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Daggett, California | |
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 Solar Two experimental solar power plant | |
  Daggett, California Location within the State of California Show map of California Daggett, California Daggett, California (the United States) Show map of the United States | |
| Coordinates:34°51′48″N116°53′17″W / 34.86333°N 116.88806°W /34.86333; -116.88806 | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  California |
| County |  San Bernardino |
| Founded | 1883 |
| Elevation | 2,014 ft (614 m) |
| Population (2000) | |
• Total | 200 |
| Time zone | UTC-8 (Pacific (PST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
| ZIP codes | 92327 |
| Area codes | 442/760 |
| FIPS code | 06-17778 |
| GNIS feature ID | 241219 |
Daggett is anunincorporated town located inSan Bernardino County, California, in the United States. The town is located onInterstate 40, ten miles (16 km) east ofBarstow, at an elevation of approximately 2,000 feet (610 m). The town has a population of about 200. TheZIP code is 92327 and the community is insidearea code 760.
The town was founded in the 1880s just after the discovery ofsilver in the mines nearCalico to the north. In 1882, theSouthern Pacific Railroad with the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (LaterAtchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway,BNSF) fromMojave was being completed in the area and it was thought that a good name for the town would be Calico Junction. But this name would be too confusing since it was right next to Calico, where silver was discovered. It was decided to name the city after thenLieutenant Governor of California,John Daggett during the spring of 1883. There were plans to make Daggett the main station of the area and to have a rail yard there to handle the heavy trains coming from the East, but due to the silver mining making the prices of land go too high, the ATSF moved toBarstow and established the main rail station there. In 1903, theSan Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad (laterUnion Pacific Railroad) also built their line from Las Vegas through Daggett to reachLos Angeles and East San Pedro by borrowing trackage of the ATSF through to Barstow to allow the servicing of their engines at the roundhouse located there.
Borax was also important to Daggett's economy and the town's history. For two years, it was the terminal of theTwenty-mule team run fromDeath Valley, but after one of their swampers, William Pitt, was lynched, the Pacific Borax Company changed the terminal to Mojave. Later on in 1891,Francis Marion Smith the 'Borax King' moved to Daggett from Death Valley'sHarmony Borax Works to install mining operations at a borax mine called Borate, which was located about three miles east of Calico. This operation required many laborers to come and help, it was reported thatPacific Coast Borax Company employed nearly 200 men to work in the mines. At first, the borax was hauled by the then-soon-to-be-famous20 Mule Team, but Smith sought to replace the mules with a cheaper, efficient means of transportation. TheBorate and Daggett Railroad was built in 1898 to take over the duty of hauling borax from the mules.
Daggett became quite a big city in the 1890s, boasting three stores, two restaurants, three saloons, three hotels, a lumberyard, and even a Chinese eating place. But after 1911 when richer borax deposits were discovered north of Daggett inDeath Valley at the Lila C. Mines, all the mining operations were moved there, which caused Daggett to go into a steady decline which continues even to this day. Despite the establishment of the solar energy plants, Daggett still struggles to hang on to life. However, there are still some people who travel through the town to reachYermo, California and Las Vegas today.
Daggett is close to the location ofBarstow-Daggett Airport. The facility is ageneral aviation airport serving the Barstow area. It is also the regional weather information center. The airport was built as a modification center for theDouglas A-20 Havoc bomber aircraft that were sent to Russia as part of theLend-Lease program duringWorld War II.
Daggett is part of theSilver Valley Unified School District.
Silver Valley High School is located at 35484 Daggett-Yermo Road.
As of 2003, 1,000 people lived in and around Daggett, though nearly 1,500 live in the surrounding area.[clarification needed] Only about 200 people actually live in the town.[citation needed]
The world's first commercialsolar power plants, SEGS I (built in 1984) and SEGS II (built in 1985) of theSEGS network were located in Daggett.[1]
Daggett was also home to a uniquesolar thermal energy plant namedSolar One, apilot project which was operational from 1982 to 1986. The plant used mirror-likeheliostats to aim sunlight at a collecting cylinder located on asolar power tower (a type ofsolar furnace), through which oil flowed. The large quantity of sunlight reflected on the sphere superheated the oil, which was then used to create steam for power generation. The plant was upgraded in 1995 as part of theSolar Two project. Solar Two substituted molten salt compounds instead of oil as an energy storage medium.
