Somewhere in the Mohave desert…

Abandoned, #15. Mohave Desert. California, 2017

…you will find this abandoned site. It was originally an Air Force Station, operating ground-controlled intercept radars, from the 1950s into the 70s, then the place was converted into a minimum security prison (a “Club Fed”!) from the mid-70s to the year 2000 (See the end of this post for some curious factoids).

Flirting with ghosts…faint voices floating by on the dry desert winds…

I didn’t see the No Trespassing signs (8 1/2 x 11 photocopies on a wall) until I was on my way out. Regardless, I feel like it is important to document such sites and their reaction to the wind, rain, human abuse, and the passage of time. Touch nothing, take nothing but pictures, and be careful where you step…and definitely stay away from the radar dome as that is an active FAA site.

Better yet: If you see signs, comply, and don’t trespass!

With a little internet research, you can find a pile of interesting historical facts about this place.

The still-active FAA radar dome sits above the abandoned Air Force Station/prison site:

Abandoned, #1. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

The Bureau of Prisons seal by the main offices slowly disintegrates as the passage of time and the elements do their relentless work: 

Abandoned, #3. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

Main offices? Purpose? For visitors?

Abandoned, #4. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

I’m not sure if the “Don Vito” here refers to Don Vito Corleone of Godfather fame, and I am also not sure if any of the many Don Vito’s in history actually came up with this quote. But, it is indeed a wise quote:

Abandoned, #5. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

The visiting area as of the fall of 2017:

Abandoned, #6. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

The sunset view from one of the bedroom suites:

Abandoned, #7. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

A toilet of penal luxury in its time:

Abandoned, #8. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

I’m guessing young vandals (or, perhaps, Goths or Visigoths), threw these mattresses out of the building so they could take turns jumping onto them from the roof. Just a guess, though:

Abandoned, #9. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

The graffiti is everywhere, as it always is in such places:

Abandoned, #12. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

It appears the handball court makes a nice secluded gangland bonfire site and art studio:

Abandoned, #13. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

A basketball court with a view of the empty (yet teeming with hardy non-human life) Mohave Desert:

Abandoned, #14. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

An eerie eye peers out onto a courtyard:

Abandoned, #15. Mohave Desert. California, 2017

This looks like it was once fairly nice family housing for the Air Force Station folks. From what I have read, the structures were converted into group housing for the low-risk inmates:

Abandoned, #17. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

This dark corner must have tremendous meaning to someone, somewhere:

Abandoned, #18. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

The slots below were telephone booths. Imagine the place full of inmates calling home to family or friends (or to their stock brokers or lawyers) far away. On the vertical posts, it said “Monitored” and “Vigilado”:

Abandoned, #19. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

This I saw on the way out, posted on a low cinder block wall. Oops:

Abandoned, #21. Mohave Desert, California, 2017

Some interesting details about the site when it was refurbished as a prison…

–This “Security Level 1” facility housed some 300 to 500+ mostly white-collar-type criminals (“paper crimes” mostly).

–The prison had no walls–unless you interpret the vast desert expanses surrounding the facility as “walls”. Very few tried to escape as getting caught likely meant getting sent to a “real” prison  with all the abuse that implied. 

–The prison included dorms, classrooms (profs from Barstow Community College came calling), various workshops, a chapel, a medical clinic, a fire department, racquetball and basketball courts, two libraries (one specializing in law since many inmates worked on their own cases to some degree), and so on.

–Inmates were paid a small wage to work for Unicor’s Vehicular Component Factory, fixing up government vehicles. Rehabilitation work at its best, I’m sure.

–Some of the more interesting characters who resided here: Grant Affleck (real estate fraud–victims were primarily working class Mormons), Ivan Boesky (insider trading; he was mostly at Lompoc, but apparently served a few months here, too), Senator Joseph B. Montoya (a CA state senator convicted of corruption and misuse of funds), Michael Milken (insider trading; still alive and now worth a couple of billion dollars), Harold Rossfields Smith (embezzled over $20 million from Wells Fargo bank–money not recovered), David Jenkins (Olympic athlete convicted of distributing steroids), and Rueben “Porn King” Sturman (convicted of tax evasion and eventually of extortion, briefly escaped, then eventually died in federal prison in 1997).