Vidal in the News

Has Narrow Escape from Death on Desert

When C. H. Brownell left Needles for Vidal by automobile and failed to wire his arrival, his wife and a companion set out along the desert road to search for him. His car was found disabled beyond Hank's Well with a note saying he had walked on toward the D. & W. mine; rescue parties from both Needles and Vidal reached him near the mine, exhausted from lack of food and nearly out of water.

Mines Located in Riverside County

Among the location notices filed with the county recorder were several claims near Vidal — W. L. Criciat's 'Gold Hill' claims in the Riverside Mountains, four and a half miles from Vidal, and his 'Annex' claim adjoining the Gold Standard group — a small record of the prospecting that worked the hills around the young railroad town.

Local Briefs — A Vidal Restaurant Man

Among a column of San Pedro social notes was word that Mrs. E. H. Griffith was visiting friends there while her husband operated a restaurant at Vidal, California — a faint trace of the people who kept the town's few businesses running in its railroad days.

Notice of Sale — The Vidal Mining Company

A legal notice announced the sale of delinquent stock in The Vidal Mining Company, a corporation with its principal place of business at Brownell's Hotel in Vidal. Shares on which a five-dollar-per-share assessment had gone unpaid were to be sold at the front door of the hotel at noon on December 20, 1917.

The Vidal Mining Company — Annual & Special Meeting

The company called its annual and special meeting of stockholders at its office in Brownell's Store in Vidal, both to elect directors and to vote on cutting the par value of its shares from one hundred dollars to one dollar — raising the authorized shares from ten thousand to one million.

The Vidal Mining Company

The company gave notice of its intention to move its principal place of business from Vidal to Los Angeles — with a telling aside: Vidal was in San Bernardino County, though the company's articles of incorporation had mistakenly placed it in Riverside County.

Aqueduct Opens Boom in Desert

A wire dispatch datelined Vidal reported that preparations for the Colorado River Aqueduct had set off a boom in a town then holding only a Santa Fe station, a hotel, a post office, a store, and a boarding house. The county planning commission had approved an ambitious townsite plan — water mains, paved streets, and business buildings — before crews began tunneling through the Whipple Mountains.

Hunters' Paradise

A brief datelined Vidal reported that local huntsmen were enjoying an open season on wild hogs discovered among the tules along the Colorado River. Not native to the desert, the hogs were believed to be the increase of a drove that had broken loose and wandered away following the death of a lone homesteader some years before.

Permit Granted

The state railroad commission granted the Vidal Water Company permission to operate a public water utility in Vidal, in San Bernardino County. The notice observed that Vidal was expected to be one of the bases for construction work on the Colorado River Aqueduct.

Chamber Board Favors Blythe-to-Vidal Road

Directors of the chamber of commerce passed a resolution endorsing roughly $74,000 in federal road money for a highway between Blythe and Vidal, running along the Colorado River. The road was seen as a link in a route eventually to run along the California side of the river from Yuma to Hoover Dam, over the objections of interests who wanted the money spent on a bridge at Parker.

Town Going Modern

For the first time in its history, the dispatch reported, the former desert trading post — now thriving on the nearby aqueduct work — would blaze forth with electric lights that night. 'Two-Gun' Jimmy Wilson, eighty years old and for forty years a resident of the section, was to have charge of the celebration.

Aqueduct Brings Teeming Activity to Vidal and Rice, Once Isolated Towns

Grady Setzler's long feature described how the aqueduct had invaded 'the last great inland wilderness' of California, with some 750 men already working in summer heat of 110 to 122 degrees. At Vidal — six miles off the aqueduct highway on the Santa Fe, where C. H. Brownell had kept the store for a quarter century — a Los Angeles townsite company had secured a section of land, built two stone arches at the town's entrances, piped it for water, and installed an electric plant; its fifty residences were full, and lumber yards, a theater, and a dance hall were under construction.

