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Daggett, California
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Daggett is an unincorporated town located in San Bernardino County, California. The town is located on Interstate 40 ten miles (16 km) East of Barstow. The town has a population of about 200. The ZIP Code is 92327 and the community is inside area code 760.
town was originally founded in the 1880s just after the discovery of silver in area mines. In 1882, the Southern Pacific Railroad from Mojave was being completed in the area and it was thought that a good name for the town would be Calico Junction.
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Encyclopedia
Daggett is an unincorporated town located in San Bernardino County, California. The town is located on Interstate 40 ten miles (16 km) East of Barstow. The town has a population of about 200. The ZIP Code is 92327 and the community is inside area code 760.
History
The town was originally founded in the 1880s just after the discovery of silver in area mines. In 1882, the Southern Pacific Railroad from Mojave 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 the silver was uncovered. It was decided to name the city after then Lieutenant Governor of California, John Daggett, during the Spring of 1883.
For two years, it was the terminal of the twenty-mule team run from Death Valley, but after one of their swampers, William Pitt was lynched, the Pacific Borax Company made the terminal in Mojave.
Not only did silver define Daggett's history, but borax was also important to the city's economy. This borax was being mined, around the turn of the century, out of the Calico Hills nearby. This operation required many more laborers to come to the city to help. The Borate and Daggett Railroad was built to haul borax ore from the mines up in the hills down to Daggett.
Airport
Daggett is the location of Barstow-Daggett Airport. The facility is a general aviation airport serving the Barstow area. It is also the regional weather information center. The Airport was built as a modification center for the Douglas A-20 Havoc bombers then being sent to Russia on a lend lease program.
Schools
Daggett is part of the Silver Valley Unified School District. The Silver Valley High School is located at 35484 Daggett/Yermo Rd, Daggett, CA 92327, (760) 254-2963.
Statistics
As of 2003, 1000 people lived in Daggett, though nearly 1500 live in the surrounding area. The town's altitude is approximately .
Solar Power Generation
Daggett was home to a unique solar power plant named Solar I (after an upgrade, it became Solar II). The plant used mirror-like heliostats to aim sunlight at a collecting sphere, 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. Solar II switched from the use of oil to the use of molten salt compounds.
During calibration of the power plant's thousands of heliostats, a ball of glowing light could be seen in the nearby area. This ball was caused by the heliostats reflecting sunlight onto a specific point. As the intensity of the light increases, it tends to reflect off dust in the desert air. This phenomenon was sometimes seen by passersby on the nearby highways 40 and 15.
The Solar II experiments were stopped in the early 2000s, and the heliostat site has been taken over as a high energy astronomical facility known as C.A.C.T.U.S..
External links
- - Information on the SolarI and II power plants
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