Ludlow

Overview

The town too dry to die

Ludlow sits on the open Mojave between the Bullion and Cady mountains, 52 miles east of Barstow. It began in 1882 as a siding on the new Santa Fe line across the desert. There was no water at all, so every drop came in by tank car. Gold made it a town. The Bagdad-Chase mine, found in 1900 about 10 miles south, shipped its ore through Ludlow on its own short railroad, and in 1905 Borax Smith made Ludlow the southern end and headquarters of his Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, which ran north to the Death Valley borax mines and Beatty. Railroad shops, hotels, saloons, a school and a dance hall followed, and close to 500 people.

The mines faded, and the Tonopah and Tidewater quit in 1940. By then the highway had arrived. The National Old Trails Road became Route 66, and in 1931 the paved highway was moved half a mile north of Main Street. A café, a motor court and a garage grew up along it. Interstate 40 then replaced Route 66 just north of town, and Ludlow died a second time. Desert Magazine called it "a town too dry to die" in 1974, after its new owners finally struck good water at 650 feet.

Ludlow today is two places. At the freeway exit a few people run the gas stations, a café and a motel for I-40 travelers. South of the old highway lies the first town: the concrete shell of the 1908 Murphy Brothers store, weathered houses, an old Googie-style gas station and, across the tracks, a cemetery of wooden crosses. The original Ludlow Café on the old highway, a Route 66 landmark, was reduced to rubble by 2015.

Timeline

Two railroads and a highway

1. 1882The Santa Fe's Atlantic and Pacific line crosses the Mojave, and Ludlow begins as a siding and water stop, named for William B. Ludlow of the railroad. Water comes by tank car.
2. 1900The Bagdad-Chase gold mine is found about 10 miles south.
3. Spring 1903The Ludlow and Southern Railway starts hauling Bagdad-Chase ore to Ludlow for the mill at Barstow. The mine's camp is dry, so the miners come to Ludlow on Saturday nights.
4. 1905–1907Francis Marion "Borax" Smith makes Ludlow the southern end and headquarters of his Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad. It reaches Gold Center, near Beatty, in October 1907.
5. 1908John Denair builds the two-story concrete Ludlow Mercantile on Main Street. "Ma" Preston, who financed it, takes it over.
6. 1910sLudlow is a railroad town of near 500 people, with a railroad shop, a school, a church, hotels, cafés, pool halls and a dance hall.
7. 1920Ma Preston sells the store to Tom Murphy, her old rival. It becomes Murphy Brothers Ludlow Mercantile.
8. 1926The National Old Trails Road through Ludlow becomes US 66.
9. 1931Route 66 is paved and moved about half a mile north of Main Street. Businesses that served drivers start moving to the new road. Fire guts the Murphy store, which is rebuilt.
10. Jun 14, 1940The Tonopah and Tidewater stops running. Ludlow shrinks to a handful of people.
11. 1940s–1960sA café, a motor court and a garage on the highway keep Ludlow going on Route 66 traffic.
12. 1962Cameron and Luther Friend buy the townsite and drill a well. Good water comes up from 650 feet, Ludlow's first.
13. By 1974Interstate 40 is finished just north of town. New service stations, a restaurant and a motel serve the exit.
14. 2015The original Ludlow Café on the old highway, which had survived two fires, is reduced to rubble.
15. May–Dec 2022Failed bridges close National Trails Highway east to Amboy in May. The county reopens it from Barstow through Ludlow to Amboy by December.

Main Street

Ma Preston, the Murphys and the mercantile

Ludlow's Saturday nights were made by the mine. E. H. Stagg, superintendent of the Bagdad-Chase mine, ran a "closed camp" with no liquor and no women, and wouldn't let liquor ride his railroad. So the miners came to Ludlow, and the town's businesses grew up to serve them. The best known was run by Matilda "Ma" Preston, who had come to Ludlow with her husband around 1902 and ran a saloon, a restaurant and a boarding house. Desert Magazine said she literally ran the town.

