Articles – Notes

Life Cycle of Rocks

How Sand Forms: A Step-by-Step FAQ

What is sand?

Sand is loose grains of rock or mineral. Most light-colored sand is quartz, a hard mineral that lasts a long time. Desert sand can also contain fragments of granite, volcanic rock, and other local materials.

How does rock become sand?

Rock is exposed at the ground surface.
Heat, cold, rain, frost, plant roots, and chemical changes crack the rock apart.
Gravity, runoff, streams, and floods carry the broken pieces downhill.
Moving water and wind grind the fragments against one another, making them smaller and often smoother.
As the material is sorted, the grains that are roughly sand-sized remain as sand. Finer material becomes silt or clay; larger pieces remain gravel, cobbles, or boulders.

How does sand reach the desert?

In the Mojave, mountains are the main source. Rainstorms wash broken rock into canyons and desert washes. Floodwater spreads the material across fans and valleys. When the water dries, wind can pick up the finer grains and move them into dunes or broad sheets of sand.

How long does it take?

The work never really stops. A storm can break rock loose and move sand in a single day, but building a large sand deposit usually takes thousands to tens of thousands of years. The source rocks themselves may be millions of years old.

What does “recent geologic time” mean?

For desert deposits, it often means the Quaternary Period, the last 2.58 million years. Many dunes, wash deposits, and dry-lake sediments are much younger, often only thousands or tens of thousands of years old.

Can sand become rock again?

Yes. If sand is buried, pressure compacts it. Groundwater may carry dissolved minerals into the spaces between the grains. Silica, calcite, or iron minerals can cement the grains together, forming sandstone.

What are petrified dunes?

“Petrified dunes” is a common name for ancient sand dunes that have turned into sandstone. Their sloping internal layers, called cross-bedding, preserve the shape of the old wind-blown dunes.

Does this process make more sand?

Yes. It is a long recycling process:

Rock breaks down into sand.
Sand can harden into sandstone.
Weathering can break the sandstone into sand again.

Wind, water, weather, and time keep the material moving through that cycle.

Then . . .

Rock breaks down into sand.
Sand can harden into sandstone.
Weathering can break the sandstone into sand again. . . .

The Court-Martial of Lt. Manuel Eyre, Jr.

Lt. Manuel Eyre, Jr., 1st Lieutenant, 14th U.S. Infantry, assumed command of Camp Cady in June 1867. He was also breveted lieutenant colonel for Civil War service. His assignment carried more responsibility than ordinary command of a small frontier garrison. In addition to serving as post commander, Eyre acted as commissary of subsistence and acting assistant quartermaster. He therefore supervised the purchase and issue of food, other supplies, transportation, forage, and government vouchers. [1]

Camp Cady stood on the Mojave River far from the Army’s main supply and command. The garrison depended on those nearby and contractors for vital goods and services. When the Army had no ready cash at the post, Eyre could issue vouchers, or certificates acknowledging what the government owed, to local suppliers. A voucher had value, but its holder had to wait for payment or sell it at a discount to someone able to redeem it. This frontier system made the supply officer’s work essential, but it also invited dispute and placed Eyre’s official conduct under close scrutiny. [1]

In August 1867, a store belonging to P. N. Dean was burned by soldiers stationed at Camp Cady under Eyre’s command. A later history of the post reported that Eyre had complained to higher headquarters that Dean sold cheap liquor to enlisted men, and that Eyre afterward restricted the amount of alcohol soldiers could buy. The same account held Eyre responsible for the conduct of the troops under his command. [2]

Civil authorities in San Bernardino later charged Eyre with arson. A War Department memorandum recorded that he was released on May 28, 1868, and returned to Camp Cady on June 8. The memorandum places him under military arrest on June 10; Eyre himself gave the date as June 9. The best wording is that he was placed under military arrest immediately after his return to Camp Cady, in early June 1868. [3]

The military arrest did not merely repeat the civil arson charge. Official Army correspondence identifies three broad allegations against Eyre:

Trafficking in government vouchers;
Conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman; and
Conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. [3]

The surviving papers do not yet establish the exact wording of every specification or the finding on each one. They do show that the Army’s concerns spanned beyond the burned store to Eyre’s official conduct and his management of government obligations.

