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