Daggett is an
unincorporated town
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
located in
San Bernardino County, California
San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is locat ...
, in the United States. The town is located on
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west transcontinental Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Southeastern United States, southeastern and Southwestern United States, southwestern portions of the United States. At a leng ...
, east of
Barstow, at an elevation of approximately . The town has a population of about 200. The
ZIP code is 92327 and the community is inside
area code 760
Area codes 760 and 442 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of California. These area codes serve an overlay complex that comprises much of the southeastern and southernmost portions of Califor ...
.
History
The town was founded in the 1880s just after the discovery of
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
in the mines near
Calico
Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...
to the north. In 1882, the
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...
with the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (Later
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996.
The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at vario ...
,
BNSF
BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that provide ...
) from
Mojave was being completed in the area and it was thought that a good name for the town would be Calico Junction. But this name would be too confusing since it was right next to Calico, where silver was discovered. It was decided to name the city after then
Lieutenant Governor of California
The lieutenant governor of California is the second highest Executive (government), executive officer of the government of the U.S. state of California. The Lieutenant governor (United States), lieutenant governor is elected to serve a four-yea ...
,
John Daggett during the spring of 1883. There were plans to make Daggett the main station of the area and to have a rail yard there to handle the heavy trains coming from the East, but due to the silver mining making the prices of land go too high, the ATSF moved to
Barstow and established the main rail station there. In 1903, the
San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad (later
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...
) also built their line from Las Vegas through Daggett to reach
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and East San Pedro by borrowing trackage of the ATSF through to Barstow to allow the servicing of their engines at the roundhouse located there.
Borax
The BORAX Experiments were a series of safety experiments on boiling water nuclear reactors conducted by Argonne National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s at the National Reactor Testing Station in eastern Idaho. was also important to Daggett's economy and the town's history. For two years, it was the terminal of the
Twenty-mule team
Twenty-mule teams were teams of eighteen mules and two horses attached to large wagons that transported borax out of Death Valley from 1883 to 1898. They traveled from mining, mines across the Mojave Desert to the nearest Rail transport, railr ...
run from
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth during summer.
Death Valley's Badwat ...
, but after one of their swampers, William Pitt, was lynched, the Pacific Borax Company changed the terminal to Mojave. Later on in 1891,
Francis Marion Smith
Francis Marion Smith (February 2, 1846 – August 27, 1931) was an American miner, business magnate and civic builder in the Mojave Desert, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Oakland, California. He was known nationally and internationally as " ...
the 'Borax King' moved to Daggett from Death Valley's
Harmony Borax Works
The Harmony Borax Works is located in Death Valley at Furnace Creek, California, Furnace Creek Springs, then called Greenland. It is now located within Death Valley National Park in Inyo County, California. It is on the National Register of His ...
to install mining operations at a borax mine called Borate, which was located about three miles east of Calico. This operation required many laborers to come and help, it was reported that
Pacific Coast Borax Company
The Pacific Coast Borax Company (PCB) was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis Smith, the "Borax King".
History
The roots of the Pacific Coast Borax Company lie in Mineral County, Nevada, east of ...
employed nearly 200 men to work in the mines. At first, the borax was hauled by the then-soon-to-be-famous
20 Mule Team
''20 Mule Team'' (also known as ''Twenty Mule Team'') is a 1940 American western film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Marjorie Rambeau, Anne Baxter and Wallace Beery, who appears with his nephew Noah Beery Jr. The film was originally ...
, but Smith sought to replace the mules with a cheaper, efficient means of transportation. The
Borate and Daggett Railroad was built in 1898 to take over the duty of hauling borax from the mules.
Daggett became quite a big city in the 1890s, boasting three stores, two restaurants, three saloons, three hotels, a lumberyard, and even a Chinese eating place. But after 1911 when richer borax deposits were discovered north of Daggett in
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth during summer.
