Daggett, California

Daggett, east of Barstow in the Mojave Desert, was born at the intersection of silver and borax. In eighteen eighty-two the Southern Pacific and Atlantic and Pacific railroads met here, and developers originally called the place Calico Junction. In eighteen eighty-three it was renamed for California's Lieutenant Governor John Daggett.

The real business was hauling freight: ore from the booming Calico silver mines came to Daggett for milling and rail shipment, and the famous twenty-mule teams, eighteen mules and two horses, made Daggett one of their railheads when they hauled borax out of Death Valley in the eighteen eighties and nineties. Plans called for Daggett to become the region's main rail yard, but silver-boom land prices ran too high and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe chose Barstow instead, dooming Daggett to smaller ambitions. The twenty-mule teams are long gone, but Daggett endures as a quiet reminder of the Mojave's raucous mining years.