Stage Raids Along River

Nine persons began jail sentences after a sweeping series of sheriff's raids on desert resorts at Rice and along the highways near the Colorado River. The raids netted twenty-five prisoners on gambling and liquor charges; sixteen paid fines totaling $1,100 in Justice C. H. Brownell's court at Vidal, and the rest were held in default.

Stanley Pays $600 in Fines on Vidal Road

The San Bernardino paper's account of the same raids named B. H. 'Beehive' Stanley, an ex-San Bernardino politician who ran the Vidal Cactus Club and was said to have paid more than $600 of the fines for himself and his associates. Some thirty men and women were arraigned before Justice Brownell on gambling, whisky, and vagrancy charges.

City Goodwill Tour Party to Depart Early

San Bernardino's chamber of commerce goodwill motorcade, bound for Boulder Dam and the desert communities, was to make Vidal its first stop — met five miles out of town by a welcoming committee and hosted at a luncheon in the dancing pavilion of the Cactus Club before touring the aqueduct's nearby tunnels.

Honor Wilmington Woman — A Visit from Vidal

A Wilmington society note recorded that Mrs. Cecil High and her daughter, Grace Marge, of Vidal, California, had come to honor a friend on her birthday — one of the small social threads that tied the desert town to the coast.

Federal Aid May Be Given New Highway

An El Centro chamber official reported a telegram from state senator Ed Fletcher announcing a federal allocation for grading and oiling the Colorado Valley Highway — hoped to become U.S. 93 — running north along the river through Vidal to Needles, part of the long effort to fix a paved route along the California bank.

Court Order Sought to Stop Molesting of Strike Pickets

During a C.I.O. strike against the J. F. Shea Company on the aqueduct, picket captain W. V. Tolberd was questioned at the Vidal, California, jail and released without charge. The strikers sought a dollar-a-day raise and recognition as sole bargaining agent for the aqueduct workers, and weighed court action against the company's armed guards.

New Quarantine Stations Open — Parker Station Near Vidal

Amid rising motor traffic on the Needles–Blythe and Parker–Desert Center highways, the state Bureau of Plant Quarantine established an inspection station six miles north of Vidal. Known as the Parker Station and staffed by two inspectors, it examined the vehicles and baggage of travelers entering California against insect pests and plant diseases.

County Takes Aqueduct Road Across Desert

With the Colorado River Aqueduct virtually complete, the Metropolitan Water District formally deeded seventy miles of paved desert highway — from the county line near Desert Center to Earp — to San Bernardino County to maintain. On the same day the Vidal chamber of commerce, led by president Hal Oxnevad, appealed to the supervisors to protest the proposed closing of the Santa Fe station at Vidal.

Desert Wasteland at Vidal Converted into Successful Citrus-Producing Area

The county farm adviser reported on Mesa Ranch at Vidal, where forty acres of lemon trees planted the previous February were thriving in the sandy soil, with another forty acres and navel oranges planned. Alfalfa grown between the rows held the soil against wind and softened the sun's glare off the pale ground; hanging on the door of the ranch shop were the rattles of thirty-eight diamondback and sidewinder rattlesnakes killed in the fields.

Vidal Jail Located on Privately Owned Property, Officials Learned

The Board of Supervisors learned that the little concrete jail at Vidal stood on private land — the property of former deputy Hal Oxnevad and his wife — rather than the county's. In the boom days offenders had first been handcuffed to telegraph poles; cell blocks from the old county jail were then moved to Vidal and, in 1933 or 1934, encased in concrete by a WPA crew that never checked the location, leaving the jail immovable where it sat.

Battye Describes His Taking 1910 Census on Desert

L. Burr Belden's Sunday history column recalled the two short-lived booms of the county's southeastern corner. When the Santa Fe built the Parker cutoff in 1910, little towns sprang up along the rails — Earp at the river crossing and Calzona, a scrambling of 'California' and 'Arizona,' a 1910 boom town where promoters planted grapefruit that costly well water could not sustain. West of Calzona, Vidal had its own boom in the early 1930s with the aqueduct — even boasting a newspaper, the Vidal Herald, edited by M. G. Watkins — and, unlike Calzona, it remained a recognized community.

