Mysterious company buys entire Calif. ghost town for $22.5M

Jan 11, 2024

A road diverges in the yellow flats along the outer rim of Joshua Tree National Park. The two lanes in the middle of the desert peel off Interstate 10, about an hour and a half from Palm Springs. They break at the entrance to Eagle Mountain, a ghost town in the California desert that has attracted continuous attention since its untimely end in 1983.

Unlike other California ghost towns, Eagle Mountain never truly died. Now, an unknown buyer has purchased the town to add a new chapter to its storied history.

Abandoned structures stand in Eagle Mountain, Calif., in November 2017.

Formerly a company town for Kaiser Steel, Eagle Mountain provided a palm tree-studded oasis for some 4,000 residents. Most were employed by the mine. Workers drilled, blasted and shoveled the nearby mountains in search of iron ore.

At the mine's peak, they broke records for daily production levels, but it only took a few years of poor outcomes for the mine to shutter, evicting the population.

Eagle Mountain rose from the arid brush at the end of the 1940s to thrive for a generation or two. Although it's mostly empty today, the town's destiny is not as barren as it appears.

An employee of Eagle Mountain's now-former owner spoke with SFGATE and was granted anonymity due to fears of professional repercussions, in accordance with Hearst's ethics policy. He mentioned how large red trucks have become a regular sighting. A "for sale" sign at the town's entrance promising rock products and minerals may have been answered.

The entrance to the desert ghost town Eagle Mountain, near Joshua Tree National Park, in April, 2023.

The entrance to the desert ghost town Eagle Mountain, near Joshua Tree National Park, in April, 2023.

In documents obtained by SFGATE, the real property and mining claims were sold for approximately $22.5 million on April 17.

The seller was an Ontario, California, company called Eagle Mountain Acquisition LLC, apparently the last of various Kaiser subsidiaries to own the town over the past 40 years. The buyer? Ecology Mountain Holdings, an LLC with even more limited public information besides a Cerritos, California, business address.

Ecology Transportation Services, a company recognized by its red big rigs, is also headquartered in Cerritos. Representatives for all three companies declined requests to speak with SFGATE for this story.

A few foremen live on the premises full time to keep watch over Eagle Mountain. Verdant palm trees poke out from the street they live on, while the rest of town remains preserved by dust. One night in the stillness, a foreman heard trespassers in the dark. The sound of a shotgun blast into the sky scared them off.

Within the mile-long town are a few hundred abandoned structures that were once homes, businesses and community centers of a small idyllic village. Kids rode their bikes along landscaped streets and collided while playing chicken under a vast blue sky.

Scouting the location for the film 'Tenet' at Eagle Mountain, California.

Scouting the location for the film 'Tenet' at Eagle Mountain, California.

In the years since, Hollywood has sought out Eagle Mountain when in need of a surreal backdrop. The climax for Christopher Nolan's "Tenet" was shot among the ghost town's mechanical wreckage. But mostly, the town has become a destination for lookie-loos and suffers from intrusion. YouTube is awash with videos of trespassers stepping over the boundary to gawk at the decrepit remains.

One man even filmed himself gliding above Eagle Mountain in a paramotor to a soundtrack of Pearl Jam.

Culture | How a SF man fought racism and made $5M by saving Stinson Beach Local | A posh SF neighborhood hides the city's last bastion of weird artTravel | The easiest, most eye-popping hike on the California coast Food | This quirky spaghetti restaurant is a ‘dying breed’ in SF

Iron ore creates steel, and steel becomes the bones of cities, but first, it's extracted from remote regions such as Eagle Mountain.

The first ore mined from the nearby hills was shipped to a steel plant in Fontana, California, in 1948. Henry J. Kaiser spent the previous decade gearing up for a West Coast steel mill, negotiating with the Southern Pacific Railroad for the land and rights to transportation.

Henry J Kaiser inspects the Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, California in September, 1951.

Mining at the Kaiser open pit iron ore mine in December, 1948

The Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, California in May, 1952.

The workforce for the mine would eventually swell to about 977 employees, according to the Kaiser Permanente Heritage Resources historian. In fact, the original Kaiser health care prepayment plan was hatched in this desert to support them. "For the princely sum of 5 cents per day, workers were provided this new form of health coverage," Kaiser Permanente recounts on its website.

Eagle Mountain began to grow. A post office opened — initially inside the postmaster's living room — in 1953.

The town erected a 350-seat recreation hall, a center for social activities from a bridge club to Sunday church service. In 1962, the high school opened, with an enrollment of just more than 100 students. Soon a gigantic "E" appeared on the mountain behind the mess hall, courtesy of the students and four gallons of yellow paint.

The town came to reflect the clear-eyed vision of postwar America: shady streets with well-manicured lawns for 416 stucco and plaster homes, air conditioning included.

In 1963, Kaiser Steel secured a large contract with Japanese company Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha for 6 million tons of iron ore pellets. The Kaiser workers reached their peak a decade later when mining personnel hauled more than 350,000 tons of material in 1975, setting a new record for the industry, according to the Ingot, a trade publication.

