Is the Ghost Town of Calico Truly Haunted?

In a proclamation signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, the town of Calico actually became the Official State Silver Rush Ghost Town. Another old mining town, named Bodie a little further north along the 395, became known as the Official State Gold Rush Ghost Town.

Not sure where the Official State Bronze, Tin or Recycled Beer Can Ghost Towns are, but we will keep looking fervently. Actually, I’m not going to bother to look – except a recycled beer can ghost town could be fun. Probably a lot of happy spirits reside there. 

 With Halloween just around the corner, we wanted to see if there’s any truth to how haunted this once bustling mining town of Calico really was. Of course, when visiting such places in search of the paranormal, it is crucial never to trespass or do anything else which may be considered illegal or in poor taste. 

 An example of illegal would be, breaking and entering supposed haunted buildings, houses or other property. In poor taste, would be running down the street with a sheet over your head, screaming for ghosts to show themselves.

Of course, that may even be considered crazy. There are some pretty interesting hauntings going on in the little burg of Calico. I mean really interesting in the realm of: “OMG, there’s a ghosty right there. I can’t wait to Instagram my friends with this selfie, well, after I post what I had for lunch, of course.”

Laureen and I decided to take our four legged wards on an overnight camping trip to the historical 1881 silver mining town, but not before I made a sensible suggestion. “You know, we can leave them home. They are dogs, after all.” 

 Laureen looked at me solemnly. “They’ll miss us.” 

“For five minutes, and then they’ll be sleeping and drooling all over the furniture.” 

We loaded our four beasts into the motorhome, and we were off for the short jaunt to Calico. 

The San Bernardino County Park has plenty of spaces for camping large rigs, not so large rigs, tents, and even cabins for rent. Some guests haul out their off road toys and enjoy cruising the hills behind Calico looking at this or that. 

 When looking at this or that though, be mindful that there are open vertical mine shafts – those are the ones that go straight into the earth. 

Some of these old mines are not safe and very deep. So deep, that I’ve heard in one of them, colonies of trolls live, waiting for an unsuspecting off-roader to miscalculate and end up as a troll entre for dinner.

But seriously, when cruising anywhere abandoned mines are located – extreme caution should always be used. I travel off road a lot and am always on the lookout for dangerous road or trail conditions – and also groups of trolls. 

 So, we arrived at our camp site, set up everything, and made sure the doggies were well taken care of inside the motorhome – water, food, air conditioning, blinds closed, and Jimmy Buffet playing softly in the background. 

 The dogs had it so good, I wanted to stay and have a cold one, while listening to Margaretville. 

But Laureen was adamant. “Listen here, Buster. We’ve got ghosts to find.” 

 Funny thing, when we hit town, everyone wanted to talk to us about how haunted the place is. 

Mr. Anonymous had great stories to tell us. Ms. Anonymous had even better stories to tell us. Baby Anonymous had by far the greatest of all the stories. Sounds like something out of the Goldilocks fairy tale. 

Actually, when people talk about ghosts, unless they are high paid television paranormal types, they don’t want their name used in public. 

 “They’ll think I’m crazy,” stated a woman wearing a tin foil hat. 

 “I doubt you believing in ghosts will be the giveaway,” I replied. 

One story we heard about was a little girl who haunted the wooden bridge which spans a deep gulley near the one room schoolhouse.

The old school house located in Calico Ghost Town

Seems, as the tale goes, back in the late 1880’s, a school teacher had a young daughter – maybe ten or eleven years old. 

One day, tragically, the girl fell off a high cliff near the bridge and perished from her injuries. Ever since then, people claim this girl wanders the location of the bridge, talking to children. What she is saying, is very sad but sweet. 

According to many we spoke with, the ghostly little girl is warning the children to stay on the bridge, and to be careful about falling down the steep sides of the ravine. 

 Stranger, only children see her. Adults have had their children tell them that a young girl, dressed in a long white dress with a white bonnet, has been scolding them about the dangers of not looking when running and playing. Parents look, but to no avail. The ghost who cares is gone. 

 “Even my friends this year, told me their kids said this little girl approached them, warned them and then just disappeared,” Mr. “I don’t want to be identified” stated. 

And no, this person was not donning a tin foil hat. 

We walked across that bridge a thousand times. 

No ghostly apparition of a tyke in period clothing. I even crossed it a few times on my knees to make myself look smaller, in case I could outsmart the girl. No such luck, but, just because we adults didn’t see her, doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist. 

 “You have got to check out Hank’s Hotel.” Someone stated. 

“That place is really haunted. Doors slam shut when there is no wind. Things get tossed across the rooms. People used to stay there, but by dark, they were heading for their cars.” 

 “Really?” I asked. 

 “Would I lie to you?” 

 “I don’t know. You won’t even tell me your name.”

Hank's Hotel, supposedly haunted in Calico Ghost Town

The hotel was locked. 

Laureen and I peered through the windows. Nothing slammed. No things were thrown around the rooms. But that doesn’t mean the place isn’t haunted. 

 Another person with no name, told us that some shops in town have poltergeists. Those are the angry, or misunderstood ghosts that like to throw items at people, hitting them and sometimes causing injury. 

We walked through every store that was open, and the only thing which got hit, was my wallet. 

A store means purchasing in Laureen’s world. 

 The cemetery. Now, that had to be haunted. All those souls on boot hill. They couldn’t have been happy, and probably spent the evenings wandering around complaining to each other.

A cemetery plot in Calico Ghost Town

When it was plenty dark, we carefully and respectfully wandered the tombstones. 

Laureen thought she saw an eerie light floating toward us. 

