Newberry Springs, Cal - Rt. 66
Exploratography Dates: September 20 of 2014 and October of 2015
I first drove into Newberry Springs looking for Tony's Garage, the Bagdad Café and an old abandoned motel I remembered seeing back in 2013 when I was in the area for a Munzee Clan War activity. My luck was much better than Huell Howser's when he visited the town, as I found everything I was looking for and more. Watch a great episode of Huell's California Road Trip, when he visited Newberry Springs.
Newberry Springs has been in existence for quite a while, as it’s been a reliable source of water for travelers, settlers and the army (Camp Cady was located a few miles away) since the mid-1800s. Always a pleasant stop for travelers along Route 66, not so busy after I-40 was built and nearly all the traffic rerouted.
I pulled up in front of an abandoned Motel which had definitely seen much better days. I'm not sure how long it's been left on its own, but as the doors were open, I grabbed my camera and decided to see what I could find.
My original thoughts, and apparently the same of other folks who have posted tales of this place, was that it was called the Henning Motel. A comment left on another site of mine expressed that “Henning Free TV” was a free TV service once offered in rural areas. So that could have been advertising on the sign, and not the name of the motel. Research to date hasn’t come up with a verifiable name for this motel.
Click on the smaller images to make them big and beautiful.
It looked like the Henning Motel was once a nice little place to stay the night. The rooms were decent sized and there was a small patio area where I'd bet it was fun to sit and watch the cars go by on 66. I'm guessing that toward the end of its business life, it was probably more of an apartment building than a motel.
A short, 30-odd second walkthrough of the old abandoned motel. A bit creepy.
And that’s the way it was, when I visited in 2014. On my return trip in late 2015, I was saddened to see that the entire building had been razed and the ground cleared. Nothing left of the motel that once was, other than the sign out front with the little rock pond. I hope someone saves the sign.
Motel Gone.
Perhaps the town’s greatest claim to fame is the Bagdad Café. It’s not the original Bagdad Café, however. That was located a little farther east on Route 66, in the actual town of Bagdad (which is no longer in existence). When the movie Bagdad Café was filmed in this area during the late 1980s, the Sidewinder Café afterwards became quite popular with fans of the movie, and the owners changed the name to the Bagdad Café in 1995. At one time a gas station and small hotel were also at the café location. Buffalo burgers, mmmmm!
Originally a Whiting Brothers Service Station, known by the name of Dry Creek, this old station also housed Tony’s Cafe, which specialized in Italian and American dishes. At some point it also became a gas station and served the area for many years. The main building was built of railroad ties, then plastered with stucco.
Fill ‘er up with Desert-Mountain Super, please. And check the oil. Got a long ways to drive.
This is an intriguing little home. Seems more suited for the mountains than the desert, but who knows. No snow will pile up on that roof.
An abandoned home on the east outskirts of town. This was my last stop in the Newberry Springs area. The place seemed to have good bones.
While I was there, a gentleman was looking the property over with thoughts of purchasing the property. What happened next?
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