A Bit of Nostalgia at Peggy's Sue's

An awesome place to stop and visit

As most travelers realize, there are three essential items needed for an adventure: a mode of transportation, fuel for that mode of transportation, and fuel for the travelers themselves.

Transportation comes in many forms but all need fuel - not many folks feel confident if an airline pilot states rather joyfully over the intercom, “Welcome folks to We May Make It Airlines. On today's flight, we may have just enough fuel to make our final destination. My co-pilot already has his rosary beads out, just in case.”

Nope, not booking that airline.

According to the American Automobile Association, most traveling is conducted by driving the highways and byways in personal vehicles - of course, a pair of open eyes when driving anywhere in Southern California will prove that also.

“Doesn’t anyone work?” one driver may ask while sipping on his Mango Dragonfruit Refresher - of course with added coconut milk. “It’s two in the afternoon and we’re at a standstill in the Cajon Pass.”

All conveyances that transport folks from here and there need fuel, no matter which type of energy-producing fuel that may be.

Pull up to a gas station and within minutes the traveling group is back on the road, or pull your EV into one of those plug-in thingies and then take a long lunch and a nap and then you are back on the road again, eventually.

But the inner fuel for the travelers is one of the best parts of getting from point A to point B. There are so many choices along the roadways of America. Small diners, chain restaurants, fast food joints, curbside entrepreneurs, and places that have not seen an ‘A’ in their window since opening day.

There are also those favorite spots that we find ourselves drawn to time and again while traveling familiar territory, and one of those for me and my beautiful wife, Laureen, is Peggy Sue’s along Interstate 15 in the small town of Yermo.

A lot of 'nice' rides show up at Peggy Sue's

Not only is the eclectic eatery a great place to fill up the old stomach, but it is a fun destination to stretch one’s bones while wandering the interior and exterior of the establishment.

My personal history with the iconic restaurant goes back decades. In another life, I taught at the small but academically strong Silver Valley High School. A great place where staff really worked with their students to ensure a good quality education.

One of the programs I was involved with, Peer Counseling, had students interacting with fellow students to resolve various negative issues that may be causing personal angst. And nobody likes angst. It dealt with students talking with their peers on a one-on-one basis which is often more beneficial than an adult trying to make sense out of a teenager's life.

“My parents don’t understand me,” one teenager may say to a Peer Counselor.

“That’s because parents are dolts who often wear mismatched socks,” may have been the reply from my well-trained Peer Counselor. I always thought humor was a great way to get to the root of any issue.

I also used to say, ‘If you have issues, we have tissues.’ The point was, that my students believed in their heart of hearts that they could be the ears and voice for teenagers to listen to without giving advice, unlike adults who always had concrete solid answers for every problem that a fourteen-year-old was dealing with.

Really?

We raised four daughters - I still don’t know half of what the girls said for the entirety of their teenage years. I just nodded or told them to ask Mom.

Besides being a legitimate school class, we also operated a school club so we could hold various fund-raisers in which we could put on events schoolwide for the students at Silver Valley High School. And, that is where I came into contact with Peggy Sue Gabler, the owner, who along with her husband Champ, purchased the establishment in 1987.

Our Peer Counseling Club held its first car wash at the famed restaurant and Peggy Sue herself assisted, so naturally, it was a great success. She was charming and affable and even gave my students a good tip for washing her car in addition to free pizza and soft drinks.

It’s a good memory, and so Peggy Sue’s has been a favorite stopping place whenever we travel north or south along Interstate 15.

But, even without those personal recollections on my part, the joint is a cacophony of sights and sounds - and just a downright fun place to wander, even if putting on the feedbag isn’t the traveler's number one priority.

However, who could turn down anything on a menu that features such sandwiches as the Patti Page Patty Melt, the Mickey Mouse Club Sandwich, the Fabian French Dip, or the Big Bopper BLT?

If it sounds as though the customer may have stepped into a time warp when entering the double doors of Peggy Sue’s, they would be correct.

In fact, the front doors are ensconced below a huge facade of a 1950s jukebox. Don’t ever say Rock and Roll is dead in Yermo!

