Desert Mice

 

Written on the back, "Would you happen to know who these desert rats are?"  And below that, "1961"  Well, this picture doesn't look like it's from the desert, but it could be from one of the many subdivisions that  started to sprout up in places like Tucson and Phoenix at around about that time.  

At the Mexican Joint

Written on the back, "Feb 1, 58 Coffee & Beer break Mexican joint in desert."

Well, I bought this picture in California, so I'm guessing the Palm Springs area or along Route 66.  Of course it could be a lot of other places, but that's my guess.

Bob Welker In the Desert

It looks like Bob is moving, and there's a good chance that it wasn't voluntary.  You might have to click on the image to bring it up in a bigger window, but the hood's up and there's a tire pump in the back seat.  How many more miles to the big city?

The Tourist Pose

Take a look at The National Geographic, Sunset or Arizona Highways, from the fifties, and you'll see this pose.  Usually, it's a nice couple, looking at someone in native dress or a tour guide, with the attraction  in the background.  Of course, those photos were usually in the super saturated Kodak color films of the day.  I'd be surprised if the person who took this photo wasn't a regular reader of at least one of those magazines.

Written on the back, "Earl & Opal Allred at Calico, Calif. 1956."  I did a quick search for Earl and Opal and found an Earl W. and Opal E., living in Los Angeles, and latter in California City.  But when Ancestry.Com asked for my credit card number...well, that ended things right then and there.

Calico is a ghost town north of Barstow, California.  It's a county park, and a bit more preserved today.  California City is a semi-failed development in the California desert.  The idea was to put hundreds of thousands of people in the Mojave, but those plans fell through when L.A. was reluctant to allow a tap in to the Owens Valley Aqueduct.