Cantil - still thriving

 Back in February, I wrote a piece concerning a little town that no longer exists.

The name of this place was Saltdale. This town once existed in the Mojave Desert, on the edges of the now dry Koehn Lake. It was one of those stories that made me ponder as I walked across the mucky semi-wet salt beds checking out this abandoned house and that sinking structure in the salt.

Often I travel with my beautiful wife, Laureen, or perhaps with my buddy Paul, on these adventures. But many times I travel alone, this was one of those times.

As I stood alone, looking out across the vast stretches of land that lay before me, I could almost hear machinery running, vehicles driving here and there, people talking, and children playing. 

It was surreal. 

Recently, I received an email from a wonderful young lady by the name of Becky Gallen who had read the piece and enjoyed it.

That piqued my interest right away – she liked my story. A writer’s dream – someone who enjoyed what I wrote. 

Turns out that another small town, that still has a few residents, is just six miles to the west of the Saltdale I wrote about. It was once a thriving town of families, businesses, and the like – by the name of Cantil.

Cantil is an unincorporated community located in Kern County in the Fremont Valley.

Becky informed me that her 95-year-old mother still lived in Cantil – in the house that she and her husband, Bill, shared.

Like many small towns located across the vast Mojave Desert, there doesn’t appear to be much to see. But when a person looks closer, there is.

What I learned after briefly communicating with Becky reinforced what I had assumed about these small towns: some gone with the wind and some barely hanging on, were once vibrant communities with fascinating citizens.

Becky had shown my article about Saltdale to her mother. Becky’s mother told her that more than once over the years someone would drive out into the wet and mucky surface on Koehn Lake and get their vehicles stuck, hopelessly stuck.

Koehn Lake

I knew the feeling, since I had nearly lost a boot in the muck on my visit, and I don’t quite weigh as much as a pick-up truck – thank you Nutri-System.

The two communities of Saltdale and Cantil were linked with all the salt production occurring in and near Koehn Lake.

Of course, when the mining panned out so did Saltdale. Cantil is still viable, though not as thriving as it had once been.

Cantil was founded as a railroad station for the Nevada and California Railroad Company back in either 1908 or 1909. More tracks were needed from Owens Lake to Mojave to deliver minerals and other goods being mined or produced in the Owens Valley for consumers to the ever-growing town of Los Angeles.

Since it was the custom for railroads to follow the alphabet when naming stations, it was the letter C’s turn.

“Let’s call it Cansas,” one railroader suggested.

“No,” replied another worker. “How about Cornswabble?”

The lead railroader shook his head. “We’ll call it Cantil. After all the red cliffs we see in the nearby mountains which remind me of the time I spent in Spain.”

“Show off,” a railroad hobo stated from beneath a cattle car.

So, Cantil was off and running.

When I visited Saltdale, I was moved to write about it - nothing there but a large dry lake with lots of muck to sink into among the dilapidated buildings and other structures.

At first, I thought there wasn’t a story to be written, but I was wrong. People survived, thrived, and enjoyed living here. 

As they did in the neighboring town of Cantil.

In fact, Cantil and many other small communities played a major role in providing water and other goods for travelers across the Mojave Desert.

In a government publication, Routes To Desert Watering Places In The Mohave Desert Region, California, dated 1921, there is a section which show the importance of such a guide would be for those adventurers.

‘Four Roads come in on right (southeast) from Cantil (1.5 miles) and on left (northwest) from Redrock Canyon. Just beyond, cross old railroad grade. 26.9 Koehn and Cane Spring. Water at ranch house.’

When a place can supply water to a thirsty person, it is on the map!

Most of the towns I visit in the hinterlands are ghost towns. Of course, I have never actually seen any ghosts in these towns - a strange sensation or a sound I can’t quite recognize, but no white sheets floating effortlessly through the air giving me the heebie-jeebies.

Per Merriam-Webster, a ghost town was once a flourishing town wholly or nearly deserted usually as a result of the exhaustion of some natural resource.

In the cases of both Saltdale and Cantil, that would be mainly the production of salt. It ran out and so did most of the town life.

Turns out, the small burg of Cantil had a lot of life at one time.

Becky shared a book her mother published in 2021, ‘From Sunrise to Sunset,’ about her life while living in Cantil.

Cantil never grew into a hustling-bustling cosmopolitan city. No, it was a small place but with the other small communities nearby like Saltdale, Mojave, and Randsburg, it was a busy place.

Neighbors would come from all over for holidays, special events, and other festivities and fill the town with laughter and joy.

I liked that. I liked the fact that I was actually able to touch the soul of those folks who had lived in such places. Sometimes traveling as I do in remote areas, I do not get to see what came before, and am stuck looking across at what is no longer.

When I drove through Cantil, I saw houses half-buried in sand, abandoned and left to the brutality of time.