When Champ and Peggy Sue bought the restaurant, it was small and in need of a major facelift. They did not hesitate to sink hard-earned money from the time Champ spent working at Knott’s Berry Farm and the Hollywood acting career of Peggy Sue. In fact, she was so well-known in those Hollywood circles that as a person wandered through the restaurant, they would spy dozens upon dozens of movie posters and personal photographs showing Peggy Sue sidling up to some of the most notable actors from the silver screen.

On our last stop, there was a photo of Whoopi Goldberg telling the owners what a wonderful place they had going on the wall by our booth.

As posted on their website, Peggy Sue wrote; ‘We wanted good homemade food and great 50s music.’

And that they accomplished. But as the business grew, and more and more customers came in from the bustling Interstate just to the north, the restaurant had to expand to make room for the deluge of customers they were having every day.

The place reminds me of the Winchester House, without the hauntings, just keep adding on until there’s no more room to add onto.

The couple also realized they had a hit on their hands and decided year after year to not only expand in size but to make stopping at the restaurant not only a food fanfare but a true destination all by itself.

‘We opened a 50s style Five & Dime store with curios and memorabilia, soda fountain, ice cream parlor, and a pizza parlor,’ as stated on the website. "We even created our own Dinosaur park.’

Giant gorillas and dinosaurs await the visitor

As Laureen and I toured the exterior, after refueling our innards for the journey northward, we marveled at what had been created at Peggy Sue’s.

There are tall broad trees that give ample shade during the hot summer months with cooling blue water ponds surrounded by large swaths of green grass giving the entire experience a feeling of entering an oasis within the Mojave Desert.

As oasis for pirates, dinosaurs, and visitors

There is a bandstand that is used regularly for the enjoyment of locals and visitors alike - with bands that no one has heard of and those that may be just shy of getting that record label contract to shoot them into the stratosphere.

Get ready to Rock and Roll

As we wandered the park-like grounds, families were marveling at the life-sized metal sculptures of dinosaurs that show the differences between carnivores and herbivores. A paleontologist's dream for their own backyard.

Of course, my favorite is the giant sculpture of King Kong looking down upon us rather hauntingly - as any oversized ultra-intelligent simian would.

But before leaving this rather fanciful world that Champ and Peggy Sue created, a must-see is the gift shop where every piece of the 50s and 60s reside. There are full-sized posters of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, and not far off, there are a couple of hardened plastic sculptures of the Blues Brothers.

The Blues Brothers as Peggy Sue's, Yermo, California

The King, Elvis, not Kong, is ever present - in fact, as a person enters the establishment Elvis is offering to tell the future of anyone brave enough to drop a coin into the slot of the fortune-telling machine.

The King awaits

I dropped one in. 

“Viva Las Vegas,” the mechanical Elvis sang to me while nodding his Elvis face with a turban attached to the dark and perfect hair. “I see in your future not a thing worthwhile. Now the pretty lady beside you, yowie!”

It was time to leave. 

Peggy Sue’s is a must-stop for a quick bite or a lingering to take it all in. No traveler will be disappointed. 

For further information; https://www.peggysuesdiner.com/

John can be contacted at; beyersbyways@gmail.com

 

Vidal Junction

John R Beyer at Vidal Junction, California

As I have in written in past articles, there are places we are destined to travel to without even meaning to travel there. 

If I haven’t written that, I should have, sounds almost brilliant. One of those memorable quotes. 

Anyway, when we travel, there are times we are moving toward a final destination, but sometimes on the way to that objective, another stopping-place shows up in front of us that is just as intriguing. 

That is truly adventure.

As a travel writer, I find myself in that realm quite often, and I find it reassuring. Just because I want to end up at one place, doesn’t mean I don’t want to find myself in a totally different locale. That is what makes life so exciting.

Okay, enough philosophy – on with what this article is about.

Growing up in Southern California, I spent a lot of time at the Colorado River. The main route I used was Interstate 10, to Blythe and then north on Highway 95 to the Parker Strip. A friend of mine, Bob, had a place along the river, and we’d spend countless hours boating on that stretch of water and then relaxing after a tiring, but fun filled day with our families.

Good times.

