Dag Nabbit

A few weeks back I had the privilege of guest blogging for The Boron Sun. The piece I wrote was about the 1940 film 20 Mule Team, a forgetten film I had seen some years back, and that had some relevance to the town of Boron's history. In the process of doing research on the film, so I could dot all my I's and cross all my T's, I discovered the film was actually suppose to be set in the town of Dagget, CA. 

Now, being a Route 66 and Santa Fe Railway enthusiast and amateur historian my mind suddenly clicked in with the question, "Dagget? Isn't that a town off 66?", 30 seconds later and with the help of Google maps I had my answer. Yes,  Dagget is off of old 66 directly East of Barstow, and Santa Fe's Super Chief and all it's other famous liners ran through it. Then I began to see Dagget in my mind with its hodgepodge of desert abodes, and it's creepy looking experimental solar power plant with that weird tower. If you didn't know any better you would mistake Dagget for being nothing more then Barstows outskirts which in all reality it is.

 

In the process of doing my research though I actually found some information about the town that was somewhat astonishing. Turns out Dagget at one time was very much the place to be, and a lucrative one at that. This small now nearly forgotten town was a hub for silver and boron mining in the 1880's and believe it or not it is actually the latter element and not the former that bought the town most of its wealth. 

But, if your like me your asking yourself, "If Dagget is so close to Barstow, then why wasn't Barstow the center for these operations?". I have a few theory's on this. 

One is that Santa Fe wanted Barstow to have a certain image. You see Barstow was the railways town it was even named it after a Santa Fe president. So I believe  Santa Fe wanted it to be a place where railway workers could live and raise families, with the whole churches, schools and civilization in the West thing. 

Another theory which may also go hand in hand with the first, is that Barstow had a Harvey House, which fed and accomodated tourists. So Santa Fe wanted a town that showed the West and cross country train travel in the best light possible. They wanted an image that mirrored Harvey Houses, that where clean and genteel with their fine linens, top quality food, first class accommodations and pretty young waitresses in black dresses with immaculate white aprons. 

So more then likely hoping to suit either or both of the above theories, Santa Fe (AT&SF) Couldn't have the goings on of a mining town in Barstow.  So Santa Fe decided to keep all of the mining based business of mining towns and what came with them slightly off site in Dagget. This also kept mining trains out of Santa Fe's crowded yards for loading and unloading of mine inputs and outputs. 

When comes to Dagget though you have to realize that it was actually Calico, a town to the North of Dagget where most of the silver mines and a few borate mines where. But Calico was not serviced by any major rail links, meaning silver was transported to Dagget for rail shipment, and in the process a lot of money exchange hands in this town making it a boomtown. But, at the same time borates where almost as lucrative, since borates much like now days had many uses and attracted many buyers. Boron of course had to be mined in Death Valley, and was carried into Dagget via the famous "20 Mule Team". But the 20 Mule Team's where slow, and could only carry so much, and it was only a matter of time till a railway the Borate and Dagget, was established as a spur line to carry borates out of Death Valley and into Dagget as the name implies. 

The Borate and Dagget Railway became highly lucrative and spurred the creation of the Pacific Borax Corporation, later called US Borax, maker of the famed Boraxo soap product and a modern miner and distributor of borates. But Pacific Borax would eventually move to Mojave, California 78 miles to the West, due to the fact that it served both Santa Fe and Southern Pacific trains and lines to San Francisco and Los Angeles could be easily served in one spot. 

Daggets mining heyday would finally come to an end around 1900, when Calico and would see the last of its mines for both boron and silver play out. But Dagget wouldn't go through a major decline though until after World War 2 thanks in part to both the Santa Fe Railway and Route 66 running through it. 

The town would also see a lot of traffic from Route 66. This also helped associate Dagget with one of Route 66's most famous movies derived from one of its most famous literary works. The film version of Grapes of Wrath would be filmed on Route 66 in Dagget in 1940 coincidentally the same year 20 Mule Team was made about Dagget but not filmed there. 

More then likely Daggets final decline happened after I-40 moved traffic south of town. Meaning Dagget was another victim of the Route 66's decommissioning. 

Today there isn't much to see in Dagget and there is not even a sign it was a mining hub a 100 years ago. But you can still see Santa Fe's BNSF descendent's running through town regularly, and watch tourist take sections of old Route 66 though town.