​The original school in Amboy was a wooden structure built by Santa Fe in 1903 close to the railroad tracks on the southwest side of town.  It was a 2-room school with primary grades one through four in one room, and grades five through eight in the other. Once students graduated from the eighth grade they attended high school in Needles.  The school district in San Bernardino paid room and board for students to stay with families in Needles during the week, and on weekends the students returned home, usually on the train or by Greyhound bus.  While the Amboy school was in operation a school bus from Amboy picked up the grade school children from adjacent communities like Bagdad, Saltus and Cadiz, but it was not until years later that a school bus was available to take high school students from Amboy to Needles and back each day – a 3-hour hour round trip.  
 
A modern school was built in Amboy about 1931, and the original wooden school building was physically moved north of the highway to where it is now, near the new school.  For a time after it was moved the building continued to be used first for a teacher’s residence and later for music and shop classes..   
 
At its peak the Amboy school probably had less than fifty students and four full-time teachers, including the principal, several of whom also taught classes.  As the salt mining operations at Saltus began to decline and the roadside businesses along Route 66 began to close, the school population dwindled until it was no longer feasible to keep the school open.  The last teacher to hold classes in Amboy was Mary Bartel McGee.  Mary recalls that the job was especially challenging because students spoke three different languages – English, Spanish, and Navajo.  Mary taught at the school from the 1989/90 school year until the school finally closed in June 1999.   The last year the school was open there were only five students left to teach.
 
When the Amboy school closed the school in Essex was still open with classes being taught by Mary Howard.  Both teachers were fearful that when Amboy school closed the teaching materials would be swallowed up by Needles schools, so for several nights the two teachers spent their evenings loading supplies into boxes and spiriting them off to Essex.  The effort served its purpose for a year or two, but eventually the school in Essex also closed.

​Milligan is on the Parker Branch of the railroad leading from Cadiz, California to Parker, Arizona and dates from 1910 when the spur line was built.    As a railroad siding Milligan was active from 1910 to about 1955 and had several section houses, a foreman’s house and a bunkhouse where the railroad workers lived. It was also the center for a salt mining operation that is still active. 
 
The families of railroad workers who lived in Milligan planted Salt Cedar trees for shade as well as a windbreak. Although there is no one left in Milligan to water the trees, they are still surviving and the concrete water catchments built around the base of the trees by the residents more than seventy years ago are still there.

Milligan Cemetery
 
34° 16’ 39.41” N.
115° 09’ 57.08” W.
​

​There are about eleven graves at the Milligan cemetery.  I first discovered this cemetery in 2002 based on a description from a friend named Paul Limon, a former resident of Chubbuck.  Paul’s brother Efrén died in 1935 as a 2-week old infant and was buried at Milligan.  When I found the cemetery it was barely recognizable.  Three of the graves had wooden sticks or crosses but if names were ever inscribed on the crosses they had long since weathered away.  The other graves were simply ringed with stones.  It is a lonely cemetery, but Efrén has a new marker on his grave, placed there by his brother Paul.   In placing a new marker at his brother’s grave, Paul decided to place makers at the other graves as well and did so without disturbing the original wooden crosses.  
 
Other than Efren Limon, the only other person that I know of who was buried at Milligan is Delores R. de Fernandez, age 59 who died of heat prostration July 30,  1910.  Which of the graves belongs to Ms. De Fernandez is uncertain.

When I first discovered this cabin in the late 1990s the roof was still relatively in tact, but it has since collapsed.  I do not have any information about who built it.  Some say it belonged to Tom Schofield from Danby, but that is uncertain.  The first time I visited the cabin the road was in rough shape, but in the last ten years or so the road has become nearly impassable; it is possible to drive there however with a good off-road vehicle and lots of patience.

About one-eighth of a mile east of the cluster of buildings at Danby on National Trails Highway, old Route 66, are the remains of a tiny 'cabin', which was built of railroad ties and mostly underground except for a 2' section above ground that was lined with sheets of tin as weatherproofing.

Whether there was ever a cabin or living area on top of the structure is difficult to tell, but having a living area underground would have been prudent given how hot it can be in this part of the Mojave Desert during summer months.  

What would have been the roof of the cabin is made of wooden planks that are now falling in.  The entrance to the underground area was a small cut-out in the roof that measures about 3' x 4' with a ladder leading down.  The ladder has long since rotted away, and the living area is gradually filling with sand that has blown in over the years.

Near the cabin are several large fenced corrals made of railroad ties that may have been for burros or cattle.  

I have never been able to find out when the structure was built nor who lived there, but it seems to be very old and pre-dates the existing buildings at Danby.  A fellow who lived in Danby
as a young boy in 1955 recalls that they used to play there as kids and the structure was old and abandoned even then.