Well, during those trips, I must have driven past Vidal dozens of time, and never gave it a second thought.

A bent sign, along Highway 95, letting the passerby know there may have been something worthwhile there once, but apparently that something was long ago. Slow down, take the railroad tracks carefully at Vidal, especially if towing anything, and then drive on to Parker.

That was the extent of my knowledge of Vidal.

On a recent trip, Laureen and I, again were buzzing south on Highway 95 and passed that bent sign indicating the town of Vidal.

“Wonder what’s there?” Laureen asked.

“Nothing, would be my guess,” I replied.

“Let’s check it out. You never know,” she said.

And we did. I made a legal U-turn and headed back to that tall crooked sign. Getting out of our vehicle, we snapped a few photographs and started walking east on the dirt road, known as the Old Parker Road – not to be confused with the New Parker Road.

Laureen Beyer at the end to the tracks in Vidal Junction, California

Train tracks ran right next to the roadway. They were empty, straight, as if they hadn’t been used in a long time - lonely. I doubted that, since trains seemed to run through this part of the country all the time. None did while we were there, but that didn’t mean they didn’t use these tracks – just not for the thirty minutes we wandered here and there.

“That’s a nice looking little house,” Laureen mentioned, as she pointed to a very well-kept white and blue cottage.

She was correct. The house stood out in the brown desert like an unforgotten jewel. Perhaps a ruby, that has been neglected by a heart broken lover – what?

Man, this is starting to sound like a cheap dime novel.

Turns out, that the nice looking little house was the only permanent abode for Wyatt Earp and his wife, Josephine – who went by Sadie.

John R Beyer in front of the Earp's house, Vidal Junction, California

Yes, probably one of the most famous western lawmen – among other things, who rode a horse through the southwest.

The Wyatt Earp, who became even more famous, or infamous, after that thirty second street battle at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Two factions of westerners had had enough with one another, and temperatures boiled over in the afternoon of October 26th, 1881. In a matter of a half a minute, three were dead and three wounded. Tombstone would soon become a household word.

The violence would also go down as the most famous gunfight in the American Wild West. Sorry, Wild Bill Hickok.

There is a cement slab with a plaque, in front of the small house, explaining – ‘The legendary lawman, gun-fighter, gambler, businessman, and miner along with his wife Josephine inhabited this “Dream-Come-True” cottage from 1925 – 1928. During the fall, winter and spring months while he worked his “Happy Days” mines in the Whipple Mountains a few miles north of this site. This is the only permanent residence they owned in their long lives together.’

Long life together, meant forty-seven years. They married – common-law – in 1882, and stayed with each other until Wyatt’s death on January 13, 1929.

That is a long time in anyone’s book, especially for a guy who had been mixed up in more gunplay then I’ve had IRS audits. Did I just write that?

It should be noted, that during Wyatt’s life, he moved around a lot – gambling here and there, looking for minerals in the mountains of Arizona and California, sitting for interviews, and the like. The Earp’s never really settled down, but instead rented hotels and small homes during their married life.

It wasn’t until they purchased the small cottage in Vidal in 1925 that they had true roots. They’d summer in Los Angeles and the rest of the year mainly in Vidal.

An interesting point, that the Earp’s were actually living in Calzona – not far from Vidal – in 1922, when a huge fire destroyed the town, but miraculously the little house didn’t burn.

The house was moved to Vidal, where the Earp’s eventually bought it.

According to a couple of sources online, Morgan Earp (Wyatt’s younger brother) was the original owner of the house in Calzona, but he was murdered in 1882 in Tombstone – revenge killing for the OK Corral gunfight, and I couldn’t find material backing up those suggestions.

The way with history, one person writes this and the other person writes that. It is romantic, in a literary way though, to believe Wyatt and Sadie actually lived in the house that Wyatt’s younger brother had built.

Let’s allow that bit of history go without much further investigation.

So, now that we knew this little burg had a lot more going for it, we decided to explore a bit more.

Over on Main Street, all these towns have a main street, stands a beautiful rock and mortar two story building. On the top, like castles of old, are jagged rocks as though they expected Vikings to storm the building.