Wyatt Earp's Desert Home Saved for Public

The thirteenth article in a Sun-Telegram history series recounted how Wyatt Earp — a Colton boy who became one of the West's most famous lawmen — spent his later years working a gold mine in the Whipple Mountains, wintering in a cabin near Parker Dam and keeping a house in Vidal. Long after his death the little siding of Drennan, on the California side of the river, was renamed Earp in his honor, and his cabin was preserved as the chief point of historic interest in that desert community.

Released from Hospital

W. L. Skelton of Blythe was shocked and bruised when his car turned over near Vidal on a Wednesday evening. The former Vidal resident and Santa Fe conductor was treated at the local Santa Fe hospital and was able to return home by Saturday.

Vidal Man Dies at Riverside

Harry Christian Schulties, 65, a resident of Vidal for several years and a World War I veteran, died February 24th at a Riverside hospital. A native of Kansas, he was survived by his aged mother, Mrs. Annie Collins of Vidal.

Card of Thanks

Mr. and Mrs. D. L. Collins wished to thank their Vidal friends and neighbors for their sympathy and kindness in the family's recent bereavement.

Deputy Taking Needed Rest

Capt. Hal Oxnavad of the county sheriff's forces, who lived at Vidal with his family, took a 60-day sick leave on his physician's advice, having been overburdened with work since no deputy had been sent to relieve him months earlier.

Plane Spotters Being Sought

Civil-defense organizers sought volunteer ground observers in Vidal and a dozen other desert towns to watch for enemy aircraft that could slip beneath radar screened by the surrounding mountains, closing a network of observation posts eight miles apart.

A.W.O.L. Soldiers Recaptured at Parker

Five young soldiers who overpowered their guards near Ludlow abandoned their Army sedan near Vidal and forced a passing motorist to hand over his car; four were captured days later near Bouse, Arizona, and returned to the stockade at Ft. MacArthur.

In the Service — Leave for Army

Among three young men inducted into the Army was Richard Miller, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Miller of Vidal, a Needles High School graduate who had attended San Bernardino Valley College before being sent to Fort Ord.

Recover Pickup Truck

Deputy Brunning of the Parker Dam substation recovered a 1951 pickup abandoned near Vidal, stripped of its tires and accessories by a painter who lived near the river. Investigation revealed the truck had been stolen from Pecos, Texas, the previous August.

State Highway Men Have a Busy Week

A rollover near Vidal sent an elderly tourist to the Blythe hospital, and Vidal Junction employee Marvin Cook overturned his car at Earp, escaping with minor injuries — two of several accidents that gave highway patrol officers a hard week.

Hospitalized by Auto Accident Injuries

Mrs. Elvah Shaw was admitted to the hospital with minor injuries after the car she rode in lost control on a curve ten miles east of Vidal Junction and rolled when it struck the highway shoulder.

Rainstorm Closes Two Highways

A Saturday cloudburst did its heaviest damage on U.S. 95 near Vidal, where a flood left three feet of debris across a quarter-mile of pavement and carried a car and trailer half a mile down the wash.

Woman Loses Life in Accident

Mrs. Marianne Massey, 33, was killed when the car driven by her husband, Glenn, failed to negotiate a curve and rolled over north of Vidal Junction. She had been wearing her seat belt; her husband was hurt only slightly.

Rice School Will Not Be Sold

The school board set aside an earlier proposal to sell the unused Rice School building, noting that the enrollment picture from that area indicated the buildings might be needed at Vidal.

School Transportation Set for Vidal Pupils

The county school board fixed mileage and boarding allowances for desert pupils, giving Vidal high-schoolers the option of boarding in Needles or attending Parker Dam High School when bus service was unavailable.

High-Speed Crash Kills 7 Soldiers

Seven soldiers taking part in the Army's Desert Strike maneuvers were killed when their speeding car left U.S. 95 and struck the brick monument marking the entrance to Vidal. The California Highway Patrol estimated the car had been traveling between 80 and 100 miles an hour; the speedometer was found jammed at 90.

