FREE CAMPGROUNDS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

This town is very Boondocker friendly but it does have a
mobile home park that offers overnight accommodations.

Daggett was founded in the 1860s. Origanally it was called
Calico Junction but renamed after John Daggett in 1883 to
avoid being mistaken for the town of Calico, her big sister
to the north. Daggett was instrumental in the processing of
gold and silver that was mined in the surrounding hills.
To read more about the History of Daggett CLICK HERE



The Desert Market was built after a fire in 1908 destroyed
the General Supply Store. It is one of the many landmarks
that is left over from the days of "early" California.



The People's General Store and the Stone Hotel next door to
the Market are boarded up and all fenced in waiting, like
so many other empty buildings along the Route 66, for some-
one to fix them up and breathe some new life into them.
One of the relics from the Mother Road era is the Ski Lodge
Roof House. Built as a Visitor Information Center/Service
Station in 1926, it is now a private home but you can get
a good view of it from the Old Route 66.



To the east of town are the Renewable Energy Projects;



Solar Energy Generation Station I and II plus the Cool Wa-
ter Gasification Program. You can see the solar colletors
from miles away and the mysterious reflection of the sun in
these collectors creates a pair of star-like lights in the
desert sky that attracted Jasmin, one of the caracters in the
movie Bagdad Cafe (see Newberry Springs page) to this area.



Also east of town is the Daggett Pioneer Cemetery. For me it
was truly a walk through history. Most wooden crosses were
so weathered from all those years in the desert sun that it
is no longer possible to decipher the names of the people
who rest there. Some of the monuments made from stone, how-
ever, show dates as far back as the 1870s. The cemetery is
still very much in use. Someone in the neighboring Newberry
Springs told me that he had just been to a funeral at this
cemetery not too long ago.