Death Valley Junction, more commonly known as Amargosa (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

for "Bitter"), is a tiny

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

unincorporated community 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 ...

Inyo County Inyo County () is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County is ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, 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 California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies ...

and just east of

Death Valley National Park Death Valley National Park is a national park of the United States 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 sect ...

. 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 staged

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

and

mime A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek language, Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a the ...

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. It is thought to be the Highest temperature recorded on Earth, hottest place on Earth during summer. Death Valley's Badwat ...

is south of Nevada's

and near

Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is a protected wildlife refuge located in the Amargosa Valley of southern Nye County, in southwestern Nevada. It is directly east of Death Valley National Park, and is west-northwest of Las Vegas.

. East/South East, 27 miles, is

Pahrump, Nevada Pahrump ( ) is an Unincorporated towns in Nevada, unincorporated town located at the southernmost tip of Nye County, Nevada, United States, about west of Las Vegas (roughly an hour away by driving distance). Pahrump lies adjacent to the Nevada ...

. South on SR127 is the town of

Shoshone, California Shoshone is a census-designated place (CDP) in Inyo County, California, United States. The population was 22 at the 2020 census, down from 31 at the 2010 census. The town was founded in 1910. Although small, it is notable as a southern gateway ...

. The closest straight-line distance to the

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

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 railway, 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 Deat ...

started operating between

Ryan, California Ryan (also known as Ryan Camp) is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California that is now privately owned and stewarded by thDeath Valley Conservancy A former mining community, company town, and seasonal hotel, it is now under care ...

and Death Valley Junction. It carried

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.

until 1928, when operations ceased. From 1923 to 1925 the

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 ...

constructed buildings in the town, hiring architect Alexander Hamilton McCulloch to design a

Spanish Colonial Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish architecture in general. Thes ...

whistle stop In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a bus stop, stop or train station, 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 drop ...

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. In 1967 dancer and actress Marta Becket visited 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 Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

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

was established in 1914, it used of tracks belonging to the

Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad The Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad was a former class II railroad that served eastern California and southwestern Nevada. The railroad was built mainly to haul borax from Francis Marion Smith's Pacific Coast Borax Company mines located just eas ...

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 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 Californ ...

Politics

In the

state legislature A state legislature is a Legislature, legislative branch or body of a State (country subdivision), political subdivision in a Federalism, federal system. Two federations literally use the term "state legislature": * The legislative branches of ...

, 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 * Marta Becket – 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.com/books?id=lFUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA42 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