Is Amboy, California Worth the Detour? Inside the Googie Ghost Town That Refused to Stay Dead

 

Featured image credit: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Amboy (California, USA) — 2012 — 4” / CC BY-SA 4.0

About 200 miles east of Los Angeles and 100 miles northeast of Palm Springs sits a remote Mojave Desert town that exists out of logic and reason. It was built near a dead volcano, along a highway (that died), with a gas station (that died), a cafe (that died), and a motel (that died) at its center. And yet, this Googie graveyard continues to rise from the dust, attracting visitors with its alien charm. Today, Amboy, California is a tourist attraction that’s not really near anything. It stands on nothing but its own foundation. And it largely started with a man named Roy Crowl who just wanted to open a gas station.

From Hole-in-the-Ground to Tourist Hot Spot

Photo credit: Unknown – James R. Powell Route 66 Collection

It was 1938 when, to capitalize on motorists crossing the Mojave Desert on the still relatively new U.S. Route 66 highway, Crowl established Roy’s: a much-welcomed gas station. It was a savvy move on its own, but it got even better when Crowl incorporated the entrepreneurial spirit and DIY confidence of his son-in-law, Herman “Buster” Burris, a few years later. With Burris’s indispensable assistance, the gas station gradually expanded to include an auto repair shop, a motel, and a cafe that would grow to become the “face” of Amboy, California. 

Of course, the Amboy Crater helped propel the fledgling town’s inertia. Motorists couldn’t miss the ancient cinder cone, estimated to be a staggering 79,000 years old, emerging from a 27 square-mile lava field like a prehistoric monarch reigning over its own destruction. But Amboy, California stood no risk of becoming a modern Pompeii. The Amboy Crater’s final eruption was around 10,000 years ago. 

Situated about a mile and a half off of Route 66, those approaching the retired volcano may risk rattlesnakes, sunburn, and the ever-so-slight risk of a forgotten military explosive device… all formidable in their own right… but no fountains of molten lava. Curious visitors to Amboy enjoyed climbing the ridges of the Amboy Crater and exploring its central “lake” of arid lava rock. 

Amboy, California: A Googie-Guided Mojave Oasis

Photo credit: VisitAmboy.com

Rather than sink money into professionals, Burris rolled up his sleeves and installed most of Amboy’s infrastructure himself. To his credit, portions of his work remain surprisingly adequate decades later. Burris’s handiwork even extended to electric installation, bringing in his own wires and support poles with the assistance of a simple Studebaker pickup. But when he “flipped the switch”, Roy’s Motel and Cafe glowed. 

Roy’s didn’t find its distinctive Googie look until 1959 when Burris and Crowl installed its radiant red arrow; a welcome beacon in the Mojave for road-weary travelers. It was often the first literal sign of civilization in the desert night, visible from miles away, a neon island in a sea of night. Construction of the motel’s guest reception closely followed, distinguished by its drastically angled roof and floor-to-ceiling windowed front beautifully exhibiting the Mid-Century styles popular at the time. Against all odds, the town that had been little more than a dormant volcanic crater just a couple of decades earlier was now a roaring success. 

A Shadow of a Ghost Town

But fortunes stomped a violent about-face in 1972 when Interstate 40 opened, directing traffic away from Amboy, California. Seemingly overnight, the tiny unincorporated tourist stop became all but a ghost town. Sadly, this was Crowl’s final impression of his life’s work as he passed away in 1977, leaving Burris to forge ahead, providing limited service to the odd drifter traversing the Mojave. 

Photo credit: Eric Polk

Gone were the smiling droves of tourists, mesmerized by the novelty of the nearby Amboy Crater. Of course, there were the motorcyclists. But Burris held an irrational contempt for long-haired bikers and would often greet them with the barrel of a gun, further reducing the traffic through Amboy. 

Recognizing that the city was floundering, big city photographer Timothy White offered to lease Amboy, California in 1995 with the idea of using it primarily as a dilapidated film set. Months before his death, Burris sold all of Amboy to White for the meager sum of $710,000. Under White’s ownership, Roy’s reduced its hours and menu selection while raising prices across the board. It obviously wasn’t a lucrative move. In 2003, White listed Amboy, California for sale on, of all platforms, eBay, implying a callous disregard for the former tourist stop. In his defense, the town still failed to sell. 

Amboy Finds Its Avenging Angel

By early 2005, White gave up Amboy for foreclosure, and Burris’s widow (and Crowl’s surviving daughter) Bessie Burris was put in control of the fading town’s affairs. She attempted to sell the land from the steps of the San Bernardino County courthouse but found no takers. Eventually, Burris’s granddaughter stepped in with a plan to auction off Amboy, California with the property going to the highest bidder at the close of a week. Acquiring Amboy with a $425,000 bid, Southern California preservationist and entrepreneur Albert Okura took possession of the town with an ambitious plan to restore it to a spot worth visiting, regardless of the detour. As a condition of the acquisition, Okura promised Burris to:

• Maintain the town’s original aesthetic
• Renovate it with a plan to reopen it to the public
• Create a museum highlighting the unique history of Amboy, California

Photo credit: VisitAmboy.com

Okura was no stranger to preserving the past for future enjoyment. He purchased the world’s oldest McDonalds (not to be confused with the world’s oldest operating McDonald’s) and transformed it into a museum paying homage to the restaurant chain’s pop culture history. Backed by that resume, a project like Amboy seemed firmly in Okura’s wheelhouse. 

With a vision of returning Amboy to a tourist destination worth the detour, Okura set to work with occasional contributions from Bessie Burris until she passed in 2008. In that same year, a refurbished Roy’s opened its doors to a curious public. Even without Burris’s oversight, Okura faithfully continued onward as promised, but faced considerable challenges surmounting the makeshift infrastructure of the town. Modern building codes demanded to be met and, until his death in 2023, the mammoth undertaking of bringing Amboy’s amenities into the modern era ate through the entrepreneur’s efforts. Upon his passing, all Amboy matters transferred to his son, Kyle Okura.  

There is No Other Amboy, California

So, when you pass through Amboy today, you’ll see the neon red arrow guiding your path to Roy’s. And during certain hours, you might even be able to step inside, grab some coffee and a souvenir, and fill up on gas. You’ll no doubt see the Amboy Crater looking much as it has for the last several thousands of years. And you’ll probably even catch a passing glimpse of the mysterious Amboy lion statues, which actually appear to be giant Japanese komainu or Chinese foo dogs that appeared one day near the entry to Amboy along Route 66. No one’s confessed to these statues, but we’ll cover them in a future blog. But, for now, we digress.

Photo credit: Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management

In short, Amboy, California ain’t what it used to be. But it’s something. And even to catch a hint of that old-school magic might be worth a detour into the Mojave for curious wanderers. Meanwhile, Kyle Okura remains hard at work, carrying on his father’s vision so that new generations can experience Amboy in its full glory. Will we ever see it regain its former off-the-beaten-path quixotic charm? We might have an easier time answering who left those lion statues.