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1929) p. 46. The material below is drawn from this report unless
otherwise noted.

4. Written statement by Charles A. Mitchell, 1977. ERA files.
5. Interview, Pat Mitchell, October 14, 1978. The material below is
drawn from the Mitchell interview and written statement by his father.

6. Burr L. Belden, "Barstow Develops when Railroad Needs More Land,"
San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, April 26, 1953.

7. Patricia Keeling, ed., Once Upon a Desert (Barstow: Mojave River
Valley. Museum, 1976), pp. 6-7.

8. Belden, ibid.-, California Interstate Telephone, Romantic Heritage of
the Mojave Valley , 1961

VICTOR VALLEY

Victor Valley is one of fifty valleys that make up the Mojave Desert.
For purposes of this discussion the areas nearby, Apple Valley and Lucerne
Valley, will be considered as in the Victor Valley.

Stray prospectors from the Mother Lode discovering rare metal in
the hills south of the present Victorville were initially responsible for
populating this area, most prominently, John Brown, Jr., homesteading the
Rancho Verde at present Victorville. By 1870 the California Overland Stage
Company with a mail contract was stopping in the valley at the Mojave
River. Thoughts of community settlements did not stray far behind.
On July 10, 1869, 35,000 acres of land in thevicinity of present
Hesperia were purchased for $44,000 from the United States Government Land
Office in the name of Max Strobel. On August 2, 1871, Strobel turned the
desert parcel over to a group of Germans in San Francisco who intended to
subdivide and colonize it. The Germans associated themselves in 1872 as
the 35th Parallel Association with offices in San Francisco. For the time
2
being, however, development did not proceed.
Concurrent with Strobel 's acquisition of desert land, a few stockmen
were locating in the Victor Valley, wherever water was available. Within
a few years, development expanded from small irrigation ditches from springs
or the river to a number of private irrigation and colonization projects in-
volving several thousand acres. Increased interest in area mining and
cattle-raising, along with these colonization projects, were spurs to set-
tlement, but the real catalyst came in November 1885 when the California
Southern Railway linked Barstow and San Bernardino via the Cajon Pass.

The route for this line was the inspiration of Fred T. Perris , San
Bernardino County Surveyor. Over thirty years before, the railroad survey
by Lt. R. S. Williamson, a government engineer, had indicated that the only
route through the Cajon Pass necessitated a 3.4 mile tunnel through a hog-

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