Folks with the blood of pioneers—or of poets—running strong in their veins, will regard the task as a grand adventure. I know Los Angeles people who spent most of their weekends for months building a stone cabin on their claim. And what fun they had doing it! Two days every week they drove out and mixed mortar and hauled rocks, and stone by stone the little cabin took form. It isn’t a perfect construction job—but it is theirs. They planned it themselves and built it with their own hands—and in terms of spiritual values it is worth more than a mansion in a ritzy subdivision. –Desert Magazine 1947
Technological mid-century innovations, such as air conditioning, also made desert living more bearable. The addition of hardtop paving to California State Highway 62—the area’s main thoroughfare—after the close of World War II greatly improved the drive to the outlying high desert communities. Still, most modern conveniences and infrastructure were absent from the area. The Small Tracts brochure published by the BLM warned potential filers that the federal government was not responsible for constructing roads, providing utilities, or locating water. Indeed, the majority of the tracts had no reliable groundwater source. Filers would need to gamble and pay for drilling out of pocket if they wanted to avoid hauling water. Electricity for many Morongo Basin area residents did not become readily available until the late 1950s.
Undeniably these contemporary homesteaders differed from the earlier homesteading pioneers in that they were seeking land primarily for recreational use and to escape hectic city life during their weekend excursions into the desert. Those laying claim to small tracts located throughout the Mojave Desert arrived from the Los Angeles metropolitan area seeking solitude, repose, and isolation from traffic jams and other distractions of modern urban life. The trend seemed to attract a mostly working-class crowd but people from all walks of life and economic backgrounds participated. The act allowed many folks who had only previously rented to own property. Requirements for the five-acre homesteads did not necessitate that they live off the land as the original homestead laws required freeing many to “prove up” their lease on a casual, leisurely basis during weekend visits.
Land hunger has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. It has broken out like a contagious rash in recent months in Southern California, where hordes of people with back-to-the-land yearning, swooped down on the U.S. Land Office in Los Angeles in a mad rush for five acre desert homelands, anywhere, just so it is earth under foot and space to breath. –Desert Magazine 1945
Many jackrabbit homesteaders took great pleasure proving up their leases by building cabins with their own two hands. Others simply purchased prefab cabin models that fulfilled small tract and county requirements from Homestead Supplies, located in two locations within the Morongo Basin. “Spreads” were often humorously named; Aching Back, Calloused Palms, Canta-Forda Rancho, Cost-a-Plenty, Dun Movin’, Jackass Junction, Lizard Acres, Rancho Azoff, and Withering Heights are a few examples. It is said that Wonder Valley was actually named after one of the area’s small-tract resident signs.
Although some cabins have been passed down from original jackrabbit homesteaders to family members or sold to new owners many of the area’s existing shacks have fallen beyond repair lending a ghostly and feral presence to the landscape. Those reclaimed are often referred to as “Biltmores” by local residents and now function as primary residences with additions enclosing and disguising the original cabin.
Today, a small but growing community of artists, musicians, writers and other creative types fleeing rising housing prices and other urban frustrations are reclaiming and re-envisioning the structures as artist studios or as creative weekend retreats. Inventive enclaves forming within this geographically defined area are inspired by the Morongo Basin’s spacious desert backdrop, its perceived tranquility, and a desire to form a sense of community within a rural environment. Still, all is not idyllic in this desert paradise: other residents—equal stakeholders within the community—find their lifestyles, especially their manner of motorized recreation, in conflict with the values of those within the creative community. This, in turn, creates a complex, colorful, and occasionally contentious backdrop to this strikingly beautiful desert landscape.
- Read Jacob Sower’s essay Wonder Valley: Place and Paradox. Sowers is an Assistant Professor at Missouri State University’s Geography, Geology, and Planning program. Sower’s dissertation research, Symbiotic Tensions of Wonder Valley, California: The creation, maintenance, and unpredictability of an Existential Ecotone discuss the cultural geography of Wonder Valley landscape.
- Read Chris Carraher’s essay Home: Finding Our Place. A presentation was given by Carraher at the 29 Palms Historical Society Museum for the Jackrabbit Homestead Audio Tour Listening Party event on March 28, 2009.