Articles – Notes

The Ethos of the Wanderer & the Modern Desert Social Ethos

The ethos of a wanderer is best understood when set in contrast to what it is not.

It developed in opposition to the settled instinct—the urge to mark, hold, improve, and return. Where the settler seeks continuity through permanence, the wanderer accepts continuity through passage. One builds to remain; the other moves to understand.

In contrast to ownership, the wanderer practices use without claim. He drinks from a spring without naming it, crosses land without enclosing it, and departs without recording his presence. What matters is not leaving a mark, but leaving things unchanged. The settler measures success by what endures; the wanderer by what does not need repair after he is gone.

Where the settled ethos relies on rules and boundaries, the wanderer relies on judgment. Fences, signs, and procedures are substitutes for attentiveness. The wanderer reads weather, terrain, and circumstance directly. He adapts moment by moment rather than enforcing a plan. This makes him appear unstructured, though his discipline is internal and exacting.

In contrast to improvement, the wanderer values recognition. He does not assume that what he encounters is incomplete. The impulse to fix, organize, or optimize is held in check by humility. The land is not a problem to be solved, and silence is not emptiness.

In opposition to speed and efficiency, the wanderer practices measured movement. He goes slow enough to notice and fast enough to remain light. He understands that lingering can be as intrusive as rushing. Timing matters more than arrival.

Finally, in contrast to the fence-builder, the wanderer embodies confidence rather than control. He does not fear what lies behind him, nor does he need to close it off. He trusts that his path does not require guarding once passed. If he does not return, nothing is lost. If he does, he will come by a different way.

Thus, the wanderer’s ethos is not a rejection of order, but a refusal of unnecessary enclosure. It arose where land was vast, memory was personal, and freedom required responsibility. It is an ethic shaped by open ground—best understood by those who know when to keep moving.

Below is a paired essay, written to sit beside The Ethos of the Wanderer without undoing it or moralizing against it. The tone is observational, not accusatory, and treats the modern condition as an ethos—something practiced rather than merely suffered.

The Modern Desert Social Ethos

The modern desert social ethos is best understood not by how it moves, but by how it manages.

It arose not from passage or permanence alone, but from coordination—the need to share limited space among many people who no longer know one another personally. Where earlier desert ethics relied on judgment or stewardship, the modern ethos relies on systems. Continuity is achieved not through memory or return, but through regulation.

In contrast to use without claim, modern desert life operates through conditional access. Land is public, but entry is governed. Roads, trailheads, permits, and signage define where movement is acceptable. One may cross vast ground, but only along prescribed lines. What matters is not leaving no trace, but complying with an approved one.

Where the wanderer relied on attentiveness, the modern ethos relies on procedural safety. Risk is managed in advance rather than met directly. Warnings replace experience; liability replaces judgment. Responsibility is externalized so that no individual is required to know the land deeply to be present upon it.

In contrast to recognition, the modern desert ethos values mitigation. Landscapes are assessed, restored, hardened, or restricted based on projected impacts. Silence becomes a resource to be managed, solitude a condition to be scheduled. The land is neither teacher nor adversary, but a system requiring oversight.

In the face of measured movement, modern desert life favors accessibility and efficiency. Roads reach farther, vehicles go faster, and communication is constant. Lingering is acceptable only where designated. Movement is encouraged, but improvisation is not. The goal is experience without uncertainty.

Finally, in contrast to confidence without enclosure, the modern ethos operates through containment rather than trust. Fences, closures, and enforcement do not presume ill intent, but assume scale. What once could be handled through mutual restraint must now be managed through control, because the number of participants has outgrown shared understanding.

Thus, the modern desert social ethos is not a rejection of older desert ways, but a response to their erosion. It developed where land remained open, but society grew dense, where memory became collective rather than personal, and where responsibility had to be standardized to function at all. It is an ethic shaped by pressure on open ground—best understood by those who must balance freedom with coexistence.

California Southern Railroad through Cajon Pass: Design, Surveying, and Construction History

The California Southern Railroad was a critical 1880s project that connected Southern California to the transcontinental rail network. Backed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway, it built a line from San Diego northward through San Bernardino and the Cajon Pass to reach the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad at Barstow. This report chronicles the railroad’s planning and surveying, its phased construction timeline, the engineering challenges of Cajon Pass, key figures involved, construction methods, conflicts encountered, and the line’s integration into the Santa Fe system and impact on the region.

Background and Planning

In the late 1870s, San Diego businessmen – notably Frank Kimball – were desperate to end the city’s isolation by rail. After failing to interest tycoons like Jay Gould or Collis Huntington, Kimball courted the Santa Fe leadership with incentives, including land grants around San Diego. The Santa Fe saw an opportunity to break Southern Pacific’s monopoly in California and agreed to support a new subsidiary line via San Bernardino. Thus, the California Southern Railroad was incorporated on October 16, 1880, with Santa Fe officers (led by President Thomas Nickerson) on its board. The plan was to build 116 miles from San Diego to San Bernardino by mid-1882, where it would link up with Santa Fe’s transcontinental partner, the Atlantic & Pacific (A&P) Railway. This ambitious scheme set the stage for a difficult but historic construction effort through some of California’s most challenging terrain.

Construction Timeline (1880–1885)

Construction of the California Southern proceeded in two major phases: Phase 1, from San Diego to San Bernardino (via Colton), and Phase 2, from San Bernardino through the Cajon Pass to Barstow. Below is a timeline of key construction milestones and setbacks:

