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Morongo Basin, east of Twenty-nine Palms, Southern California.
The Small Tract Act of 1938 established a program to dispose of this useless public domain land by offering it at $5 to $20 an acre to anyone who, within a year, would "make improvements."
The Public Land Survey System had laid an arbitrary grid across America's public domain lands, a system that worked fairly well in the well-watered Eastern and Midwestern United States, but was ill suited to the arid and often jagged terrain of the Southwest. The names that first round of settlers gave their new properties reflect both the grit and the humor of the classic American homesteader.
Aching Back, Calloused Palms, Lizard Acres, and Canta-Forda Rancho. But the program was a success. In 1941, prospective settlers applied for 1500 patents. A decade later, the number jumped to 12,000, and by the mid 1950's the land office had a backlog of 60,000 applications. And this was for land that would have no electricity until late in the decade, and for properties where water would have to be hauled in and stored.
By mid-century, speculators were buying the properties for an increasingly mobile, West Coast population on the lookout for weekend retreats. Ads were placed in Desert Magazine by companies offering pre-built homes in the $1500 range. These proliferated across the landscape, bringing in a demographic more leisured and less pioneering than the earlier inhabitants. In other words, weekenders who expected such amenities as roads.
New tensions arose between old timers and newcomers, but the bleakness of the desert seemed to encourage tolerance, and the area was rediscovered in the latter part of the century. Alternative communities of gays and lesbians emerged. The area attracted artists and designers interested in sustainable living. Some developers built 8000 sq ft homes, while entrepreneurs of a different stripe took over older properties and installed meth labs.
During this time, shacks and homes fell derelict. Original patent holders died, their families wanted nothing to do with the remote getaways, and the land was all so cheap it was relatively easy to just walk away.
Most of Stringfellow's photographs depict these ruins, some reflecting the eccentric buildings of older settlers, but mostly the pre-fab modernity of later structures. When she goes inside she finds peeling walls, collapsed ceilings, abandoned appliances, stray personal affects, and critter damage. Sixty pages of these images tend to tell the same story over and over again. Whether photographed in their bleakly beautiful landscapes or up close with a more clinical eye, the buildings look more like garbage than evocative ruins.
The Small Tract Act of 1938 established a program to dispose of this useless public domain land by offering it at $5 to $20 an acre to anyone who, within a year, would "make improvements."
The Public Land Survey System had laid an arbitrary grid across America's public domain lands, a system that worked fairly well in the well-watered Eastern and Midwestern United States, but was ill suited to the arid and often jagged terrain of the Southwest. The names that first round of settlers gave their new properties reflect both the grit and the humor of the classic American homesteader.
Aching Back, Calloused Palms, Lizard Acres, and Canta-Forda Rancho. But the program was a success. In 1941, prospective settlers applied for 1500 patents. A decade later, the number jumped to 12,000, and by the mid 1950's the land office had a backlog of 60,000 applications. And this was for land that would have no electricity until late in the decade, and for properties where water would have to be hauled in and stored.
By mid-century, speculators were buying the properties for an increasingly mobile, West Coast population on the lookout for weekend retreats. Ads were placed in Desert Magazine by companies offering pre-built homes in the $1500 range. These proliferated across the landscape, bringing in a demographic more leisured and less pioneering than the earlier inhabitants. In other words, weekenders who expected such amenities as roads.
New tensions arose between old timers and newcomers, but the bleakness of the desert seemed to encourage tolerance, and the area was rediscovered in the latter part of the century. Alternative communities of gays and lesbians emerged. The area attracted artists and designers interested in sustainable living. Some developers built 8000 sq ft homes, while entrepreneurs of a different stripe took over older properties and installed meth labs.
During this time, shacks and homes fell derelict. Original patent holders died, their families wanted nothing to do with the remote getaways, and the land was all so cheap it was relatively easy to just walk away.
Most of Stringfellow's photographs depict these ruins, some reflecting the eccentric buildings of older settlers, but mostly the pre-fab modernity of later structures. When she goes inside she finds peeling walls, collapsed ceilings, abandoned appliances, stray personal affects, and critter damage. Sixty pages of these images tend to tell the same story over and over again. Whether photographed in their bleakly beautiful landscapes or up close with a more clinical eye, the buildings look more like garbage than evocative ruins.
All photos from: Jackrabbit Homestead by Kim Stringfellow, Center for American Places, 2009.(Review from Photo-eye)
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