Ghost Mine Episode 3

Mojave Desert Cities, Towns and Highways

In the Mojave, people traditionally built their homes around springs, along trails and later along roads. These centers developed into way stations and transportation hubs, such as Barstow with its railway lines.

Some centers continued to expand and have become modern Mojave cities, including Victorville, Barstow, Palmdale, Ridgecrest and Needles in California and Las Vegas in Nevada. Las Vegas is the largest and fastest growing Mojave city. Other centers built along Route 66 declined when the interstate highways were built.

Today the interstate 15, interstate 40, US Highway 395 and US Highway 90 all cross the Mojave Desert, as well as the railway lines that service the towns and cities.

There are several ghost towns in the region. The term ghost town means that for various reasons, money has disappeared from a town and because it no longer has an economy, its people have left. Old mining camps that have lost most of their population are sometimes called ghost towns, even though mining activities still take place today.

Some ghost towns, such as Calico and Bodie have become tourist attractions, seeking to preserve their buildings and provide a living history experience for visitors. These towns exist solely as tourist attractions and seek to earn money from tourism. Calico is the Mojave’s official silver mining ghost town, and Bodie the gold mining ghost town.

Other tourist attractions have been introduced into the region, such as the World’s Largest Thermometer, 135 feet high, which is in Baker, California.