Kelso (California)
| Kelso | |||
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 The Kelso freight yard |
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| Location in California | |||
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| Basic data | |||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | California | ||
| Coordinates : | 35 ° 1 ′ N , 115 ° 39 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Pacific ( UTC − 8 / −7 ) | ||
| Height : | 648 m | ||
| Postal code : | 92309 | ||
| Area code : | +1 760 | ||
| FIPS : | 06-38058 | ||
| GNIS ID : | 244232 | ||
 Restored restaurant in the train station |
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Kelso is a ghost town in San Bernardino County in southeastern California . It is located in the Mojave National Preserve , a nature reserve in the Mojave Desert . In the eastern part of the protected area, the restored Kelso Depot freight yard is located at the intersection of the two most important park roads, Kelbaker Road and Kelso Cima Road, and now serves as a visitor center .
history
The city was founded in 1906 with the completion of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad (later Union Pacific Railroad ) that ran through the Mojave Desert and was named after John Kelso, a warehouse worker who lived there at the time. The construction of a freight station in the middle of a deserted desert was created against the background of a subsequent slope to the Cima hill. Since the steam locomotives in service at the time could not cope with the difference in altitude on their own, a station with stationed auxiliary locomotives and capacities to collect water was required.
In 1923 the railway company began building a new station building with overnight and washrooms for railway employees, a new telegraph office and a waiting room for passengers. When the Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana began mining iron ore in the nearby Vulcan Mine in 1942 and had around 2,500 tons of ore transported daily from Kelso to the steelworks in Fontana, Kelso, with around 2,000 residents, was at the height of its short history . Due to the high sulfur content, Fontana stopped the transport shortly after the Second World War and the steam locomotives, which had now been replaced by diesel locomotives, soon made the freight station unnecessary. Kelso then experienced a rapid decline and degenerated into a ghost town in the 1950s.
The freight yard lasted until 1985, but was finally closed by the Union Pacific Railroad due to a lack of profitability . Local citizens, the administrators of the East Mojave National Scenic Area and Congressman Jerry Lewis then prevented the planned demolition of the former station building. In 1992, the Bureau of Land Management acquired the freight yard for the symbolic price of one US dollar and began a thorough renovation of the building. Today it is the main information center of the Mojave National Preserve.