October 1880 – Groundbreaking: The railroad’s Chief Engineer, Joseph Osgood, established headquarters in San Diego on October 11, 1880, marking the unofficial start of construction. With Santa Fe financing and local land grants secured, grading and tracklaying began northward from National City (San Diego’s port terminus).
January 1882 – Reaching Oceanside/Fallbrook: By January 2, 1882, crews had laid about 55 miles of track, reaching Fallbrook Junction in northern San Diego County. The line hugged the coast through Oceanside, then turned inland up the Santa Margarita River valley, requiring many bridge crossings in Temecula Canyon, a gorge with sheer rock cliffs.
August 1882 – Arrival at Colton: Construction pressed on through Riverside County, and by August 16, 1882, tracks reached Colton, just shy of San Bernardino. Here, the California Southern confronted the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), which vehemently opposed any crossing of its tracks. SP officials even parked a locomotive on the proposed crossing point to obstruct the crew. A legal battle ensued; ultimately, California’s governor (Robert Waterman) ordered the local sheriff to enforce a court injunction, compelling SP to allow the crossing. With the blockage removed, the California Southern built a diamond crossing over SP’s line at Colton.
September 1883 – Line Opens to San Bernardino: The first California Southern train triumphantly steamed into San Bernardino on September 13, 1883. San Bernardino, having been founded as a Mormon colony decades earlier, welcomed the new competition to SP’s rail monopoly. The completed San Diego–San Bernardino segment (via Temecula Canyon) formed part of Santa Fe’s “Second Transcontinental” route, albeit still disconnected from the A&P mainline in the Mojave Desert.
Winter 1884 – Catastrophic Floods: Disaster struck just months later. In February 1884, torrential rains turned the Santa Margarita and Temecula creeks into raging torrents. Floodwaters obliterated about 8 miles of track in Temecula Canyon, washing away trestles and roadbed – with rails and timbers reportedly floating out to sea. The damage, estimated at $319,000, far exceeded the cash-strapped railroad’s means. Service on the line was completely halted for nine months while crews struggled to make repairs. By January 6, 1885, the route was finally reopened to traffic after extensive rebuilding.
Late 1884 – Santa Fe Takeover: The 1884 flood crisis left the California Southern on the brink of bankruptcy. Fearing the line might fall into rival hands, Santa Fe’s President William Barstow Strong moved decisively to absorb the company. In October 1884, the AT&SF acquired a controlling interest in the California Southern through a stock swap and also negotiated the purchase of Southern Pacific’s Mojave-to-Needles branch line (which ran via Barstow). These moves ensured Santa Fe’s full control of the San Diego–Barstow project and secured the route to the East via Barstow/Needles.
1885 – Building Through Cajon Pass: With finances and leadership now backed by Santa Fe, the final 81-mile gap from San Bernardino through Cajon Pass to Barstow was tackled in 1885. Santa Fe’s locating engineer, William Raymond “Ray” Morley, and local chief engineer Fred T. Perris led surveying parties to plot a feasible ascent through the San Bernardino Mountains. Construction crews attacked the pass from both ends – working northward from San Bernardino and southward from the Barstow area (then called Waterman).
November 1885 – Completion of the Line: On November 15, 1885, the last spike was driven in Cajon Pass, marking the completion of the California Southern Railroad and a continuous rail link from San Diego to the transcontinental mainline. Within a day, the first through passenger trains ran between San Diego and Chicago (via Barstow), establishing a second Pacific coast connection in competition with the Southern Pacific. The once-isolated San Diego now had rail access to the rest of the country.

Surveying and Engineering Challenges in Cajon Pass

Surveying a railroad through Cajon Pass – the cleft between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountain ranges – posed formidable engineering challenges. The pass, created by the San Andreas Fault, is a naturally rugged corridor filled with steep grades and unstable geology. Chief Engineer Fred T. Perris and surveyor Ray Morley scouted the route in 1885, seeking a path that locomotives of the era could climb. They managed to keep the maximum grade to 3.4% on eastbound (uphill) tracks to Cajon Summit at 3,823 feet elevation. This roughly 1,000-foot ascent from the base of the pass was achieved by tracing winding curves along the canyon walls, avoiding any single, overly steep incline. Early surveys had to balance the line’s curvature and grade: too sharp a curve or too heavy a grade would prevent trains from safely traversing the pass.

Complicating matters, the terrain through Cajon consists of fractured rock and sandy washes prone to erosion, a legacy of the fault line. Unlike easier routes, there was no gentle river valley to follow – only dry canyons and slopes. Morley and Perris chose to contour along natural benches and cut into hillsides, minimizing the need for expensive tunneling or switchbacks. (In fact, the original 1885 line included no significant tunnels; only in 1913, during a double-tracking project, were two short tunnels added – later “daylighted” in modern times.) The surveying team had to find stable ground for the railbed and design ample drainage to protect against flash floods in the desert gullies. The result was a sinuous route featuring famous curves (like Sullivan’s Curve) that allowed trains to gain altitude gradually. The achievement was considered one of Santa Fe’s great engineering feats of the 1880s, creating a viable railroad through a region previously deemed too rugged for rail travel.

Elsewhere along the route, natural obstacles also tested the engineers. South of San Bernardino, the line’s earlier segment through Temecula Canyon had demanded seven miles of roadbed chiseled through almost perpendicular rock cliffs. There, the railroad crisscrossed the Santa Margarita River numerous times on low wooden bridges – an engineering necessity that unfortunately exposed the line to destruction by floods. One Chinese laborer working in the sweltering Temecula gorge reputedly quipped that it was “all the same hellee, you bet,” referring to the hellish difficulty of the work. That experience underscored the need for solid engineering in Cajon Pass. Learning from prior washouts, the builders in Cajon placed bridges and culverts to carry ephemeral streams under the track and built up embankments to elevate the line in flood-prone areas. Still, steep mountain topography and seismic geology made Cajon Pass a supreme test of the railroad’s surveyors and graders, one that Perris and his team met with grit and ingenuity.

Construction Methods and Workforce

Building the California Southern Railroad in the 1880s required massive manual effort and traditional construction techniques. The project had no heavy machinery as we know it today – construction was essentially by hand labor with picks, shovels, horse-drawn scrapers, and black-powder explosives for blasting rock. The workforce swelled to thousands; in fact, over 6,000 laborers were employed at one point to push the line through Cajon Pass and down into Los Angeles. Chinese and Mexican immigrant laborers made up a large portion of the crews, especially on the hard sections through canyons and desert. These workers cleared brush, graded hillsides, dug cuttings, and built fills with wheelbarrows and dump carts. For rock cuts, crews drilled holes by hand or with rudimentary pneumatic drills, filled them with black powder, and blasted through obstacles. Timber was cut for trestle bridges and culverts, which were assembled on-site to span washes and rivers.

Material supply was an enormous logistical challenge for this railroad. San Diego had no existing rail connection in 1880, so every piece of rail, hardware, and rolling stock had to be shipped. Rails and fastenings were sourced from Belgium and Germany, loaded onto sailing ships, and carried around Cape Horn to San Diego’s port. The first load of steel rail arrived in March 1881 aboard the British ship Trafalgar, delivering the metal needed to push the line northward. Wooden ties (sleepers) were likely procured from Pacific Coast forests and brought by coastal schooners. At the railhead, workers practiced the standard tracklaying method of the era: teams of men known as “iron men” would lift rails into place with tongs, while others spiked them to the ties and gauged the track. Progress could reach several miles of track laid per day on flat ground, but slowed to a crawl in difficult terrain.

In Cajon Pass, construction methods had to adapt to the steep grades. Cuts and fills were carefully engineered: material from cuts was used to build up fills around curves, a balancing act that reduced how far debris had to be hauled. In some areas, temporary inclines and switchbacks were used to move construction equipment (such as small work locomotives) until the permanent grade was ready. Photographic evidence from the 1880s shows work trains carrying supplies up partially completed grades, and construction camps housing hundreds of workers in tent cities along the route. Despite the crude methods, the crews in Cajon Pass succeeded in laying a robust track. When the last rail was spiked down in November 1885, the California Southern’s construction legacy was one of dogged persistence with picks and shovels, achieving a task many thought impossible.

