Mountain Springs Station

You cannot get to this landmark, which is why the plaque is somewhere else. Peter Larkin and Joe Stancliff kept a stone house store here from 1862, and ox teams dragged wagons up a thirty percent grade past it; the San Diego and Fort Yuma Turnpike ran it as a toll station until 1876. Road changes from 1878 onward, ending in the interstate, cut the ruins off. The bronze sits by the Desert View Tower, a hundred yards from another plaque.

What the plaque says

Mountain Springs Station Site In 1862-70, about a mile north of here Peter Larkin and Joe Stancliff used a stone house as a store from which ox teams pulled wagons up a 30% grade. The San Diego & Fort Yuma Turnpike Co. used the site as a toll road station until 1876. The crumbling house was replaced in 1917 by another still visible to its east. But road changes, beginning in 1878 and culminating in today's highway, have left the older stone house ruins inaccessible. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 194 First registered June 20, 1935. Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Squibob Chapter, E Clampus Vitus. April 27, 1991

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Palm Springs — 19 mi
• Vallecito Stage Depot (Station) — 26 mi
• Site of Fort Romualdo Pacheco — 27 mi
• Box Canyon — 32 mi