Bagdad, California is a small, nearly empty town in the Mojave Desert located west of Barstow. Mojave Desert The Mojave or Mohave Desert occupies a significant portion of Southern California and parts of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. ... Barstow is a city located in San Bernardino County, California. ...
Once a thriving town along famous Route 66, Bagdad was mostly bypassed by the coming of Interstate 40 to the north. Its fame, however, spread beyond its bypassing. The Bagdad Café was located there and became the setting of both a popular novel and motion picture. Alternate meanings of Route 66: New Jersey State Highway 66, Interstate 66, and a company named after the route US Highway 66 or Route 66 was and is the most famous road in the United States highway system and quite possibly the most famous and storied highway in the world. ... Interstate 40 is a major west-east interstate highway in the United States. ...
Bagdad was a major station that supplied coal, fuel oil, and water to westbound trains that had to work to climb the Ash Hill Grade to the northwest.
Bagdad grew into a bustling small railroad town complete with a company commissary, depot with telegraph office, dining hall, hotels, library, post office, restaurant (Harvey House), saloons, school and stores.
The 1985 movie Bagdad Cafe, by German film producer Percy Aldon was loosely based on the town.
Bagdad is next and there is nothing left of it except a railroad siding and a solitary tree which was still alive in 1998 when I last drove this section of the road.
Bagdad, and other towns along this stretch of the old road derived their names from the names of adjacent Santa Fe sidings.
The California Inspection Station, mentioned in the Grapes of Wrath, where the Joads convinced the inspectors that grandma was ill when in fact she was dead, is now the Suburban Diesel Service.
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