Kelso

 city, ghost town

The town of Kelso was founded in 1906 when the railroad was completed across the Mojave Desert. The town was named for a warehouse worker, John H. Kelso. He and two others wrote their names on pieces of paper and put them into a hat. Kelso's name was drawn.

The town boomed in the 1940s when nearly 2,000 people lived in and around Kelso. The Kaiser Steel Mill opened the Vulcan Mine in 1942 to provide iron needed for World War II. The mine was located nine miles south of Kelso, and trains were rolling through carrying more than 2,500 tons of ore a day to the mill in Fontana, California.

Kaiser closed the Vulcan Mine after the war because the ore contained too much sulfur. Diesel locomotives replaced the steam engines and Kelso Depot was no longer needed to water the steam locomotives. By the 1950s, the once thriving town of Kelso was declining.

Refer to "Kelso Depot" posting for additional information. ~phiz