These homes were once part of Rancho Seco, but locals knew the place as Jack Rabbit Acres. It had been a large ranch with employees living in apartments not far from the homes I had seen sinking into the sand. 

The ranch was eventually abandoned and some sheep herders brought in their flocks who ate away the grass to the level of the ground. Combine that with the harsh winds, the topsoil soon was gone, leaving just a sandy floor.

Not far away is Red Rock School. It sits behind a chain link fence nowadays. Desks and chairs sitting out in the yard. No classes, no students, no teachers, and no tardy bells.

The school was built in 1918, expanded in 1937 and again in 1965, for the growing number of students coming in from the nearby communities.

The school closed its doors in 2008. There are continuing discussions with the school board about its ultimate future.

Walking through a couple of streets, I noticed houses with people in the yards taking care of this or that.

I did not bother them. I was a stranger, and they were doing what they were doing. It did not seem appropriate at the time.

I was simply wandering and wondering what life had been like when this town was booming.

It is not like the town is completely unknown though. The 1932 film starring Boris Karloff, The Mummy, was filmed in Cantil as were dozens of other films shot in Red Rock Canyon a short distance to the northwest. 

In October of 2014, the Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two, VSS Enterprise crashed in the Mojave Desert not far away, sadly killing one of the pilots.

The automotive company, Honda has a proving center not far away where all the brand-new cars that the organization wants to market go through all sorts of tests. Sort of like studying for the SAT but with more horsepower.

Honda proving center

It is a very hush-hush place and the security is extremely tight while the auto manufacturer does what they do with the prototypes.

Years ago, I tried to sneak a peek into what was going on there and since the fences were tall, I took a hot air balloon intending to fly silently above the proving grounds. Unbeknownst to me, the first thing a ballooner needs to check is the wind direction before leaving the ground.

Laureen had to pick me up in Seattle. 

So, my venture through Cantil was not what I thought, but I knew a story was there that needed to be written.

A story of family, friends, community and all the rest that makes a place worth living. Sure, there may not be much now, but it was surely a place to behold at one time.

Memories should be enjoyed, and not forgotten.

Perhaps driving through such places like Cantil would instill a stronger sense of community in all of us.

Might not be a bad idea.

Laughlin, Nevada

 In 1964, Don Laughlin flew in a small plane over the Colorado River near the area where the Nevada, Arizona, and California borders met.

He liked what he saw.

“Hey,” Laughlin may have suggested, “let’s skim across the blue waters of the river and scare the heck out of those fishermen in their boats.”

The other passengers in the plane laughed. It was a great idea, and what fun that would be.

“We’ll buzz ‘em really good,” he said. “Maybe somebody can throw an apple at them as we fly by.”

No apples went flying out of the low flying plane that day, but a high-flying idea did get stuck in Laughlin’s mind.

Being a very successful business owner from Las Vegas, Laughlin saw great potential for a new venture along the coastline of the Colorado River.

A gambling mecca.

But let’s step back in time a bit. South Pointe was a small town located near the most southern tip of the state of Nevada developed in the 1940s. There was not much there. A motel, bar, and a whole lot of brown desert sitting astride the crystal-clear blue waters of the mighty Colorado River.

It was the location where many miners working the nearby gold and silver mines would meet up on Saturday nights for a really good time.

“Whatcha going to do with all that gold you done found?” one miner probably asked another miner. 

“Well, heck,” the miner replied. “I’m a gonna go to South Pointe and spend it all in the bar.”

“Fine idee, I’ll be joining you.”

During the 1940s, hordes of construction workers started building the Davis Dam, just north of present-day Bullhead City, and stayed in a locale called Davis Camp – which is still present and used as a campground for river lovers.

On their time off, which there was not much of, they too wandered into South Pointe for some adult entertainment.

One of the early casinos available for fun

The tiny burg prospered.

But in 1951, the dam was completed, and the construction workers left. Rumor has it that many of the miners who had frequented South Pointe also stopped going to the bar since their spouses decided saving the gold and silver nuggets was wiser than drinking the family profits.

As dedicated as I am as a researcher, I could not locate any solid evidence to back up my assumption why the miners stopped frequenting South Pointe.

The town, like a dried-up Joshua Tree, started to just languish in the desert sun.

And that is when Don Laughlin flew his famous jaunt over Lake Mohave, the reservoir which Davis Dam created, and down along the Colorado River over South Pointe.

He purchased the land, built the Riverside Resort motel and casino, and business was once again booming. Though the resort only had twelve slot machines and two live gaming tables, life was once more breathing in this southern section of Nevada.

A post office was soon needed due to the number of employees and guest arriving. At first, Laughlin wanted the town to be known as Riverside and Casino.

