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If you don’t have a car, the best way to get from Los Angeles to Calico is by bus which takes 2h 5m and costs $40 – $65. If you take a guided tour of the famous Mystery Shack you’ll see all these and find out more about Harry Dover, the guy who created the shack. As a town, Calico had a turbulent existence, burning down to the ground in the fall of 1883. After its abandonment in the 1930s, the town stayed neglected for almost 20 years.
What to Expect in Calico Ghost Town
This is a replica, but it still makes you feel nostalgic about that era.. While Calico is not exactly authentic, I think it’s still a nice place where you can experience the Old West. And if you are a photo enthusiast, you’ll find a lot of photo opportunities here. Little towns began sprouting like mushrooms around the gold and silver mines. One of these towns was Calico, in the upper Mojave Desert, which developed around the Calico Mining Company. The discovery of gold and silver in the second half of the 19th century changed the face of California completely.
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Scattered throughout Calico are numerous shops, restaurants and historic sites that you should visit. The shops sell all kinds of trinkets, antiques, candy, western clothing, and more. Even if you don’t want to buy anything, it’s still fun to browse through them. Calico is a county park where people come to imagine life in an old mining town. And just like that, we’ve arrived at another Friday — and another edition of the Los Angeles Times News Quiz. The best time to visit is between October and May, when the weather is cooler.
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The park also operates mine tours, gunfight stunt shows, gold panning, and a small a rail road. If you want to partake in some of these activities, you’ll have to pay extra. Somewhere on the long desert drive between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, lies Calico, one of the most popular ghost towns on Route 66, in California.
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However, if you don’t have a choice, the summer months may work as well. Although the temperatures will be above 100ºF, the weather is very dry in the desert, so it doesn’t feel so bad. This small working railroad was installed in Calico Ghost Town in 1958 and has been working ever since. The train tour takes you around the hill and lasts about 10 minutes. Along the way you can see some of the old mining equipment and many of Calico’s historical sites.
Today the mine is safe and open to the public to walk through. A quick self-guided tour will give you an idea how the mines of Calico looked. There is a display showcasing some of the minerals found locally. Calico had a wide variety of businesses and shops, hotels, a jail, saloons, a Chinatown, and –like any respectable town– a redlight district. The story of Calico is not any different from that of the many other mining boomtowns gone bust after marked collapsed. For ghost town devotees, Calico is this over-commercialized town that plays to idealistic Old West stereotypes.
Your job (if you can call it that) is to keep up on the news of the week and answer them correctly. Anda is an award winning travel writer, avid globetrotter and passionate photographer. She is the voice behind "Travel Notes & Beyond," a collection of stories and travel impressions from her wanderings around the world. When she is not busy writing, traveling, or editing photographs, you can find her hiking in the foothills behind her house together with her husband and their dog.
How to Get to Calico Ghost Town
However, if you decide to spend the night around here, I recommend staying in Barstow, just 15 minutes away from Calico. Lil’s Beer Garden Saloon is basically a snack bar located on one of the original buildings that still looks just like an old-fashion saloon, with swinging doors. It’s a nice place to get a drink and get a pizza or a hot dog. The pictures up on the wall of all the old history gunslingers, outlaws and sheriffs are nice to look at. If you want to find out about the former Calico Mining District, you should visit he Lane House and Museum. The museum building is one of the five original adobe structures from the late 1880s that have survived the test of time.
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Thousands of people lured by the promise of riches began heading west in order to “see the elephant,” as the California Gold Rush was often called. He currently covers a wide range of pop-culture topics with a focus on cannabis culture. In journalism, he feels perfectly suited to looking at things, asking “why? Before digging in, a quick shout-out to those who stopped by to play a live version of the News Quiz at last weekend’s Festival of Books. Calico Ghost Town can be easily visited as a day trip from Los Angeles, or from Las Vegas.
Even so, if you have never seen a ghost town before, Calico may be a fun place to experience. Republishing the content on this blog (including text, photography, etc.) is strictly prohibited. Located at the top of Calico Ghost Town, Old Miner’s Café is another nice choice for lunch. The restaurant serves hamburgers, a variety of sandwiches, salads, hot dogs, ice cream and more. The driving distance between Los Angeles and Calico is 127 miles (1 hour and 50 minutes).
It’s not the most fancy town but it’s O.K, considering that you are in the middle of the desert. Check your favorite hotel booking sites for rates and availability here. At the top of the town, just as you hit the end of the road, you’ll see the building of the Old School House.
In 1950, Walter Knott – the owner of Knotts Berry Farm in Buena Park– converted Calico into a tourist attraction. But when the silver market collapsed later that decade, the town fell into decline. Miners and their families began moving away in search of other opportunities. In the late 1800’s the town was buzzing with prospectors searching for its mineral riches. Silver was discovered here and the Calico became one of the richest mining districts in the state.
Unlike Bodie where you get a feeling of isolation and abandonment, Calico is anything but deserted. The ghost town of Calico is a joyful and populated place where at any time of year you’ll cross paths with hundreds of tourists. It feels more like Jerome, which is an ‘alive-an-well’ ghost town.
