Vidal, California
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Vidal, California is a small
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 ...
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 ...
on
U.S. Route 95 U.S. Route 95 (US 95) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway System, United States Highway in the western United States. It travels through the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Idaho, staying inland ...
, north of
Blythe, California Blythe () is a city in eastern Riverside County, California, United States. It is in the Palo Verde Valley of the Lower Colorado River Valley region, an agricultural area and part of the Colorado Desert along the Colorado River, approximatel ...
, United States and south of Needles. The town is west of the townsite of Earp, California and west of
Parker, Arizona Parker (Mojave language, Mojave 'Amat Kuhwely, formerly 'Ahwe Nyava) is the county seat of La Paz County, Arizona, La Paz County, Arizona, United States, on the Colorado River in Parker Valley. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, ...
on State Highway 62. The community, which is two miles (3 km) north of the Riverside County line, lies at an elevation of above sea level. Vidal is from the city (and county seat) of San Bernardino, making it the second-farthest town in the county from the county seat behind Earp.
Wyatt Earp Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman in the American West, including Dodge City, Kansas, Dodge City, Wichita, Kansas, Wichita, and Tombstone, Arizona, Tombstone. Earp was involved in the gunfight ...
spent the last winters of his life in Vidal, working claims of gold and copper he found nearby; the aforementioned townsite of Earp is located in and around those claims. During the late 1960s, Vidal was home to Solar Lodge, a
secret society A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence ag ...
located four miles (6 km) south of the town center. The Lodge owned all of the businesses in the town during their time there, but left the area after several members were arrested for child abuse, in a case that became famous as " The Boy in the Box". On February 5, 1979, a
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 Railroad classes, Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight tra ...
train derailed 17 cars in the middle out of 74 cars two miles (3.2 km) west of Vidal. According to the railroad, five tankers ruptured. The spillage of residual
fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil (bunker fuel), marine f ...
was disposed of through burning, and the railroad intended to send pumps to the site. The ZIP code for both Vidal and nearby Vidal Junction is 92280 and the
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 ...
.


Weather

Average temperatures in Vidal range in January from to , and July average temperatures range from to a high of . The highest temperature ever recorded in Vidal was in 1905, when the temperature reached . The lowest recorded temperature was in 1911, when a low of was recorded. The part of the
Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It ...
where Vidal is located receives very little rainfall in a normal year. On average, Vidal Junction receives just of precipitation per year, with July and January averaging just 0.27 and , respectively.


Structures in Vidal

These are images of the structures in the ghost town of Vidal.


External links


Wyatt Earp's Cottage
- Vidal, California


References

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Local Weather
Communities in the Lower Colorado River Valley Populated places in the Sonoran Desert Unincorporated communities in San Bernardino County, California Unincorporated communities in California {{SanBernardinoCountyCA-geo-stub