In 1908 John Denair, a former Santa Fe superintendent, built a two-story reinforced concrete store at Main and Cone streets and opened it as the Ludlow Mercantile Company. Preston had lent him the money. When he defaulted she took the store, ran groceries downstairs and a hotel upstairs, and had his name removed from the peak. Her rival was Tom Murphy, who ran a competing store next door, a garage, the Shamrock Hotel and Café and a saloon. In 1920 Preston retired to France and sold the store to Murphy, who painted "Murphy Bros. General Store" on its side. A fire gutted it in 1931, and he rebuilt the inside. This account follows Trail's End Publishing, which draws on the letters of Venus Pendergast and the historian Delmer Ross.

The store has been empty for decades. Trail's End reports damage from earthquakes in 1999 and 2008; the faded lettering is still on the east wall.

What's there

The exit, the highway and the old town

At the exit. Ludlow's living part is the cluster of businesses on Crucero Road and National Trails Highway by the I-40 interchange. The California Historic Route 66 Association lists gas, food and lodging, with a newer Ludlow Café at 68475 National Trails Highway and a motel at 68315 Ludlow Road. A Chevron station stood on Crucero Road in 2016. A trucker's video posted in September 2026 shows a 76 station with a Dairy Queen and truck parking at exit 50, and Jenny, a donkey the station's people keep and let visitors pet. We didn't find the operators' own pages for hours, so check before you count on them.

On the old highway. Along National Trails Highway east of the exit stand a Googie-style gas station with a swooping roof, an old garage, the Pendergist Hotel and an old station with a van and a fire truck, by the association's list. The original Ludlow Café stood here too: a plain box of a building from the 1940s, built of lumber from the Tonopah and Tidewater. It survived two fires, but by 2015 it had been reduced to rubble.

The old town. South of the highway, along Main Street and the Santa Fe tracks, are the remains of the railroad town. The 1908 Murphy Brothers store is the largest. Trail's End lists it, the Ludlow Motel, the Pendergast residence and the original school as the only old buildings left, with every former business on Main Street demolished. Weathered houses with collapsing porches stand among tamarisk trees. Across the BNSF tracks is the cemetery, inside a rusty wire fence, where a couple of dozen wooden crosses mark graves whose names are lost, Legends of America writes. A video posted in February 2026 shows much of the old town flattened to foundations, fence posts, old tires and rusting car bodies, with a few sheds and a gutted building frame along the road.

What's private. The old town is private land. In 1974 its owners let visitors look but not take, and allowed no digging in the townsite. We found no current statement, so stay on the streets, keep out of the buildings and leave artifacts where they lie.

The 1955 USGS Ludlow sheet below shows the town strung along the Santa Fe tracks, with oil tanks, water tanks and a cemetery, and US 66 running straight across the top. The 1966 sheet shows I-40 on the way, sharing the road with US 66, and the Bagdad Chase and Old Pete mines to the south.

• Murphy Brothers Ludlow Mercantile (1908)
• Ludlow Motel
• Pendergast residence
• Pendergist Hotel
• Original school
• Googie-style gas station
• Old garage
• Old houses along the tracks
• Cemetery
• Site of the original Ludlow Café (rubble by 2015)

Historic maps

Ludlow on USGS maps, 1953–1977

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

19531:250,00019551:24,00019661:250,00019771:100,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Barstow is the nearest city, about an hour west on I-40. Leave the freeway at the Ludlow exit, exit 50, and you're on Crucero Road, a block from Route 66. National Trails Highway, the old Route 66, also runs from Barstow to Ludlow and on east toward Amboy; the county reopened it in 2022 after bridge failures. From Los Angeles, take I-10 and I-15 to Barstow first.

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

Photos

Ludlow in photos

A Route 66 shield on the old highway, August 2016The original Ludlow Café, December 2012A two-story house in the old town, May 2012The same house, December 2012A Googie-style gas station, May 2012Main Street, 1927The Chevron sign on Crucero Road at sunset, August 2016

Visitor reports

Been to Ludlow?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

Thanks. Your report reached us, and we'll read it before it goes on the page.

