An actress and ballet dancer named Marta Becket got a flat tire in 1967 and had to stop in Death Valley Junction to fix it. The story of how the opera house got to be here is fairly well known. A view of the historic district behind the opera house. Originally named Corkhill Hall, the building that is now the Opera House was constructed in 1923 as a hotel, theater, and a dormitory and office building for railroad employees. Borax was processed and shipped from there until the borax industry declined in the 1960s. In the 1920s, the Pacific Coast Borax Company built most of the town. The town grew out of the borax mining industry in the area, first as a stop along the Death Valley Railroad around 1914. Most of the buildings are now vacant, and have been for some time. With a population of less than 20, Death Valley Junction is really more of a ghost town. To call Death Valley Junction a small town would be a stretch, besides the opera house and adjoining hotel there isn’t really much else there. The edge of Death Valley is an unusual place to find an opera house, yet it fits in quite well. From Baker, you make the drive 82 miles north along CA-127 - it’s here where you’ll find the hotel in all its dust and semi-glory.The Amargosa Opera House is one of those strange places where you just can’t put your finger on what exactly makes it so odd. There is not much there unless you like expensive gasoline, greasy food, or the engine music of tractor-trailers at extended idle. This is fast enough to feel dangerous, but slow enough to blend in among the passing glint of wild-eyed gamblers fixated on the lights of Las Vegas.īreak the law, I say, but don’t break it worse than the folks beside you.įrom Victorville, it is 94.5 miles to Baker, a former railroad town of some 700 or so inhabitants. Me, I keep my speed within five miles-per-hour of the posted limit. A speeding ticket will set you back in the hundreds of dollars. Watch your speedometer closely many a do-gooder have been lassoed by the pendulum flash atop a California Highway Patrolmen’s cruiser. Interstate 15, from points west near Los Angeles, is the main thoroughfare to Las Vegas, Nevada. BMWs and late model sedans jockey for pole position among mini-vans, travel-trailers, and the ceaseless caravan of big rigs moving consumer and wholesale goods for this fine, materialist country.
The interstate - at whatever hour - is filled with all sorts of car and truck traffic.
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