Eyre remained under arrest at Camp Cady for months. In a report dated November 7, 1868, he stated that he had received no copy of the charges and no information about the cause of his arrest. He repeated the complaint in a January 1, 1869, letter to the Adjutant General, saying that he had been under arrest since June and still had not received a copy of the charges. [4]

Army correspondence admitted the delay. Headquarters ordered a court-martial, but no general court-martial was available to hear the case yet. The records also show that Generals Irvin McDowell and E. O. C. Ord did not consider Eyre fit to command a post. The Army therefore kept him under arrest at the remote station instead of returning him to duty. [3]

The trial took place at Drum Barracks in February 1869. The National Archives identifies the surviving record as Court-Martial Case File PP-181, titled “Eyre, Manuel — 1st Lieutenant, 14th Infantry,” in Record Group 153, Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General. The file itself is not digitized, but it is the principal source for the complete charges, testimony, findings, sentence, and review. [5]

Eyre avoided conviction on the San Bernardino arson charge, but the Army held him under arrest on separate military charges. A court-martial at Drum Barracks dismissed him from the United States Army on May 18, 1869.

References

[1] “The Court-Martial of Lt. Manuel Eyre.” Digital-Desert, accessed 2026.
[2] “The History of Camp Cady.” Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, 1952.
[3] National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s-1917, “1868 – Eyre, Manuel – File No. E344,” Record Group 94.
[4] National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s-1917, “1869 – Eyre, Manuel – File No. E21,” Record Group 94.
[5] National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), Court Martial Case Files, “Eyre, Manuel — 1st Lieutenant, 14th Infantry,” February 1869, Case PP-181, Record Group 153.
[6] National Archives and Records Administration. Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780s-1917, “1869 – Eyre, Manuel – File No. E170,” Record Group 94.

Flannelbush

Scientific name: Fremontodendron californicum
Family: Malvaceae, the mallow family
Common names: California flannelbush, flannelbush, California fremontia

Flannelbush is an evergreen, loosely branched shrub or small tree. It usually grows 5 to 16 feet tall, though older plants in favorable places can reach about 20 feet. The bark becomes rough, fissured, and scaly; its inner bark is mucilaginous, a trait shared with many members of the mallow family.

Its leaves are alternate, leathery, and usually palmately lobed, with several main veins beginning near the base. Both leaves and young stems carry dense star-shaped hairs, called stellate hairs. The lower leaf surface is especially felted and grayish. These hairs give the plant its flannel-like appearance, but they can irritate skin, eyes, and breathing passages.

The large, open yellow flowers are distinctive. What appear to be petals are actually five enlarged, petal-like sepals; flannelbush has no true petals. Flowers are commonly yellow, sometimes marked reddish or coppery near their bases. They generally bloom from April through July.

The fruit is a bristly, five-valved capsule. When ripe, it releases several hard seeds. The seeds have small food bodies, or elaiosomes, that attract ants, which can carry them short distances.

In the Mojave region, flannelbush is chiefly a plant of desert chaparral and nearby pinyon-juniper woodland, especially on dry mountain slopes, canyon walls, rocky crevices, and coarse or nutrient-poor soil. It is found on the desert-facing slopes of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains, at the upper edge of the Mojave Desert. Fire stimulates germination, and established plants may also resprout from the root crown or roots after being top-killed.

USDA Forest Service species review

USGS, NPS & BLM use of Ai

All three use AI, though mostly as a tool to process large amounts of scientific or operational data—not as a substitute for professional judgment.

Agency	Documented uses
USGS	Machine learning for terrain and landscape mapping, contaminant and harmful-algal-bloom monitoring, streamflow estimates in ungaged rivers, Landsat telemetry and anomaly analysis, and searching or synthesizing scientific publications. USGS overview
National Park Service	Identifying birds from sound recordings, processing wildlife-camera and drone imagery, modeling visitor use, and limited interpretive/archival work such as clearly labeled machine-colorized historic photographs. NPS BirdNET example
BLM	Most visibly, AI-assisted camera networks that flag smoke and new ignitions, helping dispatchers respond more quickly to wildfire. BLM Nevada fire-camera example

Because USGS, NPS, and BLM are all within the Department of the Interior, they operate under Interior-wide AI policy. The Department says AI must be used responsibly and securely, with risk management and human oversight. Interior AI program

USGS is especially clear on scientific use: generative AI tools must be approved, and any AI contribution to a scientific product must be documented, checked for accuracy, and meet standards for reproducibility and scientific integrity. USGS AI-use requirements

The important distinction is this: using AI to help find a bird call, detect smoke, classify satellite pixels, or search thousands of studies is not the same as allowing AI to determine a land-use decision, publish unverified history, or replace a biologist, historian, ranger, or public review process.