Death Valley's Badwat ...
at the Lila C. Mines, all the mining operations were moved there, which caused Daggett to go into a steady decline which continues even to this day. Despite the establishment of the solar energy plants, Daggett still struggles to hang on to life. However, there are still some people who travel through the town to reach
Yermo, California
Yermo ( Spanish for "wilderness" or "wasteland") is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California. It is east of Barstow on Interstate 15, just south of the Calico Mounta ...
and Las Vegas today.
Airport
Daggett is close to the location of
Barstow-Daggett Airport
Barstow-Daggett Airport is a county-owned public airport in San Bernardino County, California, United States. It is east of Daggett and east of Barstow. Built in 1933, it is the oldest of the six airports operated by San Bernardino County. ...
. The facility is a
general aviation
General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...
airport serving the Barstow area. It is also the regional weather information center. The airport was built as a modification center for the
Douglas A-20 Havoc
The Douglas A-20 Havoc (company designation DB-7) is an American light bomber, attack aircraft, Intruder (air combat), night intruder, night fighter, and reconnaissance aircraft of World War II.
Designed to meet an Army Air Corps requirement for ...
bomber aircraft that were sent to Russia as part of the
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (),3,000 Hurricanes and >4,000 other aircraft)
* 28 naval vessels:
** 1 Battleship. (HMS Royal Sovereign (05), HMS Royal Sovereign)
* ...
program during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.
Education
Daggett is part of the
Silver Valley Unified School District.
Silver Valley High School is located at 35484 Daggett-Yermo Road.
Demographics
As of 2003, 1,000 people lived in and around Daggett, though nearly 1,500 live in the surrounding area. Only about 200 people actually live in the town.
Solar power generation
The world's first commercial
solar power
Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to c ...
plants, SEGS I (built in 1984) and SEGS II (built in 1985) of the
SEGS
Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) is a concentrated solar power plant in California, United States. With the combined capacity from three separate locations at 354 megawatt (MW), it was for thirty years the world's largest solar thermal e ...
network were located in Daggett.
Daggett was also home to a unique
solar thermal energy
Solar thermal energy (STE) is a form of energy and a technology for harnessing solar energy to generate thermal energy for use in Industrial sector, industry, and in the residential and commercial sectors. Solar thermal collectors are classified ...
plant named
Solar One, a
pilot project
A pilot experiment, pilot study, pilot test or pilot project is a small-scale preliminary study conducted to evaluate feasibility, duration, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research pr ...
which was operational from 1982 to 1986. The plant used mirror-like
heliostat
A heliostat
()
is a device that reflects sunlight toward a target, turning to compensate for the Sun's apparent motion.
The reflector is usually a plane mirror.
The target may be a physical object, distant from the heliostat, or a direct ...
s to aim sunlight at a collecting cylinder located on a
solar power tower
A solar power tower, also known as 'central tower' power plant or 'heliostat' power plant, is a type of solar furnace using a tower to receive focused sunlight. It uses an array of flat, movable mirrors (called heliostats) to focus the sun's ra ...
(a type of
solar furnace
A solar furnace is a structure that uses concentrated solar power to produce high temperatures, usually for industry. Parabolic mirrors or heliostats concentrate light ( Insolation) onto a focal point. The temperature at the focal point may ...
), through which oil flowed. The large quantity of sunlight reflected on the sphere superheated the oil, which was then used to create steam for power generation. The plant was upgraded in 1995 as part of the
Solar Two
The SOLAR Project consists of the Solar One, Solar Two and Solar Tres solar thermal power plants based in the Mojave Desert, United States and Andalucía, Spain. The US Department of Energy (DOE) and a consortium of US utilities built the coun ...
project. Solar Two substituted molten salt compounds instead of oil as an energy storage medium.
During calibration of the power plant's thousands of heliostats, a ball of glowing light was sometimes seen in the nearby area. This effect was caused by the heliostats focusing sunlight onto a specific point. As the intensity of the light increased, it reflected off dust in the desert air. This phenomenon was sometimes seen by passersby on nearby Interstate 40 and
15.
