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THE STORY
In the mid 1800s, a community formed on the banks of the Mojave River. An upside down and backward water way. Flowing North from the San Bernardino Mountains, now Lake Arrowhead and mostly below the surface of the hot and dry desert.
Silver mines in the range North, Calico Mountains, almost two days away by oxen and wagon supplied ore for the mills and shipment from the area.
When the price of silver dropped, the product was changed to soda ash, and travel now was by rail from the north.
Town fathers heard of the rail service expanding and to build a terminal. Their plan was to provide the land and to charge the rail company an arm and a leg.
The rail company would have no part of that and moved up river to an area known as The Fish Ponds, naming this new community after William Barstow Strong, the then President of Santa Fe Railroad.
The town of Daggett as you can imagine, would just about dry-up and blow away, without the rail business and milling that it brought.
Autos however now traveling the new and dusty byway, Highway 66, did bring some new life; gas stations, motels, cafes and groceries were now available to those brave soles making the trek both east and west through the Mojave Desert.
As time would pass and the travel along Route 66 increased, the California Freeway system arrived and Interstate 40 replaced the old two lane Route 66 and the small communities along its way would dry-up and again be blown away into the history books.
Our community of Daggett does have its Post Office and a mom & pop convenience store, saving the locals a trip of 15 miles to Barstow for a bottle of milk or a six pac, as our thirst would require.
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