Key Personnel and Leadership

Several key figures were instrumental in the design, surveying, and construction of the California Southern Railroad’s route through Cajon Pass:

Fred T. Perris – Chief Engineer: A British-born surveyor who settled in San Bernardino, Frederick T. Perris served as Chief Engineer of the California Southern (and later the Santa Fe). Perris personally directed the location surveys through Cajon Pass in 1885 and oversaw the construction of this last leg of Santa Fe’s second transcontinental route. The difficult passage through Cajon (often mis-called “El Cajon Pass”) was his crowning achievement, and the city of Perris, California (originally a railroad camp on the line) was named in his honor.
William Barstow Strong – Santa Fe President: W.B. Strong was the AT&SF Railway’s president during the 1880s and the strategic mind behind the push into Southern California. He outmaneuvered Southern Pacific’s Collis Huntington to break the rail monopoly and spearheaded the Santa Fe’s support of the California Southern project. Strong authorized the heavy investment to rebuild after the 1884 floods and to conquer Cajon Pass, and Barstow (originally “Waterman Junction”) was later renamed in his honor once the line was complete.
William Raymond “Ray” Morley – Chief Location Engineer: Ray Morley was a civil engineer for Santa Fe who had previously surveyed challenging mountain routes (his father surveyed Raton Pass in New Mexico). Morley partnered with Perris to plot the Cajon Pass alignment. His expertise in mountain railroading helped find a path with acceptable curvature and grade through Cajon’s canyons. Morley’s survey work ensured the railroad could be built without resorting to impractical solutions; he is credited with successfully locating the line.
Frank Kimball – San Diego Advocate: Frank Kimball was not an engineer but rather a San Diego land developer whose vision and persistence were crucial in launching the railroad. He lobbied Eastern financiers and offered land from his Rancho de la Nación to entice the Santa Fe to back the line Kimball’s efforts paid off—he secured 10,000 acres in land grants and other concessions for the railroad, directly leading to the California Southern’s incorporation. He is often regarded as the “father” of the project, ensuring San Diego would finally get a transcontinental link.
Joseph O. Osgood – Initial Chief Engineer: Joseph Osgood was the California Southern’s chief engineer at the outset of construction. He organized the surveying parties in 1880 and established the construction headquarters in San Diego. Under Osgood’s supervision, the first 70 miles of track were built from National City to Colton. He resigned before the Cajon Pass phase (with Perris taking over), but his groundwork from 1880–1882 laid the foundation for the line’s eventual success.

(Many others contributed, including hundreds of anonymous labor foremen, as well as contractors for grading and bridge building. Governor Robert Waterman and Sheriff J.B. Burkhart also played a memorable role by enforcing the law against Southern Pacific’s interference at Colton. But the figures above stand out as the principal players in getting the railroad built.)

Conflicts and Community Interactions

From its inception, the California Southern Railroad faced determined resistance from the entrenched Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), which jealously guarded its dominance in California. The most dramatic conflict occurred at Colton Crossing in 1882–1883. As California Southern crews prepared to lay track across SP’s north-south line, SP’s agents literally blocked the crossing with a locomotive and railcar, moving them back and forth to prevent any grade crossing construction. This showdown, known as the “Battle of Colton,” escalated until a court ordered SP to cease obstruction. When SP initially ignored the order, Governor Waterman dispatched the San Bernardino County Sheriff and militia to enforce it. Under this pressure, Collis Huntington’s SP capitulated, allowing the crossing to be completed. The successful crossing at Colton opened the way for the Santa Fe affiliate to enter San Bernardino, much to the delight of residents who had felt bullied by SP’s monopoly. The arrival of the first California Southern train in San Bernardino in 1883 was met with celebration – a vindication of the community’s support for a second railroad.

Local communities along the route mostly welcomed the railroad and the economic opportunities it promised. Towns like Oceanside, Riverside, and San Bernardino saw immediate benefits in freight and passenger service. New townsites sprang up as well – Pinacate (in Riverside County) was a railroad camp that evolved into the town of Perris (named after Fred Perris) in 1886. There were, however, instances of tension. Some farmers in the Temecula area were reportedly skeptical of the railroad’s precarious route along the flood-prone canyon, advice that proved well-founded when the line washed out. Additionally, the construction crews themselves (many of whom were Chinese) sometimes met prejudice or hostility in local communities, as was common in that era.

On the whole, the coming of the California Southern was a boon to Southern California communities. It broke the isolation of San Diego and San Bernardino, lowered freight rates, and sparked a fare war that made travel more affordable (as detailed in a later section). The railroad also brought jobs and expanded agricultural markets. Conflicts that did occur – aside from corporate battles with Southern Pacific – were relatively minor and often stemmed from disputes over right-of-way or damage to land during construction, which the railroad typically settled. By 1885, most local stakeholders recognized that Santa Fe’s entry via the California Southern meant freedom from the SP monopoly and the start of a more competitive era in transportation.

Completion and Connection at Barstow

The completion of the California Southern Railroad through Cajon Pass in November 1885 was a pivotal moment in western railroad history. It effectively joined Southern California to the transcontinental rail network, creating a new through route from Chicago (via the Santa Fe and A&P lines) to San Diego and Los Angeles. The meeting point was at the desert town of Barstow – known at the time as Waterman Junction. Barstow was where the California Southern’s rails met the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (A&P), which had built west from Albuquerque to Needles by 1883. Notably, the tracks between Needles and Barstow had been laid by the Southern Pacific (under an arrangement to block Santa Fe) but were acquired by AT&SF in 1884. Thus, by late 1885, Santa Fe controlled an unbroken line from Kansas City to Barstow.

On November 15, 1885, workers drove the last spike in Cajon Pass, after track gangs from San Bernardino and Barstow met on the grade. Service commenced immediately: on November 16, the first trains to traverse the entire line ran between San Diego and points east. One train originated at Barstow heading toward San Diego, and another left National City (San Diego) bound for the East. These inaugural runs symbolized the end of Southern Pacific’s stranglehold – passengers and freight could now travel over an independent transcontinental route to Southern California. The completion of California Southern also made Barstow a key junction. The town soon developed into a bustling division point, with yards and shops to sort the influx of transcontinental freight descending from the Mojave Desert.

To formalize the connection, the California Southern built a junction with the A&P just outside Barstow. The A&P (which was half-owned by Santa Fe) continued west to Mojave, but Santa Fe shifted its focus to the new link south to San Diego. The entire route operated seamlessly under Santa Fe management, effectively making the California Southern the western leg of Santa Fe’s main line. In railroad publicity, Santa Fe touted its new “Pacific Route” reaching San Diego’s harbor – though Los Angeles would soon eclipse San Diego as the primary terminus (see below). Still, the achievement at Barstow in 1885 cannot be overstated: it completed the second transcontinental railroad into California, providing a competitive alternative to the Central/Southern Pacific’s lines. From this point on, Southern California was served by two transcontinental systems, and Barstow (named in honor of W.B. Strong) became a lasting reminder of Santa Fe’s triumph.

Natural Disasters and Line Modifications

Nature proved to be an ongoing adversary for the California Southern Railroad, even after the line’s completion. The Temecula Canyon segment (between San Diego and San Bernardino) was especially vulnerable. As noted, the Great Flood of 1884 devastated that canyon, shutting down the line for most of that year. The Santa Fe takeover allowed repairs to proceed, and by early 1885, trains were running again. However, the lesson was learned: Temecula Canyon was a risky route. Santa Fe soon invested in alternate lines to avoid this chokepoint (discussed in the next section).