Nope, just other tourists looking for a close encounter with a being from the after-life. 

 Is Calico haunted? Could be – but just not on our visit. But perhaps, if you drive out there – it just may be.

John can be reached at: Beyersbyways@gmail.com

Victor Valley Museum

According to, Rhonda Almager, facility manager at the Victor Valley Museum, the reason to visit the museum is simple: “People need to, discover what’s in your own backyard. That’s what we offer here at the museum. A chance for locals and tourists to truly understand the rich and diverse history the Victor Valley has to offer.”

And there is a lot to discover in this museum about the local area.

An extinct mammoth tooth, how cool is that? 

You can go ahead and touch ancient items from the local area.

I could not have agreed more. In fact, the motto, ‘Discover your own backyard,’ is brazenly painted within each mural that decorates the museum’s exterior, located at 11873 Apple Valley Road., in the town of Apple Valley.

Not a fancy facade - but treasures are within the walls

It is pure coincidence, that in our own blog, which is equally penned by my lovely spouse, Laureen, on a broad array of topics of both research and exploration, we ask the question, ‘What’s in your backyard?’

Who had that saying first? Hmmm

No plagiarism, simply a melding of ‘like’ minds. The philosophy is to understand all the wonderful and exciting places a person can visit in their own community. Though, our blog covers a wide variety of subjects from around the world, we would like to focus this column on those places to visit and explore within our own backyards near the Victor Valley.

Living in Southern California, opens up endless possibilities. The question of how far one would travel to visit something worthwhile was a topic for intelligent, thoughtful, and research backed discussion.

We ended up taking a map of the southwest, used Victorville as the center point, and drew a radius of approximately two hundred miles, the distance we felt qualified as a day-trip. 

“There,” I stated. “That will be our backyard for our local stories.”

That's a pretty big backyard!

Laureen grinned, as she often does with some of my pronouncements, but did surprise me by agreeing. 

“I know people who will drive hours just for dinner or to go to the beach for the day. That should work.”

Of course, the section of the radius over the Pacific Ocean may not get much attention, unless the reader counts Catalina Island, as well as the Channel Islands as destinations for a day trip. And, why not?

So, for this first trip, we settled for one really close to home. The Victor Valley Museum, a branch of the San Bernardino County Museum.

According to Almager, the attendance to the museum has skyrocketed over the past year or so. “We received over 9,000 visitors this year. That’s nearly 1,500 more than the previous year.”

"I want to see the exhibit first!" "No, me, first!"

Of course, the next question was why this occurred? “We have new exhibits, our prices are people-friendly, and now we offer a family activity at the museum on the second Saturday of each month from noon to 3 p.m.. It’s really been a great hit. Hands-on events, guest speakers, and the chance for people to meet people and possibly make new friends.”

The museum boasts a great deal of varied and quite interesting exhibits. One of my favorites, my kind of stuff, was the section called, ‘Earthquake Country.’ Yes, we know that the valley is near the focal points of both the San Andreas and Garlock fault lines, but the information shared on how the faults were created and what would happen during a really, really big shaking was fascinating.

That's a comforting title! Egad!!!!! 

There’s an interactive video, with Dr. Pat Abbot, from the San Diego State University explaining over and over (it loops all day) how the valley was created and what to expect during an earthquake. The professor, also does a bit of DIY on how to reinforce residential walls. Making them stronger, just in case.

A very cheery fellow, this Dr. Pat Abbott

Interestingly, or a harbinger of things to come, two weeks after our visit, Southern California received the strongest earthquake in two decades. In Searles Valley, near the city of Ridgecrest, a 6.4 'foreshock' rattled the desert, then followed up the following day with a 7.1 earthquake. Property damage, some injuries, but luckily there were no deaths.

Further exhibits explain how the Native Americans, who first resided in the Victor Valley, survived in a sometimes harsh environment. There are plenty of artifacts to view, found by local archaeologists, such as pottery, projectile points, metates (for crushing grain), clothing, and baskets woven from deergrass and sisal. There is also a really ingenious woven net for catching rabbits – they would never hungry with the multitude of rabbits making their homes in this valley.

Ancient pottery from local N.A. tribes in the valley

A large display, and another looping video, about the desert tortoise is a must see, to understand how fragile these lumbering desert creatures are and how they are quickly being eliminated by human encroachment and eaten by ravens. Oh, those ravens!

I'm hiding because everyone is looking for me - geeez!

Found tortoises are often equipped with ‘GPS Logger’ technology, which allows scientists to track individual tortoises 24/7. It used to take weeks to physically keep an eye on any one particular tortoise, but now with circling satellites, their every movement is tracked.

Much like our cell phones. 

The museum won the National Association of Counties award. The reason why is easy to see with the meticulous care taken to ensure the public truly enjoys their visit in a warm, friendly, educational, clean, and fun place to learn.

One exhibit may confound the younger visitors though. It is a large glass case with two very strange looking objects in it. The objects have a dial – yes, they are phones, but not just phones that many of us remember having at home, the dreaded ‘land line.’ These two artifacts are actually phones used to communicate during mining activities when gold and silver were being pulled out of the earth in earlier times. 

But they do resemble the rotary dial some of us remember.

What are these things?

According to Almager, “People keep coming back again and again to check and see if we have new exhibits. All I hear from departing guests is, we loved it, more interesting than we thought it would be, and I’ll be back.”

We’re not Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it doesn’t take a tree surgeon to realize going back to revisit the Victor Valley Museum is simply a must.

So, go and see what’s in your backyard, and we know you’ll have fun doing it.

For more information on the Victor Valley Museum: (760) 240 – 2111 or visit their website at,

www.SBCounty.gov