Getting a bird’s eye view in Bagdad

 

We had a drone photographer accompany us to Bagdad recently, so we could get some aerial views for the travelogue piece I’m creating about the location. We thought we’d get there early in the morning and avoid the heat, but nope! Early morning and the sun was still intense. Just no mercy.

Bagdad? Bagdad, California, that is. Located in the middle of the Mojave Desert. A ghost ‘town’ with not even the hint of a building anywhere.
How do you know when you’ve found it? Well. there’s a single salt cedar tree that stands as a marker, a tombstone, an “x marks the spot’ — a lone testament to a once bustling community that was home to a few hundred people in its heyday.

Here’s a few interesting tidbits about Bagdad, CA
–In the late 1800s thru the early 1900s it was an important watering stop for the railroad. There were homes, hotels, stores, a school, and even a Harvey House restaurant. By the 1940’s, population began to dwindle, and somewhere in the late 1960’s the town gave up the ghost.
–It holds the record for the longest period of drought in the history of the country… from July 1912 to November 1914- it had 767 consecutive days without precipitation.
In the 1940’s, people would come from all around the desert to the Bagdad Cafe, which was the only place for miles around that had a jukebox and dance floor.
–Mysteries are encased in the landscape… is it merely folklore or is there some truth to the story that 50 Chinese railroad workers, who died during a cholera epidemic, are buried in an unmarked grave at the location?
What other mysteries does this place hold? Aha! We’ll let you know what we discover!

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