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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126299
. -. - . - ~ ... ... .... .:. . )0' ~ '~ f ~ "I could almost hear tne snap of the old fort's flag at Call to Colors as I looked at the 100- year-old flagpole." By Don Lemaster I could almost hear the old fort's flag snapping at Call to Colors as I stood next to my faithful Japanese-made .com p an ion and looked up at the top of the IOO-year-old flagpole. Before me was the panorama of an unob structed 60-mile view. All around me was a pi ece of history righ t out of an .old bloo~ and gu~s 20 western m ovi e . O nl y thi ng was ; this had been for real. I was sta nd ing on a sit e tha t didn't have all the so-c alled romance of the Old West. All it looked like to me was hardsh ip and a damned rugge d life for th e men who had been here . This ha d bee n For t Piute , a precariou s link in the ch ain of forts a nd redo u bts tha t str etch ed from t he Colorado River to the present town of Ba rstow, Cal ifornia. I'd come here on m y t ra ilbike , tryin g to experie nce what it mu st h ave been like in th e 1860s a nd 70s whe n t h e o n ly la w or control in the Southwest was t ?e United States Army. The sole aid for t he traveler who was m igrat in g westwa rd . ot her than his own firearms, was th e te nuo us assistance of th e blue-clad soldi ers of the frontier . As th ey say in con tem por ary language, " It rnust've been ha iry ." I'm in clined to agree! On th e desert hill s ab ou t me were chunks of la va . Non e of th em seemed large enoug h to co nce a l In d ia n s a tt ac ki ng th e fort . Nearby was fr ee flowin g Piute Sprin gs a nd the who le pe rimeter provi ded a goo d fiel d of fire for th e fort's defenders. Squ ali d as th e spot may see m; ' whoever picked th e location for Fort Piute selected it well. This is what I ha d rid d e n mv moto rc ycl e to see . I wanted t ~ experience history. and I was do ing just that! The lives and times of people in bygone days h as b een a favo ri te subject of mine since I was a sm all you ngster. At th e top of th e list is m y inter est in th e grea t desert area s of Ca lifo rnia a nd th e Southwest. O n th is trip I was traveling an d exp loring th e route that joined together the stri ng of U .S. Army forts con structed in pre ยท Civil War days to prot ect the hardy im migra nts wh o were flooding t o California from the easte rn U .S. None of these forts or redoubts fit th e popular , movi e -inspired con ce p tio n of what it was like to live in th e a rid and lonely land. Ther e were no log forts. surrou nded by a stoc ka de made of sto ut tree trunks. Mainly. th e forts were bu ilt of na tive materials suc h as adobe, b rus h and sto ne . Few sto ut trees grow in the d ry vastness of th e Moja ve Desert. Scarcer yet was the m ost pre ciou s com modi ty of all : Waterl Consequently. the route across th e prairi e and the picking of eac h fort site was dictated by the availability of wa ter. Fort Mohave (the Army spelling ). on th e Arizon a side of th e Color ad o River , was the firs t ins ta llation built by the U. S. Arm y to prot ec t t h e . Government Road as it wandered west over p lains and mounta ins to th e a rea of present-day Barstow. Since I haven 't been ab le to teach m y Yam a ha trailbike to swim yet, I decided to begin m y research of the historic chain of forts on the Ca lifornia side of th e river. So , here I was a t th e ru ins of Fort Piute ; th inking ba ck int o history and trying to get th e feel of what it was like when m en had to live in thi s desert before the d a ys or' electricit y, a ir conditioning. tel evision , telephones and a u tom obiles. On th e easte rn edge of th e California map . just north of Need les on the flowin g Colorado Ri ver, is a sit e marked Fort Mohave (ruins) . Up to this point I'd no idea that any su ch place existed ; so I started digging through the books in the library. I wanted to know as much as I could about ye ste rye a r a lo n g the Government Road. The more I got int o it . th e more interested I became, One of the first things I discovered was that the wh ite m en had used th is route long befor e the government erected its line of forts . First Caucasian to pass this way was Fray Francisco Garces in 1776 , over 200 years ago . His party was followed by tra ppers and traders in the 1820s. By the I850s there was a stea dy s t rea m o f immigrants movin g westw ard alon g th e road . A total of six forts or redoubts stoo d next to the Government Road in its heyday. Most of th em have deca yed to practically nothing now, but som e sign can be found at each site if you look carefully. , Fort Piute never d id receive officia l recognition as a fort , but th e ru ins and grou nds remain in g of th e ci ta del offer the most to see for t he explorer. West of Fort Piu te , on what is now ca lled Ceda r Canvon Road . is the sit e of Camp Rock S p~i ngs . A m ile farther west a nd you 'll see Go vern me nt Holes: wher e th e soliders had to dig wells t ~ supply wa ter to th e camp at ROCK Sprin gs. One officer and abou t _a doze n me n were a ll that sta ffed th e cam p. The offi cer ha d his quarters in a cave wh ile th e men su rvived the best they could in d ugou ts and brush shelters. Du ring the Ci,;1 War. Camp Rock Sprin gs. like most of th e ot her Mojav e forts . was ga rrisoned on ly pa rt -t ime . Twi ce a month a pa trol fro m Fort Moha ve pa trolled t he ro ad between th e Colo rado Rive r an d Ca m p Rock Springs. Lik e the othe r fo rts . Roc k Springs served a s a stagecoa ch sto p and even ha d a post office at one tim e . The ca m p was finallv closed in 1868 a nd the chore of patrolling that area was turned over to the men manning the next fort west: Cam p Ma rl Spri ngs. L a st to be es ta b lis he d , bu t co nsidered to be the most important, was Cam p Ma rl Springs. It was at th e hal fwa y point betw een Camp Cady (nea r p rese nt -day Barstow ) a nd th e Colo rad o River. In d ians and .wh ite men fough t for possession of the preciou s wat er at the springs, but. th e stori es of massa cres of wh ite s by Indians were highl y exagge ra ted . Few d eaths o cc u r re d durin g th e confrontations betw een th e two ra ces. Fort Soda sat besid e Sod a Dr y Lak e to th e so u thwest of Camp Ma rl Sp r in g s. T he o rigi na l ro a d h a s disappea red . b ut a motorcyclist can rid e the di rt roads to th e pl ace wh ere Fort Sod a once stood. Actu all y. p art of the original wall s still stand . They've beco me sections of the resort b uildi ngs