Death Valley Junction, more commonly known as Amargosa ( Spanish for "Bitter"), is a tiny

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Inyo County,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, at the intersection of SR 190 and SR 127, in the

Amargosa Valley The Amargosa Valley is the valley through which the Amargosa River flows south, in Nye County, southwestern Nevada and Inyo County in the state of California. The south end is alternately called the "Amargosa River Valley'" or the "Tecopa Valley ...

and just east of

Death Valley National Park Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California–Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park boundaries include Death Valley, the northern section of Panamint Valley, the southern section of Eurek ...

. The zip code is 92328, the elevation is , and the population is fewer than four people. Death Valley Junction is home to the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel, where resident

Marta Becket Marta Becket (August 9, 1924 – January 30, 2017) born Martha Beckett, was an American actress, dancer, choreographer and painter. She performed for more than four decades at her own theater, the Amargosa Opera House in Death Valley Junctio ...

staged

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

and

mime Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Message ...

shows from the late 1960s until her last show in February 2012. Becket died in 2017. The hotel is still operating next to the opera house, but beyond these maintained areas, the town is in a state of disrepair. There is no gas station, and only one restaurant, the Amargosa Cafe. The town is owned by the non-profit Amargosa Opera House Inc. which runs the Opera House, Hotel, and cafe The community's location, east-southeast of Furnace Creek, on the east side of

Death Valley Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is the hottest place on Earth. Death Valley's Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in Nort ...

is south of Nevada's

and near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. East/South East, 27 miles, is

Pahrump, Nevada Pahrump ( ) is an unincorporated town located at the southernmost tip of Nye County, Nevada, United States, about west of Las Vegas, Nevada. Pahrump lies adjacent to the Nevada–California border and the area had a population of 44,738 as of ...

. South on SR127 is the town of Shoshone, California. The closest straight-line distance to the

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

state line is roughly five miles northeast. Government documents show an effort by the Timbisha Shoshone tribal government to acquire about in the area during 1999 to 2000. This includes areas for residences and the official federal sanction to use some government lands for traditional ceremonies. In 2017 the tribe constructed a cannabis grow facility on the land.

History

The town was created in 1907 when the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad was constructed through the Amargosa Valley and a spur from their main line was built to the Lila C. borax mine in the hills to the west. The town was originally owned by Robert Tubb, who operated a saloon, store, and brothel. The town first appears on the 1910 Furnace Creek Quandrangle USGS topographic map. In 1914, the

Death Valley Railroad The Death Valley Railroad (DVRR) was a narrow gauge railroad that operated in California's Death Valley to carry borax with the route running from Ryan, California and the mines at Lila C, both located just east of Death Valley National Park, ...

started operating between Ryan, California and Death Valley Junction. It carried

borax Borax is a salt (ionic compound), a hydrated borate of sodium, with chemical formula often written . It is a colorless crystalline solid, that dissolves in water to make a basic solution. It is commonly available in powder or granular form ...

until 1928, when operations ceased. From 1923 to 1925 the Pacific Coast Borax Company constructed buildings in the town, hiring architect

Alexander Hamilton McCulloch Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

to design a Spanish Colonial Revival

whistle stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, s ...

centered at the hotel, theater and office complex building, now known as the Amargosa Opera House and Hotel. The town began to decline in the mid-20th century. However, in 1967 dancer and actress Marta Becket happened to visit due to an automobile repair. She became enamored with the theater, and with help from benefactors, she leased, then purchased, the hotel and theater complex. The Death Valley post office opened in 1908 and transferred to Furnace Creek Ranch in 1961. The Amargosa post office opened in 1962, changed its name to Death Valley Junction in 1968. In 1980 the town was included in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

as the "Death Valley Junction Historic District." When the

was established in 1914, it used of tracks belonging to the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad east-southeast of Death Valley Junction to Horton.

Telephone history

Local wired telephones were manual telephone service until the 1980s. To reach a phone in Death Valley Junction when the area was under manual service required dialing the operator and asking for "Death Valley Junction, California, Toll Station" (and the one-digit number). Placing an outbound call required lifting the receiver and waiting for an operator. The operator who answered was in Los Angeles (over 150 miles away). Death Valley Junction is now in

area codes 442 and 760 Area code 760 is a California telephone area code that was split from area code 619 on March 22, 1997. Area code 442 is an overlay of 760 that became effective on November 21, 2009. It encompasses much of the southeastern and southernmost porti ...

Politics

In the

state legislature A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...

, Death Valley Junction is in , and . Federally, Death Valley Junction is in .

Notable people

*"Shotgun" Kitty Tubb - wife of the original owner of the town, Robert Tubb *

- retired actress, dancer, choreographer and painter *Harry Rosenberg - engineer who was instrumental in creating useful alloys of titanium

References

Notes

External links

The town that Zane Grey helped buildThe Amargosa Opera House and Hotel
* ttps://books.google.ca/books?id=lFUEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA42#v=onepage LIFE Magazine Apr. 17, 1970 {{Authority control Populated places in the Mojave Desert Unincorporated communities in Inyo County, California Amargosa Desert Death Valley National Park Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in Inyo County, California Unincorporated communities in California