Mock War Leads to Dozens of Deaths

As the vast Desert Strike war game moved toward its close, the Associated Press tallied its cost away from the mock battle: dozens of servicemen had died in accidents across the 13-million-acre maneuver area along the California–Arizona border, among them an Air Force pilot killed when his jet crashed on a simulated strafing run near Vidal.

WWI Veteran Passes Away

Bert Smith, a World War I veteran past 90 who lived at Vidal and often visited friends in Needles, died in a Glendale nursing home. A desert enthusiast, he had written stories about the desert, Death Valley, and his war experiences.

Parker Man Dies After Accident

Frederick Frank Cade of Parker, Arizona, died at Needles Hospital following a single-car accident north of Vidal Junction. He had worked for an extermination service in Parker.

Private Funeral Rites for May Hartsif, 84

May E. Hartsif, a native of the Indian Territory and a 20-year resident of Vidal, was laid to rest at Riverview Cemetery. She was survived by her husband, Ralph of Vidal, a son, a grandchild, and two great-grandchildren.

Boy, 6, Found Chained in Desert Box

A United Press dispatch carried the first news of the case across the country: a six-year-old boy, Anthony Saul Gibbons, had been found chained inside a nailed-shut packing crate at a desert "ranch co-op" near the Colorado River, discovered by two men who had come to buy horses. Eight adults were arrested, and the boy — treated for malnutrition and dehydration — was reported in good condition at a youth home.

Letters to the Editor — Mr. & Mrs. Serge Ballif

Letters to the Editor — Patricia Mosher

Long-Sought Box Boy's Dad Arrested Here

Dad of Boy in Box Gives Up

Braytons Plead Innocent in Box Case

Former Probation Officer Admits Box Punishment

'Golden Mike' Award — Reporter Who Covered the Box Case

Palm Springs television reporter Vance Weber won a Golden Mike award for KPLM-TV for his on-air interview with a fugitive in the Solar Lodge 'Boy in the Box' case, who surrendered during the televised interview. The photo shows Weber, at left, with station manager Jim Hawthorne holding the trophy.

'Boy in the Box' Case — Father Changes Plea

Box Case Defendants Plead

Been to Vidal? Not Missing Much

Charles Hillinger's Los Angeles Times profile found a town being reclaimed by sand and sage — fifteen residents, most of them retired and averaging seventy years of age, living where traffic on Highway 95 barely slowed. Residents spoke ruefully of the town's high per-capita traffic toll and recalled that Wyatt Earp had spent his last years working mining claims in the surrounding mountains.

Rotary Speaker — Nuclear Station Planned Near Vidal

A Rotary Club speaker outlined plans for a nuclear generating station near Vidal — one of many desert sites floated in the era's energy boom, and a project that was ultimately never built.

Sheriff's Log — Grand Theft Arrest

A Crestmore man arrested for attempted grand theft auto had been arrested the previous day in Vidal for auto theft. Under the statewide emergency $0 bail schedule then in force, he was released with a citation.

Sheriff's Log — A Warrant at U.S. 95 & SR 62

While assisting a stranded motorist at U.S. 95 and State Route 62 in Vidal, officers contacted a 31-year-old woman found to have a felony no-bail warrant out of San Diego County; she was booked awaiting an extradition hearing.

Sheriff's Log — Traffic Stops Near Vidal Junction

The week's log recorded a driver stopped on Highway 95 south of Vidal Junction and cited for driving without a license, among a run of contacts along the desert highways.

Sheriff's Log — DUI and Firearm Arrest at Highway 62 & 95

Deputies stopped Corey Reinbold, 37, near the intersection of Highway 62 and Highway 95 in Vidal and booked him on charges of driving under the influence and being a felon in possession of a firearm, on a combined $40,000 bail.

Sheriff's Log — Stolen Property Arrest at Vidal Junction

Deputies booked a Blythe man on a stolen-property charge near Vidal Junction the same day highway patrol cited a Bakersfield driver on Interstate 40 for driving under the influence of a controlled substance.