Original store in Vidal Junction, California

No Vikings, and really not much on the history of the building. It must have cost a pretty penny – or a lot of pretty pennies – to build such a place.

In a statement on the website, flickeriver.com, the building had various businesses which occupied the building through the years. A barbershop, an assayers office – make sense if Wyatt and others were mining for gold – and other commercial endeavors. There were supposed showers behind the building for cowboys to rinse off the dust of the desert.

In full disclosure, the research on this building did not yield much information. Actually, very little about both Vidal and the surrounding area is very limited online. That is a shame, since this was once the home of an iconic member of the ‘old west’ legend.

Mainly ruins in Vidal Junction

As mentioned earlier, Wyatt and Sadie resided in Vidal during the fall, winter, and spring times, moving back to Los Angeles during the summer. A little bit warm in Vidal during that scorching time of year. Besides, Wyatt did work as a consultant for some film companies assisting in making western movies as accurate as possible.

As mentioned in truewestmagazin.com, the early cowboy star, Tom Mix, and Wyatt became very close friends, so close that Mix served as a pallbearer at Earp’s funeral. 

Rumor has it, Tom Mix cried.

According to justwestofmyheart.blogspot.com, the town of Vidal kept growing with ranchers, miners, traders, and the building of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in the 1930’s. ‘By 1935, the area had no less than 28 liquor establishments, the paper describing them as “hangouts for river toughs and equally tough women.”

But, the great depression played havoc everywhere, and one place hit especially hard was Vidal. Soon people left and the desert began to encroach back on the emptiness left behind by the vanishing citizens. 

A relatively newer structure in Vidal Junction, California

Not much is left to Vidal today. A few deserted houses, Wyatt’s cottage, the remains of the JM Heacock building, and a cemetery across the railroad tracks.

Is it worth a stop along Highway 95? Yes, it is.

“I bet this place has a very intriguing past, I bet,” Laureen stated, as we headed to our vehicle.

“And I’d take that bet,” I replied. I knew that would be a sure wager.

 

Searchlight Museum

Entrance to the Historical Museum in Searchlight, Nevada

As I have mentioned numerous times in my columns, museums have a special place in my heart and I try to visit as many as I can whilst out and about on traveling adventures.

Again, as I have also mentioned numerous times in my columns, our children used to roll their eyes, harrumph, or feign illness whenever I turned into the parking lot of some vault of historical value - namely a museum.

Laureen, my lovely traveling partner, and I tried to instill an appreciation of history and the stories of those who came before us and who made wherever we happened to be traveling what it is today.

It did not matter if it was Amboy, Bullhead City, Randsburg, London, or Paris - each place has a special story to be heard and appreciated. 

The iconic ghost town of Amboy, California

George Santayana, the philosopher is given credit for penning the immortal phrase: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

I am the perfect example of Santayana’s statement. How many times Laureen has reminded me that a small taste of Mrs. Renfro’s Carolina Reaper Salsa didn't sit well with me in the past? I generally remember while being rushed to the emergency room by a team of paramedics.

But I digress.

Recently, our daughter Kelly let us know that she was taking our grandson, Eli, to a children’s museum in their town of Meridian, Idaho.

We smiled over the video call but once disconnected, high-fived each other. “It worked,” we stated in unison.

According to Rebecca Carlsson in her article for MuseumNext, published on September 15, 2023, ‘Museums have the power to create unity of both a social and political level and a local one. Local museums can provide a sense of community and place by celebrating a collective heritage, offering a great way to learn about the history of a particular area.’

Carlsson ends her piece with ‘Museums are just as crucial to the future as the future is to museums. Not only can our museums bring history to life, but they can also shine a light on our present and future - a light which can be hard to find elsewhere.’

Great article and a must-read for parents - in addition to my own columns, obviously - to instill a sense of who we are not only as a country, state, or city, but who we are as a whole.

Sometimes those visits may conjure up images we may not want to recall.

It is hard for most right-minded people not to get teared up while visiting the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles, or walking the acres of land containing Manzanar along Highway 395. Those are gut-wrenching places to wander but at the same time, as Santayana hoped, if we remember the past we may not let those things happen again.

