Wilcox of Yucca Valley donated the truck she inherited from John Riley Bembry when he died in 1984. Riley used the 1934 1 1/2-ton Chevrolet flatbed pickup to travel between his many mining claims in the Ivanpah Mountains and his nearby home known as Riley's Camp.

MDHCA director Dave Taylor inspected the truck stored in Hinkley, reported it was in excellent condition, and made arrangements for transporting it to Goffs. Dave and his friend Mike Pike loaded the truck on a double-axle trailer and arrived in Goffs this same day. Riley's truck has been appropriately placed between the Stotts and American Boy stamp mills here on the grounds of the Goffs Cultural Center for all to admire.

You can read the entire article on Riley and the truck retrieval in the East Mojave Heritage section of the latest Mojave Road Report number 292.

10 March 2012. Once again, the skyline of Goffs has changed. (Photo by Dennis G. Casebier)

Yesterday, the American Boy Stamp Mill crew from Phoenix, Arizona, were here for several days working on the mill. During the day they got the two battery boxes and the main frame of the mill set up on the foundation. It was a delicate operation because the battery boxes had to fit down perfectly over an array of threaded bolts sticking up out of the concrete. It worked perfectly, thanks for the careful measuring and positioning of the bolts prior to pouring of the concrete last October.

Then today, we were all out at the mill site early while the Rock’s Crane Service crew lifted the big bull wheels and cam shafts into place on the frame. That was another delicate operation that took a couple of hours. This is a major step forward but, as Charlie Connell cautions us, there is a lot of work yet to do. It will likely be a year or more before we’ll be able to throw a switch and operate this huge machine. But we got much of the heavy lifting done today.

The American Boy Stamp Mill crew, headed up by Charlie Connell with wife Kathy, were Morris Jackson, Roger Camplin, Jerry Ohlund, and Stuart Harrah, supported by Ed Ditmer, Gail Andress, Nance Fite, and Mickey Thompson. Rock’s Crane Service consisted of Dave Rock, Mike Rock, and Jimmy Howell, from Bullhead City, Arizona.

See the American Boy Stamp Mill report.