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Old 05-27-2010, 07:47 PM
opoefc opoefc is offline
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David, Actually Barstow was a wide open town during WW2 with the various military basis around that area and probably had upwards of 25,000 residents in the area. In 1948 it was suffering from the depression of many small towns that had rapidly grown due to WW2 & the military, so when the military left, there was a lot of vacant buildings, etc. however it's "night life" was well known to the old timers in DV. I was there in 1948 as part of an Army unit surveying the Camp Irwin location ( Now Ft. Irwin) for possible use as a Calif. Nat'l Guard training base. The most nefarious waterhole was called "The Riverbottom" and was a dance hall, saloon & whore house located in the river bottom, just a few blocks north of the center of town. That's where my cousin took me to meet Scotty and several other old time DV prospecters & desert characters with whom he was well acquainted ( Seldon Seen Slim, Shorty Harris, etc. ) In 1951, the Army assigned me to Camp Irwin as an instructor, so I was able to spend some fun time exploring all the nooks and corners of DV with my military assigned Jeep (and Yes, you can get a Jeep stuck in the sand & rocks, regardless of 4WD. I wore out many shovels proving it!) maybe I should have borrowed one of those 20 mule teams! Mules don't get stuck, however they are a little slower than Jeeps on flat terrain. DV Scotty was a fun guy. When he came to town with some cash in his pocket, everbody he knew went on a binge with Scotty until the money ran out. I never met Al Johnson, although I stopped at "The Castle" several times to fill up the water jugs, etc. Later in the 70s, I stopped at the AmPot HQ in Trona to see if anyone knew anything about the two RMs, but drew a blank. Ed #15
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