Railroad Riders Revisit Historic Roadside Restaraunt

Baker, Calif., with its fast food restaurants and Route 66-style motels is the last semblance of 'civilization' when you exit I-15 into Mojave National Preserve. Narrow, two-lane Kelbaker Road winds its way south through vast desert lands, where rugged mountain ranges float atop dry lake beds, monstrous bajadas, or giant alluvial fans, touching blue sky on the distant horizon.

Thirty miles down the road, where the bajadas meet, a lone Spanish-style building appears along railroad tracks, very out of place in this mix of cholla and Joshua trees.

KELSO DEPOT REVISITED

Photo courtesy Wynne Benti Reproduction of the original Kelso Depot sign.

On March 25, more than 600 people gathered here at Kelso Depot to celebrate its dedication as the official visitor center for Mojave National Preserve. In addition to celebrating the dedication, visitors were also celebrating the renovation of this historic Mojave landmark.

Twenty years ago, the depot was a crumbling, decrepit, vandalized shell of its past glory days-a liability to its owner (Union Pacific) and in danger of being torn down. At the same time, the serene desert landscape surrounding it, then the Eastern Mojave National Scenic Area, was about to become the subject of one of the most contentious public land management disputes of the 20th century. This fight put many Angeles Chapter members on the front lines.

A DESERT TOWN IS BORN

Named in 1904, Kelso was one of several working sidings along Union Pacific's Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. The first depot, built in 1905, was a small clapboard building and lunch counter that provided meals to railroad workers and passenger trains. Steam-powered 'helper' locomotives housed at Kelso assisted trains up the steep, 2-percent, 28-mile Cima grade.

Kelso's original lunch room burned down in 1922. Fire determined the priority in which Union Pacific built its depots, so plans were drawn to build a mission revival-style depot at Kelso to compete with Santa Fe's depots. In 1924 the lushly landscaped Kelso Depot reopened.

A huge decline in rail traffic during the Depression took a toll on the Kelso work force, of nearly 1200. Transportation of troops and supplies during World War II reinvigorated the town for a time.

In the 1950s, when diesel-powered engines replaced steam locomotives, helper operations at Kelso ceased as well. Around the same time, the first tourists stumbled upon the Kelso lunch counter. Despite its remote location and lack of public facilities, it became a popular destination.

By this time, the depot was already in need of major restoration just to meet basic California health and safety codes. Union Pacific decided it would be cheaper simply to close its doors in 1985.

THE SANDS SWIRL AROUND KELSO

Shortly after Kelso Depot closed, Union Pacific's attorney received a call from Marie Brashears, representing a group of concerned desert organizations, asking that Kelso Depot not be torn down. The California Desert Protection League, led by the Sierra Club, was already at work preparing legislation in response to land management policies damaging to the desert.

Interior Secretary James Watt attacked environmental programs and gutted policies that once protected public lands. Some had the foresight to see that the desert would not always stay the same, but few could predict that 20 years later housing tracts would spread across its fragile ecosystem. Now more than 30 million people are just a day's drive from the preserve.

Management of public lands is often a contentious and controversial debate. When Senator Alan Cranston introduced the California Desert Protection Act in 1986, the debate began in earnest. Environmentalists, mining corporations, ranchers, off-road vehicle users, and local citizens on all ends of the land use issue rallied at hearings from Barstow to Beverly Hills.

There was one thing every group agreed upon-Kelso Depot must be preserved. The Kelso Depot Fund, one of the first groups formed to save the depot, was chaired by Chapter member Eldon Hughes. In 1986, he and Patty Carpenter organized a fund-raising party on an Amtrak train, the first passenger train to stop at Kelso in 20 years.

Hughes suggested early on that Kelso serve as a visitor center.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-San Bernardino), who cut the ribbon at Kelso's dedication, was actually opposed to the creation of Mojave National Park. But to save Kelso, Lewis visited Union Pacific lobbyists in Washington and in 1991 obtained $1.3 million dollars for the Kelso Depot Project. John Jarvis, head of National Park Service's Pacific-West region said at the depot's dedication: 'I've seen a lot of places like Kelso in my career. I know that when the community wants it to happen and when they have the strong support of a member of Congress, and the commitment of other park agencies, it can succeed.'

In 1994, Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act, thus creating Mojave National Preserve. When financing came through in 1997, plans were drawn and renovation began on Kelso.

James Woolsey, who worked as a field ranger in Mojave before taking his current post as Chief of Interpretation, ate lunch at Kelso as a child. The challenges he and his team faced over the next few years included converting the restored lunch room into a working restaurant, finding nearby housing for staff (there is a shortage in Baker and many must travel from Barstow) and maintenancing the depot building and grounds.

The dedication of Kelso Depot signifies a new chapter in the history of Mojave and the depot.