Abandoned structures in Eagle Mountain, California in November, 2017.

Abandoned structures in Eagle Mountain, California in November, 2017.

An abandoned building in Eagle Mountain, California in November, 2017.

Abandoned structures in Eagle Mountain, California in November, 2017.

When the end came, it was gradual. Five years after workers set a mining record, articles appeared in the local paper about staffing cuts. The mine had seen consecutive years of losses in steel operations. Rumors began to swirl.

On a Tuesday in November 1981, Kaiser Steel Corporation's board of directors met in Oakland and announced it would begin phasing out the mine. Eagle Mountain shuttered two years later, and the community was forced to evict.

The town's downfall drew some expected fanfare from out-of-towners, who arrived in fascination to ogle at its demise — a precursor for the decades to come.

Connie Ottinger lived in Eagle Mountain for 35 years and walks on a street with boarded houses, which was once her neighborhood in October, 2003.

Connie Ottinger lived in Eagle Mountain for 35 years and walks on a street with boarded houses, which was once her neighborhood in October, 2003.

"I don't mind leaving," Melba Pelkey told the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, as she and her husband Ed headed for a new home in Oklahoma. "It's the people I’m going to miss."

Other residents departed in pain. "It's like a piece of your heart is being ripped out," Vicky Yates, a high schooler raised in Eagle Mountain, told the New York Times.

"I’m angry at President Reagan for not helping the steel industry out more," she said. "But for me, Eagle Mountain is still going to be home. It's where my basic feelings are coming from. I’ll always remember it and I’m sure it will hurt just as much in 20 years."

When it comes to California ghost towns, Eagle Mountain is practically an infant. Popular ghost towns such as Bodie and Drawbridge are relics of the 19th century, whereas Eagle Mountain thrived and declined entirely within recent memory.

The town's high school graduated its final class in 1983, but the school's campus wasn't abandoned. Eagle Mountain School kept going. Currently, about two dozen students in kindergarten through eighth grade are enrolled, according to the school's receptionist.

During its spring break in April, the campus stood still, in harmony with the silent town immediately across Kaiser Road. Behind a baseball diamond reduced to dirt was the mountainous cratered periphery of the mine, shaped like a trapezoid.

Eagle Mountain School is located near the California ghost town that shares its name.

One of the stranger chapters in Eagle Mountain's history occurred a few years after Kaiser Steel left. A doomed low-security prison called the Eagle Mountain Community Correctional Facility opened in 1988. The former bowling alley, cafe and other buildings housed 438 inmates who were serving time for parole violations and other nonviolent offenses.

The private prison championed career development and reducing recidivism, earning the headline "Prison brings a ghost town back to life" from the Press-Enterprise in 1992.

In October 2003, a riot broke out while inmates watched the World Series in the recreation room. Two men were killed, and eight inmates were later charged with murder.

The mine in Eagle Mountain, Calif., is seen from the town's school in April.

Stories continue to echo from Eagle Mountain. There's an active online community of former residents who connect to swap memories and honor the legacies of their neighbors who have died. Many of the former residents moved away from the desert entirely, while others moved just down the road.

Desert Center, a crossroads town abutting Interstate 10, shares a road with Eagle Mountain. Both towns faded when fortunes fell after the closure of the mine.

The Desert Center Cafe, once the town's hub, has become target practice for rock throwers and graffiti taggers. Inside, the plush black booths are either ripped or caked in dust. Carole King filmed the music video for her 1993 song "Lay Down My Life" at the cafe, and the clip's sepia tones and degraded quality appear like a foreshadowing.

The remains of a market at Desert Center near Highway 10 outside Joshua Tree National Park in April, 2023.

Looking inside the abandoned Desert Center Cafe near Highway 10 outside Joshua Tree National Park in April, 2023.

Looking inside the abandoned Desert Center Cafe near Highway 10 outside Joshua Tree National Park in April, 2023.

The abandoned Desert Center Cafe near Highway 10 outside Joshua Tree National Park in April, 2023.

Aside from an active post office, Desert Center has nearly washed away. But its recent sale has come with a promise of opportunity (and perhaps a clue for the future of Eagle Mountain).

In 2021, a trucking mogul named Balwinder S. Wraich purchased more than 1,000 acres of Desert Center for $6.25 million. Wraich co-runs the company Wraich Transport in nearby Fontana, and his vision for Desert Center aligns with the transportation industry.

"We’re going to develop a truck stop, gas station and hotel," he told SFGATE. "There's no food for 40 miles. My goal is to get something big in the next two years. It's going to help the community.

This corner of the desert will have to wait a little longer until the promise of renewal can fill the valley once more.

— The spite monument that's a middle finger to San Francisco

— The fascinating San Francisco woman who coined the term 'sugar daddy'

— A woman was found dead in Yosemite. Now she's been linked to a cult and a serial killer.

— Replica French chateau with 98 rooms is hidden in Bay Area suburb

—After 35 years missing, an Air Force captain mysteriously reappeared in the Bay Area