The postmaster shook his head. “Nope, let’s call it Laughlin. That is a good Irish name.”

And since the postmaster was also Irish, both men agreed to the new name of the town.

“That would be a fine name, me laddie,” Laughlin may have said to the postmaster.

John R Beyer standing next to statue of Don Laughlin

A bit of Irish history here – I did do research on this.

The family name Laughlin was first used in County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland in the thirteenth century.

So, South Pointe officially became Laughlin, Nevada in 1964.

And soon, other casinos opened. The Bobcat Club, which is where the current Golden Nugget is currently located, and the Monte Carlo soon followed in 1968.

People who loved to fish, water ski, boat, or just enjoyed sitting beside sandy beaches or hotel pools in the sun found Laughlin the place to be.

“You know,” one guest was overheard saying in 1972, “I love the fact, I can fish in the early morning, water ski in the afternoon, eat at inexpensive buffets, and then gamble into the wee hours of the night.”

Laughlin was a mecca, but there was a little problem of turning the mecca into a megapolis.

Bullhead City sat directly across the Colorado River from Laughlin and had grown due to the construction of the Davis Dam, but instead of drying up like South Pointe had, it continued to grow. The town had direct access to the water playground of Lake Mohave, the water activities of the Colorado River, dirt trails leading everywhere, including the very much alive ghost town of Oatman, and so much more. It was also on Highway 95 and near Route 66 which brought more and more visitors on a yearly basis. 

At this time there was no direct route from Bullhead City to Laughlin across the river, and Don Laughlin knew there was a lot of business he was missing out from all those residents and tourists visiting Bullhead City.

Don Laughlin was one smart cookie. He purchased a huge parking lot across the river from his Riverside Resort in Bullhead City and started free boat shuttles to his resort.

He stated, “If I offer it, they will come.”

This was ingenious. What person does not like a free boat ride? No one. Trust me, I know a lot of folks that enjoy our boat without a wallet ever being opened.

But I digress.

Business in Laughlin skyrocketed. Instead of having to drive a long distance, tourists could plop themselves on a free pontoon ride across a short distance of river and in a flash, be at the Riverside Resort.

During the 1980s, the town was so popular that other investors came a-calling, resulting in the building of the Colorado Hotel – now the Pioneer, Harrah’s Del Rio, the Tropicana Resort. And more came in later, the Aquarius Casino Resort, the Edgewater Casino Resort, and the list goes on and on.

One of the most iconic establishments was the Colorado Belle, a hotel and casino built to look like an old-fashioned Mississippi river boat. 

In all transparency, Laureen and I used to spend some time in Laughlin with our girls. Sun, fun and the water was all it took to make a weekend memorable. We stayed here and there but one place that we truly loved was the Colorado Belle. 

Wandering the decks of this make-believe paddle wheeler was just fun. We would walk here and there looking at this and that and imagine being here or there along a long river trip.

My family has vivid imaginations when it comes to traveling – real or not.

I remember us visiting Pompeii once and . . . but I digress.

Sadly, as of 2020 the Colorado Belle may be closed permanently. COVID and other financial issues are said to be the culprits, but who knows. A river boat knows the sculpture of the rivers it maneuvers and perhaps there will be a moment when some investor looks at this building and knows there is a whole lot more life to this ship than what appears now.

Of course, that could also be my hopeful imagination in the works.

In 1987, Laughlin decided a bridge should be built just slightly north of his resort crossing the Colorado River from Bullhead City.

This entrepreneur knew the traffic from Arizona to Nevada would pass his resort first, so, he put up three and half million dollars of his own money to build the Laughlin Bridge.

Both the state of Arizona and Nevada jumped at the idea.

“Use your money to build a bridge that we should build?” a Nevada official may have remarked. “What a marvelous idea. Can it be a toll road for whichever state the traveler is driving into.”

“No,” Laughlin may have replied.

It was built, and today nearly thirty thousand cars cross it each day.

The bridge that Don Laughlin built

The city of Laughlin receives over two million tourists every year. That is a lot of people looking for fun ways to spend their hard-earned money. And the town does not disappoint.

Laughlin is not just a just a bunch of gambling destinations – no, it is a family destination.

Laughlin all lit up for the evening

Not long ago, Laureen and I attended a Rod Stewart concert at the Laughlin Event Center. 

It rocked.

There are venues all about Laughlin, with acts for all ages – music, comedy, theatre, and the like.

This city has something for everyone – and that is not just rhetoric.

Exclusive hotels, upscale dining, RV parks, simple camping, boating, hiking, gambling, international restaurants, guided desert tours, native American sites, museums, and so much more that is awaiting any visitor.

Laughlin’s dream of building a gambling mecca was realized, but what he actually built was a place family and friends could come and enjoy just being family and friends.

And perhaps, that is what he wanted after all.