Freedom to Walk Alone

“I might have become a millionaire, but I chose to become a tramp.”
John Muir, Son of the Wilderness

Throughout my career, I have declined opportunities that asked too much in return. I chose freedom: the freedom to follow my own interests, do my own work, and live by my own judgment.

I would rather walk alone than go along to get along. Conformity may bring approval, but it can demand silence, compromise, and the surrender of one’s own mind. I would rather keep my direction.

This pattern has returned in cycles. Eventually, the demands, expectations, and betrayals make it clear that the cycle is to be broken. The answer is to begin again, to walk away. That is not defeat. It is making room for quiet, honest work, and a life no longer arranged around the approval of others.

There is comedy in people who make whatever I do about them. If I create, compete, or promote what I believe in, they use it to excuse their own failures and inadequacies. That is their story, not mine.

My actions and motivations are my own. I am positive about what I produce, how I compete, and what I promote. I do good work, stand by it, and keep moving forward on my own feet.

That may not be the richest life by ordinary measures, but it is mine.

Crooks Avenue, Barstow, CA

Crooks Avenue lies northwest of the Casa del Desierto, in the narrow district between the railroad yard, North First Avenue, and the Mojave River. Though small, it belongs to an important part of Barstow’s history: the working ground around the depot.

The Casa del Desierto opened in 1911 as a Santa Fe depot and Harvey House. For many years, it served railroad passengers, workers, residents, and desert travelers. The first depot-hotel project included a recreation and lodging building for railroad employees. At the same time, the railroad realigned and raised its tracks, changing the grade and shape of the surrounding ground.

Crooks Avenue developed beside this railroad center rather than on Barstow’s principal commercial street. Main Street, to the south, carried the highway traffic that became Route 66. Crooks Avenue remained a local street, close to the depot, rail yard, and Mojave River, with modest homes, rental buildings, and open lots.

Its surviving buildings reflect gradual mid-twentieth-century development as Barstow continued to serve railroad families, highway travelers, and military traffic, and to support the growing desert region. The street’s character was practical rather than formal, formed by its position at the edge of the rail yard and riverbed.

Crooks Avenue is not Route 66, nor was it one of Barstow’s early commercial thoroughfares. Its value lies in what it reveals about ordinary Barstow: the side streets behind the landmark depot, where railroad work, housing, traffic, and the desert landscape converge.

Route 66

NOTR

Casa Del Desierto

Barstow

Mojave River

Calico Comes to Life (1881-1882)

When the Silver King Mine was discovered on April 6, 1881, there was no town at Calico. The colorful mountain overlooking Wall Street Canyon was already known by name, but only a handful of prospectors occupied the district.

Even by Independence Day, July 4, 1881, the future townsite contained no buildings. Wall Street Canyon had only a single cabin, with just two known residents in the district. Within days, Sam James began developing the Silver King Mine. After Sheriff John C. King leased the property and assays confirmed exceptionally rich ore worth $100 to $2,000 per ton, word spread rapidly across Southern California.

By late summer, prospectors arrived almost daily. One newspaper reported that claim notices and monuments covered nearly every promising outcrop. Prospecting parties were spreading in every direction across the surrounding mountains, limited only by the amount of water they could carry.

A business district soon appeared beneath the mines on a narrow mesa below Wall Street Canyon. The first establishments included three stores, a hay yard, and an assay office. Ten miners worked the Silver King Mine for $4 per day. Town lots were already being sold. Mrs. Hieronymous Hartman, the first woman to settle permanently in the camp, opened a boarding house. It quickly became the community’s social center. As one correspondent humorously observed, “Wall Street booming. No banks yet.”

Despite several promising discoveries during the autumn and winter of 1881, Calico remained a rough mining camp waiting for investment capital. Residents joked they were “waiting like Micawber for something to turn up.” Entertainment was scarce. The appearance of a mountain lion became a major event, prompting an organized hunt. As Christmas approached, Mrs. Hartman organized a holiday dinner. The menu was expected to consist mainly of beans and bacon because neither turkeys nor chickens were available.

Communication with the outside world remained unreliable. Mail arrived only sporadically, carried by stage from San Bernardino. Reflecting ongoing isolation, stage driver Aaron Harrison even offered to carry letters personally on his weekly trips. Local residents referred to San Bernardino and Los Angeles simply as “the inside,” emphasizing how isolated Calico remained.