The most fateful natural event came in February 1891, when another series of Pacific storms pounded Southern California. That month saw relentless rainfall and flooding. All railroads in the region were washed out in places, but the Santa Margarita/Temecula Canyon line was hit catastrophically once more. Bridges and tracks that had been rebuilt after 1884 were again torn from their foundations. In some spots, rails were reportedly carried miles downstream, with witnesses claiming they could see railroad ties bobbing in the ocean surf after being swept out of the canyon. This time, the Santa Fe Railroad decided not to pour more money into rebuilding the vulnerable canyon segment. By 1891, an alternate route to San Diego was nearly in place (via Orange County), making the Temecula line somewhat expendable.

After the 1891 floods, Santa Fe permanently abandoned the rail line between Fallbrook (north of Oceanside) and Temecula. No train ever ran through Temecula Canyon again after that disaster. The Santa Fe instead completed its Surf Line down the coast: by 1888, a line was finished from Los Angeles south to Oceanside (connecting with the remaining part of the California Southern into San Diego). Thus, when the 1891 storms destroyed the inland canyon route, Santa Fe shifted all San Diego traffic to the coastal route via Los Angeles. The isolated Temecula canyon grade was left to nature and quickly fell into ruin, save for a few work trains that salvaged usable materials. That segment became one of the West’s earliest mainline abandonments due to natural forces.

Cajon Pass, in contrast, proved more resilient. While subject to occasional flash floods and landslides, the Cajon route did not suffer the kind of complete washouts that Temecula did. The railroad’s engineering (keeping the line above streambeds and providing culverts) paid off. One notable natural incident in Cajon’s later years was a wildfire and subsequent rain in 1923 that caused a major mudslide, but the line was quickly cleared. Overall, the 1891 floods were the turning point that relegated the original San Diego–San Bernardino line to secondary status, while the Cajon Pass route, by virtue of its sturdier construction and strategic importance, remained the primary gateway. The legacy of these natural events is evident in today’s rail map: the coastal Surf Line (Los Angeles–San Diego) became the main passenger route, and Cajon Pass remains a vital freight corridor for the BNSF Railway, whereas Temecula Canyon holds only rusted rails as a historical footnote.

Integration into the Santa Fe System

The California Southern Railroad’s identity as an independent company was relatively short-lived. Once the Santa Fe assumed control in late 1884, the line was gradually folded into Santa Fe’s corporate structure. In 1885, Santa Fe operated it as a subsidiary, using the California Southern name for a few more years. But as Santa Fe rapidly expanded its network in Southern California, it made sense to consolidate its operations. In July 1888, Santa Fe finished its own line into Los Angeles (via Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley), and by 1888–1889, it had also completed the “Surf Line” along the coast to San Diego. These new lines, along with the California Southern, California Central, and other subsidiaries, were merged in 1889 to form the Southern California Railway Company. The California Southern thus ceased to exist as a separate entity in 1889, becoming part of the Southern California Ry. (a holding company controlled by AT&SF).

This consolidation simplified operations, and soon the Santa Fe system in California was branded simply as the “Santa Fe Route.” In 1893, the parent AT&SF Railway went through a bankruptcy and reorganization (due to over-expansion in the 1880s), emerging in 1895 as the reorganized Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. The Southern California Railway (and all its component former companies, including the California Southern) was fully absorbed into the Santa Fe Railway in the early 1900s once financial stability returned. After 1906, maps no longer labeled the “California Southern”; it was simply the Santa Fe main line.

Under Santa Fe management, the line through Cajon Pass became the backbone of Santa Fe’s Los Angeles Division. While the original intent was to bring trains to San Diego, the Santa Fe soon focused on Los Angeles as the principal Pacific terminus (LA’s larger population and port potential drove this decision). By leasing a short segment from SP, Santa Fe started running trains from San Bernardino into Los Angeles in 1885; by 1887, it built its own line into LA, allowing direct service. Thereafter, most transcontinental trains bypassed the San Diego branch, running from Barstow over Cajon Pass straight to Los Angeles. San Diego was served by a spur line from Orange County (the Surf Line connection completed in 1888). The California Southern’s original route between San Bernardino and San Diego thus became partly a branch line and partly abandoned (after Temecula Canyon’s washout in 1891). Santa Fe did keep the segment from San Bernardino south to Perris and Oceanside in service as the “Fallbrook Line,” but its strategic importance waned.

Meanwhile, Cajon Pass solidified as a critical link in Santa Fe’s transcontinental network. Santa Fe double-tracked Cajon in 1913 (adding tunnels and a parallel route with gentler curvature) to increase capacity. By the mid-20th century, the line was hosting many of Santa Fe’s famous named passenger trains (the Chief, Super Chief, El Capitan, etc., as well as Union Pacific’s Los Angeles Limited under trackage rights). In the Santa Fe corporate lineage, the California Southern was the progenitor of all Santa Fe lines in Southern California. That heritage lives on: after the AT&SF merged into BNSF Railway in 1995, the Cajon Pass route remains one of BNSF’s busiest main lines, shared with the Union Pacific by agreement. The once-independent California Southern is thus fully integrated – it became the rail highway by which modern container trains and Amtrak passenger service reach Los Angeles, a far cry from its humble, struggling beginnings in the 1880s.

Regional Impact and Legacy

The construction of the California Southern Railroad through Cajon Pass had profound effects on Southern California’s development. Most immediately, it broke the Southern Pacific’s monopoly on transcontinental rail service to the region. With Santa Fe as a competitor, shipping costs and passenger fares plummeted. By the late 1880s, tickets from the Midwest to California dropped from over $100 to as low as $25. A famous rate war in 1886–1887 even saw cross-country fares temporarily fall to nearly zero, as the railroads competed for settlers. The result was a population and economic boom in Southern California, notably the great “Boom of the Eighties.” Towns along the Santa Fe lines prospered. For example, San Bernardino grew as a rail hub with a grand Santa Fe depot (completed 1886), and new agricultural communities bloomed in areas now reachable by rail. Santa Fe’s presence enabled citrus growers in San Bernardino and Riverside counties to ship oranges to eastern markets in refrigerated railcars, sparking the Citrus Belt boom. Likewise, farmers and ranchers benefited from lower freight rates for importing equipment and exporting produce.

The linkage through Cajon Pass also elevated Los Angeles and San Diego as seaports. While San Diego’s direct line suffered from the Temecula washouts, the city still gained a reliable connection by 1888 via the Santa Fe’s coastal line. The famous Hotel Del Coronado (opened in 1888 in San Diego) was built to accommodate wealthy eastern tourists arriving on Santa Fe’s line. Los Angeles, connected in 1887, saw an explosion of growth; Santa Fe’s entry sparked a real estate boom and gave Los Angeles a second transcontinental outlet in addition to the SP line from the north. By securing its own route into Los Angeles (completed just after Cajon in 1887), Santa Fe ensured the region would have long-term competitive rail service.

