NEWBERRY BRINGS WATER TO DESERT --1920s 

By C.B. McCoy

1955 

People often ask if I think that the increase on population in this area, East end of Newberry to Victorville, will cause a shortage of water.  My answer is a most emphatic No.  I make this statement for several reasons.  First, I make no claims of being a geologist; I base my belief on several facts (and horse sense.) 

I was over 20 years in full charge of the diesel water plant at Newberry, in 1923, when Santa Fe was double tracking from Barstow to Needles.  What with “water car trains” for all contractors and also for the town of Ludlow, Bagdad alone never took less than twenty to thirty cars per 24 hours; Cadiz, about the same; also shipped to Danby.  Our daily log book read.  February 14, 1924, shipped 105 cars.  Each tank car holds 10,500 gallons.  On top of this we watered every locomotive, both east and westbound; they got in empty and went out tender full.  Some of these engine tenders held 20,000 gallons.  For the first four months in 1924, we averaged from one million to one and a half million gallons of water per 24 hours. 

The diesel plant once pumped for four months and eight days without a minute’s stop, with only one well.  Water was not pumped out, but blown out by an air compressor.  Water ran into a big cistern, where it was pumped to a big 812,000 gallon tank by a big centrifugal pump, etc.  This one well used to lower the water level just 12 feet.  The district of Newberry is the best on the desert.  It has a condition, an underground lake, so to speak, all good alfalfa land.  No, I am not in the real estate business.  I have no land for sale.  I am trying to prove that Newberry has an unlimited amount of water, if you dig for it. 

I was a witness for this district when Pasadena attempted to tap Deer Creek by a four mile tunnel.  Deer Creek is the source of the head-waters feeding the Mojave River.  At this hearing, geologists from the Railroad, also a geologist from the state division of water resources department, all testified that all our water came from the San Bernardino mountains by an underground channel, etc.  The Indians used to call the Mojave the river of “up side down”.  Give the desert land water and it will produce.  Take wet spring rains, just a garden of flowers or like a grassy meadow.  Now, there is further proof.  Take the three military bases.  The large amount of water used at Nebo base is from one of the largest producing water wells on this desert; ditto, the city of Barstow. 

I want to make it clear to all that I know 6he true conditions as well as any man.  I am comfortably fixed financially.  I take no orders from anyone.  I am interested in the civic life of our great country, and when I take time out to help on any issue, I am honest in my intentions. 

Newberry Farms Co.

February 3, 1955