Category: Chambless

Chambless, California

5/14/2018

Lat 34° 33.6643’ N.
Long 115° 32.6631’ W.

Chambless is known by several names – Chambless, Chambless Junction and Cadiz Junction, but to local residents it is just “Cadiz”.

Today the small settlement of Chambless stands on National Trails Highway and bears little resemblance to the busy intersection it once was. The most prominent landmark is an abandoned service station and general store surrounded by a chain link fence and with boarded up motel cabins in the rear. There are some homes in the area, only a few of which have permanent residents.

Jim and Fannie Chambless circa 1926 at their original home and Red Crown service station on what was then designated National Old Trails Road.

The place was named after James and Fannie Chambless who operated a service station and general store on Route 66 when the highway was a dirt road and was about a half mile north of the current paved highway. Jim and Fannie lived there with their two children, Melvin and Pearl, and Jim’s mother, Ellen.

Jim [James Albert] Chambless was a native of Portales, New Mexico, and came to California in the early 1900s. He built a service station on the dirt road that was then called National Old Trails Road, later renamed as Route 66.

When Route 66 was paved and realigned to where it is now, Jim and Fannie’s service station was left stranded on the old road about a half mile north of the new highway so, in the 1930s, they moved their store to the new location on the main highway.

The new store cost about $7,000 to build and was run by Jim and Fannie with help from one of Fannie’s friends, Mrs. McRae, from Long Beach. There was no electricity at the time, so they had a small generator on the back porch that ran off a Chevrolet engine. Chambless was not connected to the rural electric grid until 1964. For water, Jim drilled a well on the property using piping and machinery from the Orange Blossom Mine north of Bagdad, which was in bankruptcy at the time and was in the process of being abandoned.

So why is it referred to as Cadiz?

Chambless service station after being rebuilt on Old National Trails Road. Circa 1930.

In years past the BNSF railroad depot at Cadiz, 3 miles south of Chambless, also housed the Cadiz post office. In 1967 the railroad decided to close the depot so the post office was forced to find a new location. The Cadiz postmaster at the time was Andrea Limon. By this time, passenger traffic on the railroad had dwindled to practically nothing so there was no compelling reason to keep the post office near the railroad. Therefore, for the convenience of mail deliveries Andrea moved the post office into a small trailer up on the highway across the road from the Chambless General Store. However, shortly thereafter the postal service required a more permanent building so in 1972 Andrea built a small stucco building on the property and that became the post office.

By the time that the post office was relocated from the Cadiz depot to Chambless the Chambless family were no longer there. Andrea did not want to go through all of the paperwork changing the name of the post office to Chambless and so she just kept the name ‘Cadiz’ and the same zip code. Consequently, even to this day local area residents refer to Chambless Junction as “Cadiz” because it was the location of the Cadiz Post Office. The small stucco building on the north side of the highway in Chambless that once served as the post office was later converted to a residence after the post office closed, is still there but is unoccupied and in disrepair. Andrea served as postmaster from 1966 until she retired to Twentynine Palms in 1995.

The “Cadiz” post office in Chambless, circa 1975.

Jim Chambless died in 1940 (1879 – 1940) and his son, Melvin, took over the job of running the store and the service station. About 1944, Melvin sold the store to William and Willa Riddle who, with their son Jack, ran it as a Shell station and later as a Richfield station. Jack Riddle retired to Hemet in 1964 and sold the property to Steve and Lorraine Stephens who operated the store until they retired to Twentynine Palms in 1991. In spite of the market changing hands several times, the intersection retained the name of the original owners and is still shown on maps as Chambless or Chambless Junction. Fannie Chambless retired to Barstow when her husband died, and she passed away in 1966. Jim, Fannie, and Ellen Chambless, James’s mother, are all buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Barstow.

The store was expanded over the years to include several improvements and somewhere along the lines the owners added motel cabins on the south and east side of the store. Most of the cabins behind the store are gone, but the ones to the east were more robust and are still there but are completely abandoned.

The service station changed hands and brands many times over the years. Originally Jim operated as a Red Crown gas station, but in later years the station was operated by Mobil Oil, Shell, and Arco. The awning over the gas pumps was torn off during a freak tornado that rushed through the area and was never rebuilt.

Even after Interstate-40 was opened in the early 1970s the Chambless store and gas station remained open because people in The San Diego and Palm Springs area of California realized that they could get to the casinos in Laughlin easier by going through Twentynine Palms and Amboy, and via Chambless, than by using I-15 and I-40. That continued for a few years, but eventually the Chambless store suffered the fate of all of the other businesses along old Route 66 that depended on highway travelers and was forced to close as traffic dwindled.

Chambless General Store present day. The awning over the gas pumps was blown down during a violent windstorm in the 1980s.

The market is now an abandoned building surrounded by a chain link fence. About 2008, a large piece of the tin roof was blown off in a wind storm, and although there is occasional mention of the store being reopened, the building becomes more dilapidated each year. Most of the motel rooms that were behind the market have been torn down and the desert is trying its best to reclaim the land.

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FIRE AT THE ICONIC ROADRUNNER'S RETREAT ON ROUTE 66 NEAR CHAMBLESS, CALIFORNIA

Chambless, California

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