Cajon Pass’s railroad itself became an enduring asset. Despite the challenges posed by its 3.4% grade, it enabled direct freight routes from the port of Los Angeles to the rest of the country, cementing LA’s status as a significant trade center. Over the decades, Santa Fe upgraded the route (reducing the summit elevation slightly and easing curves in the 1960s). In modern times, BNSF and Union Pacific each operate multiple main tracks through the Cajon Pass to handle the enormous flow of cargo containers from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The line is so busy and scenic that Cajon Pass has become a famous railfanning location, with photographs of long freight trains snaking through its dramatic mountain backdrop appearing in countless books and magazines.

Finally, the legacy of the California Southern Railroad is seen in the place names and cultural memory it left behind. The city of Perris and the town of Barstow commemorate figures who built the line. The phrase “Second Transcontinental Railroad” is often applied to the Santa Fe’s route via Cajon Pass, acknowledging that the 1885 completion was the first true competitor to the original 1869 transcontinental line. Today’s Interstate 15 roughly follows the Cajon Pass rail corridor, a testament to how railroad pioneers found a practical route through the mountains. In sum, what began as a risky venture by the California Southern in 1880 blossomed into a key component of a national railway system, transforming Southern California’s economy and transportation landscape. The trains that labor up the steep grades of Cajon Pass today are living proof of the region’s 19th-century railroad heritage – a legacy of bold surveying, arduous construction, and the triumph over geographic odds.

Santa Fe locomotives climb the 2.2% grade on a newer alignment near Cajon Summit in 1964. The Cajon Pass rail corridor – first opened in 1885 – remains a crucial and busy route, now part of BNSF Railway’s transcontinental line.

Sources:

Serpico, Philip C. Santa Fé Route to the Pacific (Omni Publications, 1988), pp. 18–24 – via Wikipedia.
Burns, Adam. “Cajon Pass (Railroad Grade): History & Map.” (updated Aug. 24, 2024)
Rails West. “Second Transcontinental Line to California – ATSF Brings Competition.” RlsWest.com (Richard Boehle).
Dodge, Richard V. “History of the California Southern Railway (Fallbrook Line).” Mojave Desert Archives (1957).
Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve (San Diego State Univ.). “The Historic California Southern Railroad.” (n.d.)
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection. “Santa Fe R.R. in Cajon Pass” (Photograph, ca. 1885, engine #40 at Cajon Summit).
San Diego History Center. “The California Southern Railroad and the Growth of San Diego” (Article, n.d.)
Perris City Historical Archives. “Frederick T. Perris” (Biography)

The Desert That Stayed the Same

Forty years ago, the Mojave Desert felt much the same as it must have felt a century earlier. Because nothing had changed—there were more roads, better vehicles, radios, fences—but because the terms of living had not yet shifted. Distance still mattered. Mistakes still lingered. The land still corrected people quietly and without apology.

What struck me then, and still does now, was how little truth needed to be spoken. Not because people were more virtuous, but because there was less room for pretense. In the desert, claims were tested quickly. A man’s word meant something because circumstances enforced it. You didn’t explain yourself much; you demonstrated. If something worked, it was right. If it didn’t, it failed, and no amount of talk could rescue it.

That produced a kind of clarity. Not loud honesty, not moral declarations—just an absence of excess. Fewer stories. Fewer excuses. Fewer performances. Truth existed primarily as an outcome, not a statement.

For a long stretch of time—roughly from the mid-1800s into the mid-1900s—that clarity held. Whether one traveled by pack train, wagon, or a battered pickup, the margins were still narrow enough that judgment mattered more than systems. Reputation followed people longer than paperwork. Memory mattered more than policy. The desert itself acted as referee.

That is why the Mojave of forty years ago could still feel like the Mojave of 140 years ago. The governing forces had not yet changed.

What has changed since is not the land, but the insulation around it. Technology softened consequences. Systems replaced judgment. Rescue became assumed. Noise filled the space where silence once did its work. Truth began to require explanation because it was no longer enforced by circumstance.

The old desert character did not disappear—it withdrew. It retreated to fewer roads, fewer people, fewer hours of the day. It now shows itself early in the morning, far from pavement, among those who still listen more than they speak. It survives where the land is allowed to finish its sentences.

To feel the loss of that earlier clarity is not nostalgia. It is recognition. It means having lived long enough to know when truth did not need defending—when it simply stood there, like a dry well that either held water or didn’t.

That recognition belongs on the road, not on a pedestal. It rides best in a beat-up truck, moving slowly across familiar ground, asking nothing of the present except attention. Some thoughts are not meant to be resolved. They are intended to be kept, the way one keeps an old route in mind long after the map forgets it.

That, too, is part of the desert’s continuity—quiet, durable, and still there for those who know how to look.

Mojave Desert, desert character, cultural continuity, lived experience, memory and landscape, truth without noise, consequence and judgment, desert self-reliance, quiet endurance, historical continuity, changing conditions, road reflection, old Mojave, landscape ethics, place-based knowledge, personal essay

Brine Flies

Brine flies at Mono Lake are one of those old, workmanlike desert stories where something humble ends up being essential.

Mono Lake is extremely salty and alkaline, so almost nothing can live there. Brine flies (Ephydra hians) are the big exception. They spend most of their lives as larvae and pupae underwater, grazing on algae that coat the lake bottom and tufa formations. When they emerge as adults, they form the dark, moving bands you see along the shoreline and rocks.

Their trick is simple but effective. Adult flies have dense hairs and a waxy coating that traps air around their bodies, allowing them to walk underwater to lay eggs and feed without drowning. It looks strange, but it works, and it has worked for a very long time.

Ecologically, brine flies are the backbone of Mono Lake. They convert algae into protein, and in doing so, they feed millions of migratory birds. Eared grebes, phalaropes, gulls, and others depend on the flies during migration, sometimes doubling their body weight before moving on. If the flies disappeared, Mono Lake would be nearly silent.

Culturally, they mattered too. The Kutzadikaa Paiute, often called the Mono Lake Paiute, harvested brine fly pupae, dried them, and traded them as a high-protein food. Early Euro-American settlers mostly saw the flies as a nuisance, but the Paiute understood precisely what they were worth.

Today, brine flies are also an indicator species. When lake levels drop, and salinity rises too far, fly populations suffer. Keeping Mono Lake at a sustainable level is not just about scenery or tufa towers; it is about preserving this old, tightly balanced system that has been working more or less the same way since long before modern water diversions arrived.

-End-

The Use of AI in Developing the Mojave Desert and Digital Desert Projects

by Walter Feller

I treat AI as a tool, not a miracle or a menace. That outlook fits the older way of doing things, where a person picks up whatever instrument helps the job move forward and sets it aside when it gets in the way. I do not lean on it for authority. I lean on it for labor.

This photo has nothing to do with this article.

The project has three clear traits.