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Nearby

Other sites near Ludlow

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our California index.

• Ragtown3.9 mi S · San Bernardino
• Stedman6.3 mi S · San Bernardino
• Bagdad-Chase Mine6.5 mi S · San Bernardino
• Siberia11.9 mi SE · San Bernardino
• Hector Mine15.3 mi W · San Bernardino
• Crucero22.5 mi N · San Bernardino
• Saltus29.6 mi SE · San Bernardino
• Kelso35.1 mi NE · San Bernardino

Sources

Sources and credits

1. ghosttowns.com, "Ludlow": fact sheet fields (county, road, climate, best time, remains), an undated account of about 20 residents with gas stations, a café and a motel, and the pointer to the 1974 Desert Magazine article.
2. Wikipedia, "Ludlow, California", retrieved October 2026: coordinates (GNIS), the name, the 1882 founding, the Tonopah and Tidewater and the Ludlow and Southern, the Route 66 businesses, the Ludlow Café's history and end.
3. Mary Frances Strong, "The Town Too Dry To Die!", Desert Magazine, February 1974, pp. 8 ff.: the 1882 siding, Bagdad-Chase, the Ludlow-Southern, Stagg's closed camp, Mother Preston, the T&T, near 500 people, June 14, 1940, the Friends' 1962 purchase and well, I-40, the post office, the 1974 visiting rules.
4. Trail's End Publishing, "Murphy Brothers Store, Ludlow, California" (2025): Denair and Ma Preston, the 1908 store, Tom Murphy, the 1931 fire, the 1931 paving and relocation of Route 66, the surviving buildings, the 1999 and 2008 earthquakes.
5. Kathy Alexander, "Ghost Town Stretch Across the Mojave", Legends of America, updated August 2026: a virtual ghost town with a few open businesses and a few residents, the two deaths, the cemetery.
6. California Historic Route 66 Association, "Fun Facts: Ludlow, California", read October 2026: 1883, William B. Ludlow, Main Street moving to Route 66, gas, food and lodging, the points of interest and their coordinates.
7. Route 66 News, "Bridge failure closes Route 66 indefinitely from Ludlow to Amboy", May 20, 2022.
8. Route 66 News, "Old Route 66 now is open between Barstow and Ludlow", December 1, 2022: the reopening to Amboy, the Essex closure and Kelbaker detour, the county's 120-plus timber bridges.
9. John The Driver, "Visiting JENNY the Friendly Donkey in Ludlow California off I-40", YouTube, posted September 5, 2026: exit 50, the 76 station with a Dairy Queen, truck parking, the donkey. Not embedded: it is about the truck stop, not the old town.
10. Into the Sunset, "Ludlow the Ghost town", YouTube, posted February 23, 2026: the old townsite as debris, posts, tires and car bodies. Not embedded: no captions to check, and the creator walks the private townsite and picks up a rock.
11. Wikipedia, "Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad": Ludlow as headquarters and junction, 1907–1940.
12. USGS historical topographic maps: San Bernardino 1:250,000 (1953, 1966), Ludlow 1:24,000 (1955), Newberry Springs 1:100,000 (1977). Land status: USGS PAD-US 4 (no public land at the townsite), checked October 22, 2026. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• A Route 66 shield on the old highway, August 2016: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• The original Ludlow Café, December 2012: Thomas Shahan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• A two-story house in the old town, May 2012: el-toro, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• The same house, December 2012: Thomas Shahan, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• A Googie-style gas station, May 2012: el-toro, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
• Main Street, 1927: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
• The Chevron sign on Crucero Road at sunset, August 2016: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
• Topo map, area base map and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain). Historic sheets: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): San Bernardino 1953, 1:250,000; Ludlow 1955, 1:24,000; San Bernardino 1966, 1:250,000; Newberry Springs 1977, 1:100,000.