Winter brought severe storms. High winds and heavy snowfall blocked roads across the desert, but mining continued. The Burning Moscow Mine employed seven or eight men. New buildings were under construction. The camp soon boasted a blacksmith shop, several stores, a barber’s assay office, boarding and lodging houses, and even a shooting gallery. The miners at Silver King had built themselves comfortable quarters overlooking the camp.

By early 1882, newspapers were confident that the excitement surrounding Calico would continue. Employment at the Silver King Mine increased to ten men, and the growing number of miners’ candles being shipped from San Bernardino suggested extensive underground development. Sheriff John C. King frequently visited San Bernardino carrying pockets full of rich silver specimens, while other investors proudly displayed high-grade ore from the district.

Yet Calico’s greatest challenge was isolation. The Southern Pacific Railroad pushed eastward across the Mojave Desert, but Calico still lacked a post office. Mail traveled hundreds of unnecessary miles through Rogers Station and Ivanpah before reaching the camp, even though the mail route passed only a few miles from town. Residents complained that letters, “worn out traveling back and forth in sight of camp,” often arrived a month late.

Transportation costs also slowed development. Freight from San Bernardino costs $25 per ton. The desert offered little timber, little game, almost no farmland, and scarce fuel. Creosote bushes and Mojave River cottonwoods provided only limited firewood. The river itself ran so low that one observer joked it produced only “steam.” Veteran miner S. D. Blade remarked bluntly that little could survive on the plains without hauling in supplies—”except land turtles, lizards, or an occasional jackrabbit.”

Despite these hardships, Calico continued to grow. The combination of extraordinarily rich silver ore and determined miners overcame the obstacles of distance, weather, and supply shortages, laying the foundation for what would become California’s greatest silver-mining town. Thus, Calico’s persistence amid adversity marked the beginning of its remarkable story.

The Early Harvey House and Casa del Desierto

Before the Casa del Desierto, Barstow featured a wooden railroad depot, restaurant, and hotel serving Santa Fe passengers. Authoritative historical accounts generally date this earlier complex to 1885. Later, Fred Harvey operated the railroad’s hotel and dining facilities at Barstow, preparing the foundation for the site’s future development.

A turning point occurred in 1908: a fire destroyed the wooden depot-hotel. By then, Barstow had grown to be more than just a stop; as an important railroad division point, it needed more than another temporary replacement. The Santa Fe Railway responded by commissioning a much larger and more permanent structure.

In 1911, builders opened the Casa del Desierto, combining a railroad station, a Harvey House restaurant, a hotel, and a community gathering place. The reinforced construction, broad arcades, towers, tile roofs, and thick walls sharply departed from the wooden building it replaced.

While the above sequence is well documented, several local histories report additional depot fires and reconstructions preceding the construction of the Casa del Desierto. Although this account appears plausible, no one has yet verified the chronology using primary-source documentation.

Made Sense

Beautiful memories of beautiful moments — I was there the day the valley floor was being painted. Each brushstroke was evenly pulled across the plain as the sun rose and the day grew warm. The colors covered everything with life. There were bugs and brightly detailed butterflies and the creatures that eat them. There were the diminutive blue and pink fairies that made it all worth living for, and meek mice, humble hares (although no one seems to remember one in particular), rats underground, and birds that flew higher than could be seen, and then there were the birds that flew in between.

Rats. Rats were everywhere–typically.

Ver (Latin)- very, new, truth, life, forward . . .
‘verdant’ meaning green and growing and ‘veritas’ or truth.

²⁴Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn, yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! ²⁵Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? ²⁶Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
— luke 12:24-26

Regional and Local Knowledge

Regional and local knowledge are not competitors—they are nested and interdependent.

To better understand this relationship, think of it as a hierarchy.

Local knowledge answers questions such as:

Who lived here?
Where was the spring?
Which road did they use?
What did people call this place?

In essence, local knowledge is intimate, detailed, and place-specific.

For example, someone in Lucerne Valley might know:

which ranch occupied a particular parcel,
where an old school stood,
How Rabbit Springs changed over time,
who built a specific road,
or where grinding slicks are found.

That knowledge may never have been published.

Regional knowledge asks a different question:

“How does Lucerne Valley fit into the Mojave Desert?”

It connects the local story to larger patterns.

For example:

Lucerne Valley was not simply a farming community.

Regional knowledge recognizes that it was:

part of the traditional homeland of the Serrano and Vanyume,
connected to the San Bernardino Mountains through seasonal travel,
influenced by nearby mining districts,
shaped by the Mojave River watershed,
linked to Cajon Pass and later highways,
affected by regional groundwater use,
and economically tied to Victor Valley and beyond.