Uses AI to sort, organize, and store large bodies of knowledge.
This echoes the long tradition of keeping field notes, clipping newspaper files, building card catalogs, and arranging maps and texts in cross-referenced bundles. The scale has grown, but the intent remains the same: make a vast desert of information readable. AI handles the heavy lifting that once took long nights with a pencil and a pile of notes. The desk is still a mess.
I keep authorship and judgment in my own hands.
AI can draft, stitch together relationships, and help grind through syntactic chores. But the voice, the research discipline, and the final word remain mine. This follows the older belief that a craftsman knows his trade better than any machine. The tool may speed up the work, but it does not replace the worker.
I use AI to expose errors, not to hide them.
I ask if the output is correct. That is the same question historians, surveyors, and editors have always wondered about their sources. AI becomes one more reference check, one more way to test the grain of a story or the shape of a fact. This fits the long-standing practice of comparing accounts, spotting contradictions, and tightening a narrative until it rings true.

In short, my use of AI follows the same plain pattern found across older desert work: learn the landscape, use the tools at hand, question everything, and keep the story straight. AI is simply a new implement added to the kit, no more mysterious than a typewriter was when it first arrived on a ranch desk.

I have treated AI as a tool, not a miracle, and not a menace. That outlook fits the older way of doing things, where a person picks up whatever instrument helps the job move forward and sets it aside when it gets in the way. I do not lean on it for authority. I lean on it for labor.

Disclaimer: Some portions of this project were developed with assistance from AI tools to help reconstruct historical contexts and fill informational gaps. All materials have been reviewed and fact-checked to ensure accuracy and reliability, though complete precision cannot be guaranteed. The aim is to provide dependable starting points and distinctive perspectives for further study, exploration, and research.

These materials are historical in nature and intended for educational use only; they are not designed as travel guides or planning resources.
Copyright – Walter Feller. 1995-2025. All rights reserved.

Cotner’s Corner

Former site of the Waffle Iron Cafe & Others

Cotner’s Corner sits at the crossroads of Bear Valley Road and Central, a place that has changed faces many times but has always carried the memory of the people who tried to make something out there on the desert edge. Long before the traffic lights and chain stores, the corner was little more than a wide, dusty intersection with a handful of buildings and a few stubborn families who were willing to take a chance on the high desert.

The Cotner name shows up there in the years after World War II, when Apple Valley was still a mix of homesteads, open land, and a few small commercial stops that served ranchers, travelers, and early homeowners. John A. Cotner appears to have been one of those early owners who saw the value in that corner. He bought the land, ran the little market or service station there, and for a time, the place was known by his name. In small desert towns, you didn’t need a fancy sign or a subdivision plan. If a man owned the corner, the corner carried his name.

Locals remembered it that way: “Cotner’s Corner.” No explanation needed. If you lived out there, you knew where it was. You might gas up, grab a soda, or use it as a point of reference when giving directions out across the vast, empty valley.

By the early 1960s, ownership was shifting. Families changed hands, businesses came and went. In 1965, June and Tom Archer bought the corner from Cotner, putting their own stamp on the place with June’s Little Market. But even after the sale, the older name held on in local memory. People still called it Cotner’s Corner because that was how the community had marked it in its early years.

Over time, the buildings aged. The gas station gave way to other businesses, the most beloved being the Waffle Iron Cafe. This simple converted Texaco station served breakfast and coffee to generations of Apple Valley residents. The corner kept evolving, but the old stories stayed underneath.

Who was Cotner? He seems to have been like many early high-desert figures: a working man who owned a slice of land at a key corner, built what he could, and took part in shaping a small desert community long before incorporation or big developers showed up. He wasn’t famous, and the records about him are thin, but the name stuck because in places like Apple Valley, the people who first set up shop mattered. They gave the desert its first points of orientation, the earliest nodes around which the town eventually grew.

Today, the buildings are gone, and the corner looks modern, but the old name survives in stories, memories, and the scraps of history that still surface when people talk about how the valley used to be before it filled in. Cotner’s Corner belongs to that early period when a single family, a single building, or a single name could anchor a whole stretch of desert.

Synthetic Harper Lake

Introduction
This synthetic history offers a short, integrated view of how a place or event may have developed over time. It draws on known facts, adds reasonable connections, and presents a straightforward narrative that helps the reader see the larger pattern behind the details.

Harper Lake began as a shallow Pleistocene basin fed by the changing Mojave River system. As the climate shifted and Lake Manix drained, water reached the Harper basin only in rare pulses, leaving broad mudflats and signs of older shorelines. Early travelers used the dry lake as an open landmark between Barstow and the Fremont Valley. Ranchers later crossed it while moving stock between seasonal ranges. In the twentieth century, power lines, ranch roads, and the airfield at Lockhart marked its edges, but the basin itself stayed quiet. What began as an ancient lake became a wide, dependable reference point in the western Mojave.

Diagram version

Pleistocene Basin
(formed during wetter Mojave River phases)
          |
          v
Lake Manix Drainage
(water reaches basin in rare pulses)
          |
          v
Broad Mudflats
(old shorelines, dry lake surface)
          |
          v
Travel Landmark
(open guide between Barstow and Fremont Valley)
          |
          v
Ranch Use
(stock crossings, seasonal routes)
          |
          v
Modern Markers
(power lines, Lockhart airfield, access roads)
          |
          v
Present Basin
(dry, stable landmark in the western Mojave)

Essay
Harper Lake is one of those quiet western Mojave basins that tells a long story without saying much. Its history begins in the late Pleistocene, when the Mojave River behaved differently, and water sometimes pushed farther west than it does today. After Lake Manix drained, the river wandered across its basin system in unpredictable pulses. During the wetter periods, some of that water reached the Harper basin, leaving layers of fine silt and clay, smoothing the floor, and marking low shoreline benches on the basin walls. These old lake margins still sit a few feet above the flats, showing where storms, climate, and river pathways once made a shallow lake in a place that is now dry most of the year.

As the climate warmed and dried, Harper Lake shifted into a different role. Its connection to the Mojave River became rare and temporary. Water arrived only through heavy storms, brief pooling, or scattered sheetflow that vanished as fast as it came. By the Holocene, the basin had settled into the pattern we recognize today: a vast playa surrounded by creosote scrub, saltbush patches on the margins, and a wind-polished surface that reflects the sky when it is dry and mirrors it when it is briefly wet.

This kind of history fits perfectly with the synthetic examples we started building. In those early models, we traced how simple features in desert country begin as natural formations and slowly take on meaning as people start using them. Harper Lake followed that path. Long before written history, Native travelers crossed its edges as they moved between springs and gathering places. The lake itself offered little water, but its openness made it a dependable marker between the Mojave River corridor and the Fremont Valley routes.

When ranching spread into the region, the basin became part of seasonal stock drives. The flat surface offered a straight line across the land, and the margins gave access to scattered grazing after rare rains. Later, freighters and early motorists used the dry lake the same way: as a clear, recognizable point in a vast landscape where a person needed all the help they could get to stay oriented. The open horizon, the straight edges, and the bare floor served as practical signs that they were on the right course.

By the twentieth century, modern structures began to appear around the basin. Power lines crossed the margins. Utility roads threaded across the flats. The airfield at Lockhart took advantage of the open terrain. Yet even with these additions, Harper Lake retained its quiet identity. It stayed dry most years, it kept its old shorelines in place, and it remained a stable reference point for anyone who knew the western Mojave.

