Claudia Heller continues her ongoing series about Route 66 through California’s Mojave Desert.
The latest edition focuses on a few tiny burgs in the middle of the desert, including this one little stop I’d forgotten about:
Traveling west from Fenner on Route 66 the next stop is Essex. Once a bustling town, it historically offered tourists a choice of cafes, markets and all-important garages with on-duty mechanics. Despite these amenities, the town was best known as a place where you could get a free drink. So scarce was water in the desert, the restaurants charged for drinking and radiator water. To the rescue was the Auto Club of Southern California which established a free drinking fountain built to resemble an old-fashioned wishing well. Sitting just yards off the highway, the fountain remains intact today, albeit a bit cockeyed and out of order! You can view it and take photos today while traversing in an air conditioned modern automobile.
Of course, another place built its fortune on the idea of free ice water to travelers. That wasn’t in the middle of the Mojave, though.
It’s like a trip back through time.