Tuesday, November 24, 2009

In Walter Knott's Footsteps: Newberry Springs (1)

The second stop on our Knott trek was the parcel of land Walter and Cordelia homesteaded in Newberry Springs on the Mojave Desert from about 1914 to about 1917. The photo above shows what it looks like today. The Knotts tried to grow grapes here, which proved to be one of their few significant business missteps. However, they still stuck it out long enough (three years) to establish the homestead.
The black and white photos in today's post are from the homestead and show the Knott kids, Cordelia, and the family dog with a number of turkeys. I don't know if I'll get to post again before the 26th, so I'd better make use of these gratuitous gobbler shots while I can.
If you don't hear from me before then (or even if you do), have a happy Thanksgiving!

4 comments:

Chris Merritt said...

These are so great Chris - thanks for sharing!

Doug said...

Did you see any structural remains, foundations, footings. How about refuse scatters or trash deposits?
What types and sizes of food tins/cans? How were the cans opened? How about bottle glass and ceramics?
So many questions to be answered when exploring a desert homestead site.

Chris Jepsen said...

The buildings and foundations were long gone. Everything had been plowed up many, many times for agriculture over the last 90-some years. Didn't even see any containers out there. Just sand, weeds, and some ant hills. There was one very small area that looked odd that I'll probably post a photo of. Maybe you can help me figure it out.

SundayNight said...

Thanks for the fantastic pictures of from your Knott history tour. Also enjoyed the rare Knott Mojave photos. We've seen so many photos of Cordelia Knott in her later years - these photos remind us that she was once a hard working young mother.