Subhash Parihar

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THE GHOST TOWN OF AMERICA: CALICO

Subhash Parihar

Words: 917

Many a times, things just happen. I hadn’t even heard the name of the Ghost Town Calico.
And when I learnt about it, within hours I was roaming in its streets.

It happened like this. During my tour of the United States, a visit to the natural wonder Grand
Canyon was at the top of my list of places to be seen. As I was staying in Los Angeles, my
host planned to show me Las Vegas and Grand Canyon in a single trip. After spending a day
in the wonderland of Las Vegas, we left the hotel the early next morning and took the
Highway US 93 to our destination, a drive of 250 miles. En route, we were to cross over the
Bypass Bridge on the Hoover Dam.

But a few miles before the Dam, at Boulder City we were jammed by a traffic blockage. A
police official told us that the impasse may continue for hours as a woman had threatened to
commit suicide by jumping off the Bypass Bridge. There was no alternative but to wait. So
we entered a nearby hotel and had some breakfast. But even after the breakfast, there was no
sign of clearing the jam. Just to kill time, I began to shuffle some tourist brochures placed in
racks in this hotel. I was struck when I saw a brochure bearing the title “CALICO GHOST
TOWN (An Old West Mining Adventure)”. The details in the brochure about the town (lying
in San Bernardino Country of California) read that “it was one of the few remaining original
mining towns of the western United States.”

Such towns I had seen only in Holywood Western films—a genre set in the American West
commonly featuring protagonists such as cowboys, gunslingers, and bounty hunters. Here
was a chance to actually visit a real location. So we decided to steer our car towards this
Ghost Town in the sprawling Mojave Desert.
As for its history, Calico was a former Silver Rush mining town, founded in 1881, near
borate mineral yielding mines. Within a decade it became a bustling town of 3500 souls,
coming from as far as China, England, Ireland, Greece, France, and the Netherlands, and also
America. Within years it produced $ 86 million in silver, and $ 45 million in borax, from its
five hundred mines. An entrepreneur built here a four-storied hotel into an overhanging cliff
with natural cavities in the rock formation, serving as living spaces.

But its prosperity began to dwindle when on 14 July 1890 United States Federal Law passed
the ‘Sherman Silver Purchase Act’ which banned free and unlimited coinage of silver,
leading to a steep fall in silver prices. By 1896 the Calico silver mines no longer remained
economically viable. As a result its workers and residents began to desert it and finally in
1907 it was completely abandoned.

To the good fortune of the town, about half a century later in 1950s, an American farmer
Walter Marvin Knott (1889-1981) purchased it, rescuing it from disappearing into oblivion.
He felt that the “spirit of the Calico of those days reflected closely the spirit of the West in
General”. Five of its original buildings were still intact. He created a museum on the site in
order to outline “the atmosphere of that small part of the Old West which was Calico”. He
hoped that the scenes and exhibits in the museum will add not only to the visitor’s enjoyment
and understanding of this colourful historic site but also that entire western era and of the way
it used to be.

On the basis of some old photographs, he restored the other buildings to give the site its old
look as it appeared in 1880s and dedicated it “to the memory of the Heroic silver miners who
lived and toiled here” to the visitors “as a constant source of learning and enjoyment” and
requested them to “respect this historical property”.

In 1966, Scott decided to donate the town to San Bernardino County, and it became a County
Regional Park. The County pledged to continue the Knott’s work in the same spirit of
authentic recreation. The ceremony of donation took place on November 1, 1966, the day the
New Punjab (Punjabi Suba) was created in India.

On December 13, 1981, the County buried here a time capsule, to be opened in the year 2031,
the 150th year of Calico’s Birth.

It is situated some three miles off the town Barstow, on the Highway Interstate 15. The words
CALICO written on a nearby peak are seen from miles. Soon the visitor comes across all
essential elements of a western film setting—a small frontier town, its main street, enlivened
by roughly made faded wooden low houses, workshops scattered with unfinished products,
saloons, stagecoaches, defunct cart-wheels, wooden bridge, water tank, all set in a rugged
landscape punctuated by low hills. One feels magically transported more than one century
back in time. It appears that Ramesh Sippy in his blockbuster film Sholay modelled the
village of Rampur on this Ghost Town.

It is open every day except Christmas from 9.00 AM to 5.00 PM, and requires a small
entrance fee. Overnight camping is also available. Special events are held throughout the year
including a Spring Festival in May, Calico Days in early October, and a Ghost Town haunt in
late October.

FACT FILE

Phone: 800-TO-CALICO
            (800.862.2542 ) 
Fax:  (760) 254-2047      
email:  calicotown@parks.sbcounty.gov
Online Camping Reservations:  www.sbcountyparks.com
Central Reservation 1-877-38-PARKS (1-877-387-2757)
Website: cms.sbcounty.gov/parks/Parks/CalicoGhostTown.aspx