Solar Two was decommissioned in 1999, and the facility was converted in 2001 into a
gamma-ray astronomy
Gamma-ray astronomy is a subfield of astronomy where scientists observe and study celestial objects and phenomena in outer space which emit cosmic electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma rays,Astronomical literature generally hyphena ...
telescope. The facility is now known as
CACTUS
A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, ...
(Converted Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope Using Solar-2).
CACTUS, which is operated by the
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...
but owned by
Southern California Edison
Southern California Edison (SCE), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electric utility company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of approximate ...
,
operated from late 2004 until late 2005.
On November 25, 2009, the Solar Two tower was demolished. The site was leveled by Southern California Edison. All heliostats and other hardware were removed. Plans are in place to develop a training facility for Southern California Edison to train personnel on construction and maintenance of high power transmission lines and towers.
At the
Coolwater Generating Station (600 MW natural gas, decommissioned in 2015), a 482 MW
photovoltaic power station
A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...
with 394 MW of
battery
Battery or batterie most often refers to:
* Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power
* Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact
Battery may also refer to:
Energy source
* Battery indicator, a device whic ...
began construction in October 2021.
Railroads
Daggett is a station on the
BNSF Railway
BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...
on the
Needles Subdivision
Needle or Needles may refer to:
Crafting
* Crochet needle, a tool for making loops in thread or yarn
* Knitting needle, a tool for knitting, not as sharp as a sewing needle
* Sewing needle, a long slender tool with a pointed tip
* Trussing needle, ...
. Trains are frequent on the line as this line goes to Chicago. It is also a junction of the Cima subdivision of the
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...
, the former
Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad
The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah, and Los Angeles, California), via Las ...
, line from
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
, Utah via Las Vegas, Nevada. The Union Pacific runs via trackage rights on the BNSF and goes to Riverside, California.
Back in its heyday, Daggett had two narrow gauge railroads, the
Borate and Daggett Railroad and the
Waterloo Mining Railroad, both built to export silver and borax ore out of the Calico Mountains several miles north. Both were 3 ft gauge, and both were serviced by two steam locomotives each. After 1907, both of these railroads were closed down and abandoned due to the mining companies moving on to greener pastures found to the north in
Death Valley
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is thought to be the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth during summer.
Death Valley's Badwat ...
. The old railroad beds can still be traced in some places in the desert, but now most of the old grades have been paved over to support cars and off-road vehicles.
Cemetery
The Daggett Cemetery, which features graves dating back to the early 1900s, is located at .
In popular culture
Daggett appears in The Cardigans' video for "
My Favourite Game
"My Favourite Game" is an alternative rock song written by Peter Svensson and Nina Persson for Swedish band the Cardigans' fourth studio album, '' Gran Turismo'' (1998). The song is the album's eighth track and was released as its first single ...
". The 1940 movie ''
The Grapes of Wrath
''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award
and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...
'' used Daggett as a filming location.
Climate
According to the
Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
system, Daggett has a
semi-arid climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of se ...
, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps.
Climate Summary for Daggett, California
/ref> There is very little rainfall year-round and diurnal temperature variation
In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day.
Temperature lag
Temperature lag, also known as thermal inertia, is an important factor in diur ...
is high. In the winter, nights are often very cold while days are mildly cool. Meanwhile, summer nights are mildly warm while days can be extremely hot.
References
Further reading
* Van Dyke, Dix; Wild, Peter (editor) (1997). ''Daggett: Life in a Mojave Frontier''. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 183. (print and on-line)
** Reviewed by: Steeples, Douglas (April 1, 2000, copyright Summer 2008)
"''Daggett: Life in a Mojave Frontier Town''
" ''Montana: The Magazine of Western History''. Montana Historical Society. and Yardley, Jonathan. (December 17, 1997)
"Desert Solitaire; A Quirky Chronicle of Life in the Mojave"
''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
''. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive was an online subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company, The Washington Post Company, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, United States. WPNI operated washingtonpost.com, the website of the Washington Post, as well ...
.
{{authority control
Populated places in the Mojave Desert
Unincorporated communities in San Bernardino County, California
Unincorporated communities in California