The Mojave Road: An Ancient Trade Trail
Near Zzyzx, California
The dirt track that passes near Soda Springs is far older than any road on the map. It is the Mojave Road, and long before wagons or the Army, it was a footpath of trade and travel worn by Native peoples across the desert. The Mojave people and their neighbors used this route to carry goods between the villages along the Colorado River and the peoples of the Pacific coast.
Traders moved seeds, corn, beans, and pottery westward, and carried back seashells, beads, and feathers from the ocean. Archaeologists have reported coastal shell at sites in this desert, a sign of trade networks that stretched for hundreds of miles and reached back long before Europeans arrived. The genius of the route was in the springs.
Travelers walked from water to water, from the Colorado River to Piute Springs, to Rock Springs, to Marl Springs, and here to Soda Springs, each spring a long march from the last. Later this same chain of water became the wagon road, then a military route called the Old Government Road, and finally the rugged backcountry trail that off-road travelers still follow today, straight across the Mojave National Preserve.