This is the same pattern our first synthetic histories described: a natural feature shaped by water and climate becomes a guide for travel, a minor stage in ranching and settlement, and finally a fixed part of the regional map. Harper Lake shows that a place does not need deep water or dramatic cliffs to play a long role in desert history. Sometimes a broad, silent basin does the work, carrying its past in its shape and offering direction to anyone crossing the land.

–

Synthetic history disclaimer
This synthetic history blends facts with interpretive narrative to show how events, places, and processes may have unfolded. It is not a primary source and does not replace direct historical records, archaeological findings, or scientific studies. Details drawn from known evidence are kept as accurate as possible, while connecting material is written to provide continuity and context. Readers should treat this as an interpretive aid, not as a definitive account, and consult documented sources for precise dates, data, and citations. This is a learning engine rather than a teaching engine.

Harper Lake Ecology

High Desert Plains & Hills

San Bernardino Mountains Winter Resorts

The story of winter recreation in the San Bernardino Mountains runs from simple roadside snowplay to full resort operations spread across the front range and the Big Bear basin. Over nearly a century, Snow Valley, Snow Summit, and Bear Mountain formed the backbone of that history, each representing a different stage in the development of skiing and snowboarding in Southern California.

The earliest winter activity took place near Running Springs during the 1920s and 1930s. Improved automobile access brought travelers up Highway 330, and the open slopes along Highway 18 became natural gathering places for early skiers. Rope tows and modest facilities appeared on these hills, turning the area later known as Snow Valley into one of the first organized ski centers in the state. The terrain was moderate and practical, close to the foothills and easy to reach, helping make Running Springs one of the gateways to winter recreation.

The next stage unfolded after World War II. As Big Bear Valley continued to grow with new homes, cabins, and lakefront development, the south side of the valley offered room for a larger and more carefully planned resort. Snow Summit took shape in the late 1940s and early 1950s, quickly becoming known for well-arranged runs, dependable grooming, and early snowmaking. The resort succeeded by offering a traditional feel and reliable conditions, drawing families and day visitors from across the region. Summit became the classic ski hill of Big Bear, steady and carefully managed.

Farther east in the same valley, the slopes of Goldmine Mountain supported a smaller ski area that expanded during the 1970s and 1980s. In time, this area became Bear Mountain. When snowboarding surged in popularity during the 1990s, Bear embraced the new sport and built terrain parks, halfpipes, and freestyle features that set it apart from Snow Summit. This shift gave the region two complementary resorts: one traditional, one progressive, both supporting the winter economy of Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City.

Snow Valley continued in its own role on the front range, separate from the unified Big Bear system. Its location near Running Springs and its early origins kept it tied to the first era of winter recreation in the mountains. Year after year, it remained a straightforward, family-oriented hill close to the foothills and highway access.

Access to the mountains came through three primary routes. Highway 330 rose steeply from the Inland Empire to Running Springs. From there, Highway 18 turned east toward Snow Valley and continued into Big Bear Valley. Highway 38 approached Big Bear from the east through Redlands and the high back country. This road network shaped visitor patterns, guided resort development, and built ties between the slopes and the surrounding communities.

Running Springs grew as the Front Range gateway. Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City grew as the central hubs for lodging, shops, and services that supported Snow Summit and Bear Mountain. The combined influence of these communities and resorts shaped the winter identity of the mountains, turning once remote country into Southern California’s main winter playground.

Today, Snow Valley, Snow Summit, and Bear Mountain stand as three closely linked chapters in the long story of winter recreation. One began with roadside rope tows, one rose with postwar planning, and one came of age during the rise of snowboarding. Together, they show how the San Bernardino Mountains evolved into the primary winter destination for generations of Southern California travelers.

Bear Mountain

Snow Summit

Snow Valley

Example of Synthetic History

Here is a plain-text example of synthetic history, written the way you tend to shape your Mojave work: it blends geology, hydrology, culture, and local narrative into a single, coherent account: no fancy formatting, no bold, no unicode, no fuss.

Synthetic History Example
The Mojave River corridor tells a story that never fits in a single box. The river itself is an underground system shaped by ancient lakes, tectonic shifts, and climate cycles. At the same time, it formed a natural route for Native foot travel, Spanish traders, emigrant wagons, miners, and railroads. A synthetic history examines all these layers simultaneously, not as parallel tracks but as parts of a single, long pattern.

Take the stretch from Afton Canyon to Soda Lake. Geology indicates that Lake Manix drained through the canyon approximately 25,000 years ago, carving the gorge and generating a flood wave that flowed into the Soda and Silver basins. Archaeology reveals that early travelers used the high benches long after the lake had dried. Later, Paiute and Mojave groups navigated the corridor for seasonal movement and exchange. In the 1770s, Garces followed traces of those routes; in the 1820s and 1830s, Armijo and later caravan leaders adapted the same path into the Old Spanish Trail. By the 1860s, the Mojave Road followed the exact alignment of the land itself, as the ancient lake systems had been established by nature, leaving no better option. In the 1880s, railroad surveyors obeyed the same logic of terrain. Even modern I-15 reflects it.

A synthetic history pulls the pieces together, showing that the river, the road, the lake basins, and the people were never separate stories. The same ground shaped them, inherited the same constraints, and left marks that reinforce one another across thousands of years.

Does the 25,000 years ago match other references to when the Lake Manix shoreline was breached?

Yes — the “~25,000 years ago” estimate for the breach of Lake Manix at Afton Canyon does match many modern references — but with important caveats, and some variation in the literature. Here is a breakdown suitable for your core-block indexing.

Chronology and Breach Timing

The USGS mapping and stratigraphic summary (in SIM 3312) states that Lake Manix was the terminus of the Mojave River until “approximately 25,000 years ago”. U.S. Geological Survey+2U.S. Geological Survey+2
Other sources similarly say that Lake Manix “lasted until 25,000–13,800 years ago, when Afton Canyon formed, either through slow down-cutting or a large outburst flood.” desertmoon.net+1
Some detailed studies indicate multiple high stands between ~45,000 and 25,000 calendar years before present (cal ka) for Lake Manix, and suggest that the final spill/overturning/breach event could have occurred at ~25 cal ka BP. Cambridge University Press & Assessment+1
Another source indicates that the incision of Afton Canyon occurred after 14,230 ± 1,325 yr BP (i.e., ~14.2 ka) in one interpretation. Astrophysics Data System

Interpretive Summary
Given your focus on the Mojave corridor system, the key point is that the “~25,000 years ago” figure is well-supported and is, in fact, used by the USGS map text and several summaries of Lake Manix chronology. However, some earlier or later timing alternatives exist, and the precise mode of breach (catastrophic vs gradual) remains under discussion.

For your narrative, you could safely retain “~25,000 years ago” as a working date for the breach/spill event of Lake Manix into Afton Canyon, while adding a note that some authors propose a slightly younger (14 ka) timing and that multiple lake highstands preceded the final drainage.

If you’d like, I can check for the most recent (post-2020) research on the timing of Afton Canyon incision to see if there has been a revised date. Would you like me to pull that in?

~25,000 years ago, does it have its own synthetic history?

