Exploring Mojave
Odometer 63746 miles
Tuesday
11/20/18
Mojave, CA
Rest, like we really need it huh? Well we didn't say we needed it- we just want it. We are staying an extra day in the Sierra Trails RV park in Mojave to do some exploring. We want to check out California City, and the Red Rock Canyon State Park.
California City is a city that was incorporated back in 1965 by real estate developer Nat Mendelsohn. Nat purchased 80,000 acres of land with the idea of master-planning a showcase city, which he hoped would grow to eclipse the other great cities of California.
All the roads above are graded out in perfect order of where they were to be, stretching out miles and miles from where the kernel of the city was started! An incredible undertaking. Today California City is ranked the 331st largest city, with a population of 14,000, however by size it is the 3rd largest city in California, and the 11 largest in the United States.
Nathan Mendelsohn was born in Czechoslovakia in 1915 and came to the US with his parents in 1920. He became very well educated and taught at Columbia University, where he became fascinated with rural sociology, especially structures of towns and villages. He left the university to go west and become a land developer. He worked for, and with, several large developers as Los Angeles spilled northward. Eventually he was able to purchase 80,000 acres from the M&R Ranch near Boron. The ranch already had 11 water wells that seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of water. He hired a team of the best planners and city experts he could find and together they developed California City, marketing the first properties in 1958.
A flood of speculators lined up to buy lots at more than $3,000 per lot. Some days sales totaled more than a $500,000 by noon. Unfortunately the industry that Mendelsohn had expected, never materialized. By 1990 only 6,500 purchasers had built in Cal City. Today the population is listed at 13, 972, but since the industry, bastions of higher education, shopping meccas, and indeed the skyscrapers, never came to be, the population has grown only slightly year to year. In 1969 Mendelsohn sold the development to Great Western United Corp., a Denver based sugar and mining company, and he moved on to other developments. He died in 1984 at a resort community he had founded in Texas. Will California City someday become larger than LA- who can say...They're certainly ready.
From California City, Joan and I headed north up to Red Rock State Park, as we'd heard reports on the beautiful rock formations.
The reports were not an exaggeration, the formations are magnificent. One can't help but be reminded of Grecian columns. We walked the trail around this majestic cliff watching the colors change in the long rays of the afternoon sun.
One other thing of note about this area is that they have lots of solar and wind power up here. Look carefully in the first aerial photo and you can see at least two extremely large solar arrays. We are told there are at least 9 of these arrays and they provide more than 354 Mega Watts of power to the grid.
Tomorrow it's back to the trail again- on to Arizona!
Your traveling friends
Jeff and Joan
PS- See that oval track in the first aerial photo above? It belongs to Honda R&D -it's their test track! Lots of really cool stuff going on up here.
Tuesday
11/20/18
Mojave, CA
 |
| Sierra Trails RV Park |
Rest, like we really need it huh? Well we didn't say we needed it- we just want it. We are staying an extra day in the Sierra Trails RV park in Mojave to do some exploring. We want to check out California City, and the Red Rock Canyon State Park.
California City is a city that was incorporated back in 1965 by real estate developer Nat Mendelsohn. Nat purchased 80,000 acres of land with the idea of master-planning a showcase city, which he hoped would grow to eclipse the other great cities of California.
Sierra Trails RV where we are, is represented by the blue dot on the lower left of the photo above. You can see the banner that says "California City" and the development around it. but what you can't see is that the city has been platted to go from Hwy 14 near us all the way to highway 395 some 30 MILES to the east of hwy 14 !! All in all it incorporates 186.5 square miles of desert
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| Future roads and streets in California City |
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| Nat Mendelsohn |
Nathan Mendelsohn was born in Czechoslovakia in 1915 and came to the US with his parents in 1920. He became very well educated and taught at Columbia University, where he became fascinated with rural sociology, especially structures of towns and villages. He left the university to go west and become a land developer. He worked for, and with, several large developers as Los Angeles spilled northward. Eventually he was able to purchase 80,000 acres from the M&R Ranch near Boron. The ranch already had 11 water wells that seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of water. He hired a team of the best planners and city experts he could find and together they developed California City, marketing the first properties in 1958.
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| Welcome Sign at California City |
From California City, Joan and I headed north up to Red Rock State Park, as we'd heard reports on the beautiful rock formations.
 |
| Parked at one of several trail heads in Red Rock Canyon |
The reports were not an exaggeration, the formations are magnificent. One can't help but be reminded of Grecian columns. We walked the trail around this majestic cliff watching the colors change in the long rays of the afternoon sun.
One other thing of note about this area is that they have lots of solar and wind power up here. Look carefully in the first aerial photo and you can see at least two extremely large solar arrays. We are told there are at least 9 of these arrays and they provide more than 354 Mega Watts of power to the grid.
Tomorrow it's back to the trail again- on to Arizona!
Your traveling friends
Jeff and Joan
PS- See that oval track in the first aerial photo above? It belongs to Honda R&D -it's their test track! Lots of really cool stuff going on up here.
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