During calibration of the power plant's thousands of heliostats, a ball of glowing light was sometimes seen in the nearby area. This effect was caused by the heliostats focusing sunlight onto a specific point. As the intensity of the light increased, it reflected off dust in the desert air. This phenomenon was sometimes seen by passersby on nearby Interstate 40 and15.[citation needed]
Solar Two was decommissioned in 1999, and the facility was converted in 2001 into agamma-ray astronomy telescope. The facility is now known asCACTUS (Converted Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope Using Solar-2).[2] CACTUS, which is operated by theUniversity of California, Davis but owned bySouthern California Edison,[3] operated from late 2004 until late 2005.[2]
On November 25, 2009, the Solar Two tower was demolished.[4] The site was leveled by Southern California Edison. All heliostats and other hardware were removed. Plans are in place to develop a training facility for Southern California Edison to train personnel on construction and maintenance of high power transmission lines and towers.[citation needed]
At theCoolwater Generating Station (600 MW natural gas, decommissioned in 2015), a 482 MWphotovoltaic power station with 394 MW ofbattery began construction in October 2021.[5]
Daggett is a station on theBNSF Railway on theNeedles Subdivision. Trains are frequent on the line as this line goes to Chicago. It is also a junction of the Cima subdivision of theUnion Pacific Railroad, the formerLos Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, line fromSalt Lake City, Utah via Las Vegas, Nevada. The Union Pacific runs via trackage rights on the BNSF and goes to Riverside, California.
Back in its heyday, Daggett had two narrow gauge railroads, theBorate and Daggett Railroad and theWaterloo Mining Railroad, both built to export silver and borax ore out of the Calico Mountains several miles north. Both were 3 ft gauge, and both were serviced by two steam locomotives each. After 1907, both of these railroads were closed down and abandoned due to the mining companies moving on to greener pastures found to the north inDeath Valley. The old railroad beds can still be traced in some places in the desert, but now most of the old grades have been paved over to support cars and off-road vehicles.
The Daggett Cemetery, which features graves dating back to the early 1900s, is located at34°51′31″N116°52′48″W / 34.85861°N 116.88000°W /34.85861; -116.88000.[6]
Daggett appears in The Cardigans' video for "My Favourite Game". The 1940 movieThe Grapes of Wrath used Daggett as a filming location.[7]
According to theKöppen Climate Classification system, Daggett has asemi-arid climate, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps.[8] There is very little rainfall year-round anddiurnal temperature variation is high. In the winter, nights are often very cold while days are mildly cool. Meanwhile, summer nights are mildly warm while days can be extremely hot.
| Climate data forBarstow-Daggett Airport, California (1981-2010) | |||||||||||||
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| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Mean daily maximum °F (°C) | 60.7 (15.9) | 64.7 (18.2) | 71.6 (22.0) | 78.9 (26.1) | 88.8 (31.6) | 98.3 (36.8) | 104.2 (40.1) | 102.6 (39.2) | 94.9 (34.9) | 82.4 (28.0) | 69.0 (20.6) | 59.5 (15.3) | 81.4 (27.4) |
| Daily mean °F (°C) | 48.4 (9.1) | 52.3 (11.3) | 58.3 (14.6) | 64.8 (18.2) | 74.0 (23.3) | 82.6 (28.1) | 88.8 (31.6) | 87.4 (30.8) | 80.1 (26.7) | 68.3 (20.2) | 55.7 (13.2) | 47.2 (8.4) | 67.4 (19.7) |
| Mean daily minimum °F (°C) | 36.0 (2.2) | 39.8 (4.3) | 45.0 (7.2) | 50.7 (10.4) | 59.3 (15.2) | 67.0 (19.4) | 73.3 (22.9) | 72.2 (22.3) | 65.3 (18.5) | 54.2 (12.3) | 42.4 (5.8) | 34.8 (1.6) | 53.4 (11.9) |
| Averageprecipitation inches (mm) | 0.60 (15) | 0.66 (17) | 0.50 (13) | 0.17 (4.3) | 0.05 (1.3) | 0.06 (1.5) | 0.46 (12) | 0.26 (6.6) | 0.21 (5.3) | 0.18 (4.6) | 0.34 (8.6) | 0.57 (14) | 4.06 (103) |
| Source: Western Regional Climate Center[9] | |||||||||||||
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