Nostalgia & History > Reefer City

Seeing the reefer post on Western Railroads Discussion today brought to mind some old memories.

As a kid in the 1950s during a desert excursion, we came upon several wood reefers grouped together converted to living quarters. I believe it was west of Majove, Calif.

Heard it was named "Reefer City". About 20 years ago going back my memory failed and couldn't find them.

Anyone heard of them, been there, and do they still exist?

Watts local

I remember Reefer City, though my memory is rather scant on details. If my memory serves, these were 40-foot wooden reefer cars retired from railroad service and used as small homes west of Mojave near the Golden Queen Mine. Whether it was miners who worked at the G.Q. Mine or railroad workers who lived in the converted rail cars is unknown.  I do recall a couple of fires destroying the old wood cars (one resulted in a fatality).  I drove out to this area about 10 or 15 years ago, and there was nothing left to indicate this settlement existed. It's all sagebrush and sand.

Here is an article titled "Reefer City Homes Head for Salvage" that appeared in the Feb. 22, 1971 Bakersfield Californian (p. 10) :

"REEFER CITY (AP) - Obsolete maps soon will bear the only memories of this unique Mojave Desert gold mining ghost town - which consisted entirely of refrigerated railway box cars converted into homes.

"By year's end, Reefer City, a bona fide town three miles south of Mojave, will be torn down for salvage.

"Sagebrush clusters dot dirt streets that once bustled in the 1930s when the Golden Queen Mine in Soledad Mountain was rich with gold.

"Lately only pack rats and an occasional drifter have inhabited the dusty boxcar homes, once praised by miners, and later by military families for their insulated coolness in the stifling desert heat.

"Instead of building homes for the 300 miners who once lived here, the owners of the Golden Queen brought in surplus refrigerator cars from the Southern Pacific Railroad.

"When the mine played out in 1942, military families during World War II and Korea rented the refrigerator cars, called "reefers" by railroaders.

"But by 1960 the Marine base at nearby Mojave was abandoned and personnel at Edwards Air Force Base found air-cooled housing closer in.  Reefer City was left almost abandoned.

"Now the reefer cars, riddled by target shooters and warped and peeling, are worth more as scrap.

"Last week, Dennis Knott, 44, and Bud Neufield, 46, began tearing Reefer City down.

"They hope to net upward of $5,000 each selling iron and timber salvaged from the old railroad cars, and anything else left behind during Reefer City's short but unique life."


P.S: The Marine base at Mojave was an air base
- John Sweetser 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/22/19 15:02 by johnsweetser.