Perhaps the philosopher was not as skeptical of the human condition as many are today.

But I digress.

With my admiration of museums, I visited the small but extremely informative historical center of Searchlight, Nevada.

Searchlight in the bygone days

I wrote about the once bustling mining town during the dark years of the pandemic when I was not able to enter the museum with the mask restrictions, social distancing, and COVID bugs flying non-stop creating havoc, so I made it a point to revisit.

The museum is located in Clark County within the Searchlight Community Center along Cottonwood Cove Road which ultimately leads to the Cottonwood Cove Recreation area on Lake Mohave.

In 1897 a miner by the name of George Frederick Colton was looking for gold in the area when he supposedly said, “It would take a searchlight to find gold ore here.”

Well, gold was found, and thus the name for find, Searchlight Mine, and in 1898 the name of the newly founded gold rush town.

Today, there is not much to view in the town, more of a crossing spot for those traveling to the blue waters at Cottonwood Cove or on their way to Las Vegas along Interstate 95. A casino or two, a gas station or two, and a few places to grab a meal - but the museum is a must-stop since it holds some very interesting pieces of information explaining why the town of Searchlight is a truly hidden treasure of history.

Let us put away the mining history, important as it may be for making a desolate desert landscape come alive with untold riches, but concentrate on who was once involved in this town of now only 278 humans that was once home to nearly 2,000 souls.

As I wandered around the well-displayed kiosks in the museum I was amazed at the photographs, newspaper clippings, tools, books, and other artifacts which made this stop so much worth anyone’s time.

I did not know that John Macready once lived in Searchlight where his father once owned a very rich ore-producing mine. Macready was a famous pilot in the early years of the 20th Century and helped make aviation a household word. He was one of the first pilots to fly non-stop across the United States and the only three-time winner of the Mackay Trophy. 

I did know that Edith Head, the very famous costume designer who still holds the record of receiving eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, lived in Searchlight as a young child. Her mother had been married to a mining engineer and called Searchlight home for many years. Edith is considered one of the most influential costume designers in the history of film, working for Paramount Pictures for over four decades.

The history of Edith Head while living in Searchlight, Nevada

I did not know that Clara Gordon Bow, the 1920s film star, used to visit Searchlight on a regular basis from her nearby abode, the Walking Box Ranch - named after a camera connected to a tripod for filming in the early days of Hollywood. The ranch was owned by Bow and her husband, actor Rex Bell, as a respite from the often craziness of the film crowd in Los Angeles. 

Clara Bow's personal trunk on display in Searchlight, Nevada

I did not know that Scot Joplin, the King of Ragtime, once wrote a song entitled Searchlight Rag in 1907, in honor of a couple of friends who had done some prospecting in Searchlight - Tom and Charles Turpin. The song was inspired by the tales the two brothers related to Joplin of their time spent in local bars in the area. Now, who would not like that song?

And, I did not know that a man by the name of William Harrell Nellis spent part of his youth in Searchlight before his family moved to Las Vegas when he was 13 years old. This man then went on to become a fighter pilot during World War II and flew in over 70 combat missions before being fatally shot down on  December 27, 1944, over Luxemburg. On April 30, 1950, the Las Vegas Air Force Base changed its name to Nellis Air Force Base.

Nellis's own story in Searchlight, Nevada

I did know that the late Senator Harry Mason Reid Jr. was born in Searchlight in 1939 but learned that he was one of four sons born to Harry Reid and Inez Orena Reid. The Senator’s father was a rock miner working various mines in the hills around Searchlight and his mother was a laundress for the local brothels in the area.

The things you learn while visiting museums!

Searchlight’s museum may be small but it is jam-packed with interesting tidbits about the history of the mining industry, and the famous folks who were either born there, visited there, or spent some time there during their lives.

There are quite of things to view at the museum in Searchlight, Nevada

I wandered a bit and marveled at the care taken in preserving the memory of this small town, really in the middle of nowhere but actually in the middle of some pretty big stories.

For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obKkQ4U31VA

https://www.clarkcountynv.gov/government/departments/parks___recreation/cultural_division/musuems/searchlight_musuem.php

John can be contacted at: beyersbyways@gmail.com