Buried Homes - Newberry Springs - California
Explor Date: March 21 of 2022
Where the blacktop ends, the adventure begins.
Method #3 on my tried and true list of how to find unique places to explor: See a picture of an intesting place, spend hours online tracking down its location, go there. Which is how I came to this bleak spot in the Mojave desert to see if I could find the sand homes of Newberry Springs.
So, what happened here? What caused the sand invasion that forced families to abandon their homes? According to a 1993 article in the LA Times, homeowners blamed the San Bernardino County road crews. From 1979 to 1991, county maintenance crews cleared tons and tons of sand that was building up on and beside Minneola Road, and dumped it on the downwind (east) side of the road in the Mojave River channel.
That sand would blow away and more would be dumped in its place. Apparently, no one at the county wondered where all the previously dumped sand had disappeared to. The residents, however, knew exactly where it was going. The prevailing westerly winds blew it onto their properties along Newberry Road, creating sand dunes in their yards, covering ponds and pastures. Turning the neighborhood into one huge sandbox.
Sand experts were hired, studies were made, lawsuits were filed. But apparently, nothing was resolved. And even though the road crews stopped dumping sand, it was too late. Other factors contributed to creating the loose sand which continued to blow onto and into the homes. Eventually, the residents were forced to abandon their homes. Today, they are almost all completely covered.
Link to the LA Times article: HERE
I was on my way home from a quick roadexplortrip to Prescott, AZ and interesting places north. The weather had been great, even with a bit of rain and hail, the roads were remarkably empty and the people met along the way friendly and helpful. And the gas a buck and a half cheaper per gallon than here in SoCal. My two goals for the excursion were fully met: see new places and take pictures with my new iPhone. All the pictures in this post were taken with an iPhone 13 pro, which has a lot of features that I’m still trying to get the hang of. I only pulled out my Nikon once during the trip.
Where the blacktop ends, I parked the blue shark and headed off towards what appeared to be a brick chimney sticking up out of the sand. And that’s what it was.
A brick chimney, part of a two-story home that was nearly covered by the shifting, whispering sand.
It seems almost impossible to believe that there is a two-story house under all that sand. But after more than thirty years of blowing sand, I’m surprised it’s not completely covered. I wonder if during different years more or less of the building is visible, depending on the moods of the weather.
From here, I headed east into the dunes to see what else I could find. I knew from satellite images that there were more sand-covered homes in the area, but not knowing how old the images where, I didn’t know how many I would run across.
This was the second home I visited. It still was so hard to believe that there is a house under that roof. A house that was someone’s home for many years. You can plan for hard times, for needed repairs, for health issues. But how can you plan for something like this? Several of the homeowners tried different methods to stop or slow the encroaching sand. Snow fences didn’t work. A ten-foot-tall cement wall didn’t help as you’ll see later in this post.
Next, which direction to go. Off to the south I thought I saw something that might be a roofpeak, so I headed off across the dunes.
It was a roofpeak, with a sagging ridgeline. Looking at this picture now while typing this, I wish I had crawled up to the window and looked inside.
The image below is looking in the doorway of the picture above.
Adjacent to this home is another, one which the owners tried to protect from the sand by building a tall, curved wall. It may have helped for a while, but it was no match for the sand, which eventually piled up to the top of the wall.
One of the homeowners described the sand as “some inescapable monster from a B horror flick, slowly and methodically marching its way down the dry Mojave River and holding her mobile home hostage.”
After spotting the creepy doll, I headed off to another spot that appeared to have been a home. It was rather windy, and by this time I had sand in my hair to go along with the sand in my sneakers.
Another home and what appeared to have been a garage or maybe a workshop/storage building.
While I’m glad I was finally able to visit this lonely location, it was also very sad to see what happened to the homes of the families who lived here. I don’t know how it eventually turned out for them, if they were able to recoup any funds from the County, or if insurance was able to help. My guess is, they lost everything.
There are other sand homes in this general area, but my explortime was up for the day, so I headed back to the blue shark and the cold drink and snacks I knew awaited me there. And then the long drive home.
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