Yes. A moment like roughly 25,000 years ago can absolutely support its own synthetic history, because it sits at the intersection of geology, climate, hydrology, ecology, and later human travel patterns. Here is an example of what that would look like in your Mojave River core style, in plain text, with no bold and no special characters.

Synthetic History at ~25,000 Years Ago
Around twenty-five thousand years ago, the Mojave region was in the late Pleistocene, a cooler, wetter climate that supported higher lake levels, expanded river flow, and a distinct plant and animal community compared to today. Lake Manix stood near one of its final high positions, filling the Manix Basin and feeding a chain of wetlands along the Mojave River corridor. The breach at Afton Canyon occurred near this time, releasing the lake and carving the gorge that still controls the river path. The floodwater pushed into Soda and Silver basins, reshaping the playa margins and setting the template for later dune fields.

This physical event intersects the biological world. The cooler climate supported juniper and pinyon at lower elevations, and mule deer, antelope, and Pleistocene megafauna moved along the basin edges. Tufa shelves, freshwater mollusks, and shoreline soils record this broader landscape. Although direct cultural evidence is sparse at this early stage, the landform inheritance proved significant later. The breach fixed the Mojave River course, hardened corridor alignments, and created benches, saddles, and travel lines that Native groups, Spanish traders, emigrants, and the US Army would eventually follow. Long before people used the canyon as a road, the land itself made it one.

This is how a single date becomes a synthetic history. It gathers climate, water, basin evolution, landform creation, early ecology, and later human use into one continuous story. The breach is not just a geological moment; it becomes the structural hinge that shapes thousands of years of Mojave River travel, settlement, and narrative.

Geoglyphs & Rock Alignments

Fort Irwin & Beyond

*Juduth Reed, archaeologist – photo Russell Kaldenberg*

A geoglyph is a ground design created by arranging or removing surface materials so the figure appears when viewed from above. In desert settings, this usually means placing or clearing pavement stones, exposing lighter soil, or scraping shallow lines that catch low-angle light. Mojave examples tend to occupy quiet, stable surfaces such as old lake margins, bajadas, ridgelines, and mesa tops. Their age is difficult to determine without stratified artifacts, and they usually appear in liminal settings that suggest signaling, marking, ceremony, or boundary use.

Mojave Desert geoglyphs are scattered and subtle, blending with the surface rather than dominating it. They are created by repositioning varnished stones or removing surface layers, forming sinuous lines, circles, meanders, keyhole forms, and occasionally serpentine figures. Most notable examples can be found in the eastern and central Mojave, where travel corridors, ancient water sources, and basin edges converge. Documented sites are located at Fort Irwin, along the Amargosa drainage, near the Lower Colorado River region, and within ancient lake basins such as Cronese, Soda, and Silver. These figures are commonly twenty to sixty feet long or wide. They are not dramatic from the ground; they reveal their form from oblique or aerial views. Many alignments appear to mark direction, vantage, or symbolic forms rooted in local cultural landscapes. Research is limited by erosion, restricted access to lands, and the scarcity of datable material.

Geoglyphs at Fort Irwin became known only after archaeologists expanded survey work into newly added training lands. Earlier work on the site documented petroglyphs, pictographs, and small rock circles, but newer surveys revealed another category of rock art: broad surface alignments set directly into the desert pavement. These geoglyphs consist of fist-sized stones arranged into straight lines, curves, swirls, and branching patterns covering portions of pavement roughly a quarter of an acre in size. They sit so low and blend so closely in tone with the surrounding ground that they remain almost invisible until someone familiar with desert varnish and pavement structure points them out. Artifacts and oxidation patterns provide relative age clues, though no firm dates are given.

Archaeologists describe the Mojave landscape as highly readable, with scars, signals, and surface changes preserved by aridity. In this setting, rock alignments are found on stable pavements, old lake margins, and gentle rises where water once flowed across the ground. Fort Irwin sits within that framework: ancient lake basins, remnant shorelines, and corridors that once linked seasonal camps. Nearby lithic scatters suggest long-term movement associated with water, game, and travel. Interpretations of the geoglyphs remain limited. Some broken quartzite fragments hint at possible ceremonial use, but the exact meaning remains unknown. Cultural memory tied to such features has not survived, and researchers avoid overreaching beyond what the land itself reveals.

Within the broader Goldstone basin sector of the installation, survey data also note a low ridge with surface materials arranged into a curving alignment that may represent a stylized serpent or directional form. Its placement on a quiet slope between pavement and basin edge fits a familiar Mojave pattern in which subtle figures mark routes, thresholds, or vantage points without leaving associated domestic remains. Features of this kind are typically visible only from an angled view, where dark varnished stones contrast with lighter soil. Because the land is part of an active training area, precise locations are protected, and access is restricted to guided visits. As with other prehistoric sites on the post, Fort Irwin treats these alignments as resources to be safeguarded.

Together, the abstract pavement figures and the additional curving alignment illustrate how ancient travelers marked the basin edges and crossings of the central Mojave. They show that even in a landscape that seems empty at first glance, the ground carries the record of movement, gathering, and intention shaped into the surface itself.

Core Bibliography: Mojave Geoglyphs and Rock Alignments

Allen, Mark W. 1991. Archaeological Investigations at Fort Irwin. Fort Irwin Cultural Resources Program.

Basgall, Mark E. 1993. Chronometric Studies in the Mojave Desert. Publications in California Prehistory 34.

Clewlow, C. William Jr. 1976. Prehistoric Trails of the Lake Mojave Region. UC Archaeological Research Facility Report 30.

Davis, Emma Lou. 1978. The Ancient Californians: Rancholabrean Hunters of the Mojave Desert. Ballena Press.

Fort Irwin Cultural Resources Program. Various Survey Reports and Inventory Summaries, 1980s to present.

Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex. Cultural Resources Overview Studies, 1990s–2000s.

Heizer, Robert F., and Martin A. Baumhoff. 1962. Prehistoric Rock Art of Nevada and Eastern California. University of California Press.

Minor, Rick. 1987. Intaglios and Ground Figures of the American Southwest. American Rock Art Research Association.

Schaefer, Jerry. 1995. Cultural Resource Management Studies at Fort Irwin, California. ASM Affiliates.

U.S. Army, Fort Irwin Cultural Resources Program. Survey reports and site documentation for expanded training lands, various years.
Sutton, Mark Q., and Jill K. Gardner. Patterns of Mojave Desert Prehistory. Nevada State Museum Anthropological Papers, 1997.
Warren, Claude N., and Robert H. Crabtree. Prehistory of the Southwest and Great Basin. In Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 11, Great Basin. Smithsonian Institution, 1986.
Draut, Amy E., et al. Late Pleistocene lake histories in the Mojave River and Amargosa Basin region. USGS Professional Papers and Open-File Reports, various years.
McCarthy, Daniel. Ground figures of the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. In Rock Art Papers, San Diego Museum of Man, various volumes.
GSA and USGS publications on desert pavement formation, varnish development, and surface stability relevant to geoglyph preservation.
California Department of Parks and Recreation. Archaeological surveys within the Mojave Desert region, assorted site records.

Special thanks to Russell Kaldenburg