A Mojave hot spot again

More than 70 years ago, the Kelso Depot was the social hot spot for lonely miners and train workers eking out a living in the desolate Mojave Desert.

In the depot basement, they played pool or read F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the reading room. On the first floor, they hung out at the lunch counter, known as the Beanery, downing 10-cent cups of coffee and $2 T-bone steaks. Celebrities such as Douglas Fairbanks, riding the Union Pacific from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, occasionally sidled into the depot to stretch their legs.

Today, six months after the completion of a $5.1-million renovation, the depot is once again drawing big crowds -- as many as 300 visitors a day on weekends -- eager to relive its heydays through exhibits, photos and film clips. The California Mission-style building now operates as the information center for the Mojave National Preserve.

Cowboy poets, a Mojave spirit run, a field trip through lupine and lava beds, and a desert star party are part of the depot’s reopening festivities Saturday. Along the way, visit the nearby Kelso Dunes, a 600-foot-tall geological phenomenon that emits an eerie boom when sand grains slide downhill.

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Hugo Martin

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Kelso Depot Grand Opening, 35 miles south of Baker. (From Interstate 15, exit on South Kelbaker Road and drive south for 35 miles; from I-40, exit on Kelbaker and drive north for 22 miles.) 10 a.m. Saturday. Free. (760) 252-6101.