Ultimately, the regional perspective explains why Lucerne Valley developed as it did.

Importantly, the relationship between local and regional knowledge works in both directions.

Local knowledge builds regional knowledge.

Imagine a thousand communities, springs, mines, ranches, and canyons.

Each contributes a piece of the puzzle.

Individual site       ↓Local history       ↓Community history       ↓Regional history       ↓Understanding the Mojave Desert

At the same time, regional knowledge also strengthens local knowledge.

Suppose someone finds an old wagon road near Newberry Springs.

A local historian can describe the road.

A regional historian may recognize it as:

part of the Mojave Road,
a branch of the Old Spanish Trail,
a military supply route,
a mining freight road,
or an early automobile route.

Without the regional context, the road is just an old road.

With the regional context, it becomes part of a much larger story.

This is why regional historians often act as connectors. They recognize that events separated by hundreds of miles are actually related.

For example:

A discovery in Holcomb Valley affects freight traffic through Cajon Pass.
That increases travel through Victor Valley.
This leads to the creation of new stations along the Mojave River.
This eventually influences settlement at Barstow.
Which changes transportation across the entire desert.

A local historian may document one link.

A regional historian explains the chain.

I think this is where your work naturally fits.

For instance, you’ve written local histories of places like Hesperia, Lucerne Valley, Newberry Springs, Ridgecrest, and Summit Valley. Yet your websites consistently connect those places to broader themes: Indigenous travel networks, the Mojave River, geology, mining booms, transportation corridors, military history, ecology, and settlement.

You’re not replacing local history; rather, you’re integrating it into the larger history of the Mojave Desert.

A useful way to express the relationship is:

Local knowledge tells us what makes a place unique. Regional knowledge explains why that place matters.

Neither is complete alone. Local knowledge gives detail; regional knowledge gives context. Together, they create a fuller understanding of the place and its larger landscape.

necessary gaps between the two

That’s an insightful question. There are necessary gaps between local and regional knowledge. If there weren’t, the two would simply be the same thing at different scales.

Those gaps are actually where much of the work of a regional historian takes place.

Some examples:

1. Scale

A local historian can know nearly everything about one town or valley.

A regional historian cannot know every detail of every community. Instead, they identify the details that matter beyond the local setting.

For example, a Lucerne Valley historian may know every schoolteacher, store owner, and election. A regional historian asks, “How did Lucerne Valley contribute to the development of the Mojave Desert?”

Some local details remain local—and that’s appropriate.

2. Perspective

Local knowledge often looks inward.

Regional knowledge looks outward.

Local:

“This spring supplied our community.”

Regional:

“This spring was one stop in a chain of water sources connecting the Colorado River to the San Gabriel Mountains.”

Both are true, but they answer different questions.

3. Completeness

No regional work can contain every local story.

If it tried, it would become an encyclopedia measured in hundreds of volumes.

Instead, regional knowledge abstracts.

It asks:

What is representative?
What changed the region?
What illustrates larger processes?

Many local details remain intentionally omitted because they do not change the regional picture.

4. Expertise

Local historians often possess knowledge unavailable anywhere else.

Regional historians rely upon them.

Conversely, local historians sometimes don’t see how their own community fits into larger patterns.

The relationship is complementary.

5. Interpretation

This is perhaps the largest gap.

Facts alone don’t create regional knowledge.

Someone must recognize relationships.

For example:

A local historian writes:

wagon road
spring
ranch
mining camp

A regional historian recognizes:

transportation corridor
watershed
settlement pattern
economic network

The same facts become a different understanding.

For your own work, I think there is another gap.

You often bridge disciplines.

A page about a canyon isn’t only about the canyon.

It’s also about:

its geology,
Native use,
exploration,
mining,
wildlife,
transportation,
photography,
and modern recreation.

That interdisciplinary connection is difficult to produce because few people work across all of those fields.

I sometimes think of it this way:

Facts   ↓Local knowledge   ↓Regional knowledge   ↓Regional understanding

Most people stop at facts.

Many historians stop at local knowledge.

Fewer people synthesize regional knowledge.

The rarest step is regional understanding—recognizing the forces that have shaped an entire landscape over centuries.

That’s where the enduring value of a regional reference lies. It doesn’t just preserve information; it helps readers see patterns that are invisible when viewed in isolation.