Kelso Depot

Kelso Depot is the grand surprise of the deep Mojave, a two-story Spanish and Mission Revival station standing alone in a valley with no town left around it. The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad first put a depot here in 1905, and in 1923 the line began the building that stands today, the Kelso Clubhouse and Restaurant, opened the next year with a lunchroom, a reading room, and dormitory rooms upstairs for the crews who kept helper engines ready to push freight up the steep Cima grade. Water was the reason for all of it: steam locomotives needed it, and Kelso had a reliable well. Diesel ended the need for helpers, passenger service stopped in 1964, and the lunchroom, the Beanery, served its last meal at midnight on the last day of June, 1985. The Union Pacific wanted to tear the depot down; local citizens and Congressman Jerry Lewis fought the demolition, the building was saved, and in 2005 it reopened as the main visitor center for Mojave National Preserve, restored down to its arcaded loggias and red tile roof. As of this writing the depot is closed for a full overhaul of its heating and cooling systems, work that began in late 2023, with the Park Service expecting to reopen in 2026, but the building is worth the drive even shuttered, and the restrooms and shaded grounds beside it stay open. The Kelso Dunes lie a dozen miles south. There is no fuel and no water for sale at Kelso; the nearest reliable services are far off in every direction.