Revitalizing Newberry Springs: Community Passion on Route 66

Welcome back to another segment of the Outdoor Adventure Series! In this special episode, host Howard Fox sets the scene in the stunning landscapes of Newberry Springs as the sun sets over the desert. We're joined by Community Leaders and officers on the Newberry Springs Chamber of Commerce, Keller Horton, a visionary advocate for sustainable and regenerative agriculture, and Karla Claus, business owner and tourism ambassador. 

Rather than a traditional interview, Howard takes on the role of facilitator, letting Keller and Karla spark an engaging, free-flowing conversation. Together, they share their hopes and initiatives for reviving Newberry Springs—everything from promoting permaculture and local food production to building tourist-friendly amenities such as small hotels, markets, and event spaces. They dive into the area’s unique history, including the iconic Route 66 and the legendary Baghdad Cafe, and discuss upcoming festivals and gatherings that are putting this beloved desert town back on the map.

If you’re curious about small-town revitalization, sustainable agriculture, and what makes Newberry Springs such a hidden gem, you won’t want to miss this lively exchange of ideas, dreams, and a deep-rooted passion for community. Tune in for inspiration and a closer look at how committed locals are shaping the future of one of California’s most intriguing desert communities.

DISCUSSION

00:00 "Sustainable Agriculture & Permaculture Vision"

05:25 "Local Economy and Tourism Needs"

08:32 "Community Idea for Newberry Springs"

11:47 From Furniture Designer to Weddings

13:20 Hidden Gems in the Mountains

16:37 "Building Progress Together"

20:04 Community Events and Festivals

25:13 "The Barn, Route 66 Centennial Birthday Bash."

LEARN MORE

To learn about Newberry Springs, CA, the Route 66 Big Birthday Bash, the Pistachio Festival, and much more, visit the Newberry Springs Chamber of Commerce at https://newberryspringschamber.com/ or on these social sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewberrySpringsChamber
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nbsp_chamberofcommerce/

The Mother Road e-Newsletter: https://motherroadnewsletter.com/newsletter/

NEXT STEPS

Visit us at https://outdooradventureseries.com to like, comment, and share our episodes.

KEYWORDS

Keller Horton, Karla Claus, Permaculture, Newberry Springs Chamber of Commerce, Route 66 Centennial, Outdoor Adventure Series, Podcast Interview

#KellerHorton #Karla Klaus #Permaculture #NewberrySpringsChamberofCommerce #Route66Centennial #OutdoorAdventureSeries #PodcastInterview

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Actually wasn't even my idea as we were talking about what we do we want to do anymore interviewing Carla had this great idea have another interview with uh Keller. Keller had an even better idea than they layered up. Why don't I and Carla have a conversation together? So here we are. I'm kind of I guess I'm the facilitator today, not the interviewer. And so, Keller, uh Carla, welcome back. First off, yeah. Thank you, Howard. So you guys are so integral to this community and care so much about it. What how first off, how did you two meet?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Well, I'm involved in the Newberry Springs Economic Development Association, and that has a monthly meeting to you to teach gardeners how to garden in the desert. We have a really vibrant group. It's a once a month, and Keller came to speak. That's how we met the very first time. And I don't and you had purchased property out here. Right. And he brought his beautiful grey hound doggy and he laid out this amazing uh new awareness about regenerative growing, taking the desert, greening it, and doing a whole new practice of agriculture that will literally save our orchards and allow people to thrive when it comes to growing vegetables at home.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

And then with what percent less water?

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Like 90?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

You bet. She's a good student.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

She's a good student. So it's it's safe to say there was a lot of learning and light bulbs going off. It was fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Oh my goodness. It was one of the most fun speaking gigs I've ever done anywhere. Because everyone was so excited and so full of intelligent, informed questions. And there was another person who had graduated from permaculture, and I got a sore throat. And I simply gave her my notes and said, Will you continue the lecture for a few minutes? I need to have a drink of water. And she just took it right right there from that point. It was great.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Good group of people. That is good. And you all get together, is this a monthly?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

The fourth Saturday of the month. Fourth Saturday.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

And it's over at that little park. And it's been going on for years and years. And I got involved approximately eight years ago.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Okay. What would you like to? And by the way, we have got some wonderful dogs that are roaming around here. And it's like I I live in a house that has cats. And I'm I'm I can accept the cat, but I'm not a cat person, so I love the dogs, by the way. As you two have gotten to know each other, is there a question that you're just dying to to to ask Keller? What, Carla?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Is there a question I've been dying to ask him?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Who would you like to know? Maybe a question that we could ask each other that we know other people are dying to know. There you go. You and I have the answers. Do you want me to start? Yeah. Okay. So Carla, what are your visions for improving the public's access to Newberry Springs and knowing this town is here and coming here to do interesting things instead of just drive through on the forty or the fifteen on the way to Vegas or New Mexico. What are some of the things that you would like to see set up in this town that will help put Newberry Springs on the map and help people enjoy a local town in California?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Well, I don't believe it's just one thing, but the kind of if I if I condense it down, we need a hotel. We need a little quaint country hotel because when people come for weekend stays, we won't have enough Airbnbs or ADUs or this or that. And that would be probably a big foundation mag what do you call a cornerstone of improving our visitor experience. I've I've gone from believing in cottage industry and the uh sustainability of us living here 25 miles from the grocery store and uh further away from all the big box, although I have to say I learned on online shopping, but to have the ability for our residents to actually earn a living here. And the one of the ways is agriculture, the other ways is tourism, cottage uh arts and crafts, foods, and to create a marketplace that will sustain itself for our residents through tourism and local economy that we buy here first, we sell to our visitors.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

If I'm allowed to interject, go ahead. The New Burr Springs Economic Development Association. We discuss monthly how are we doing on encouraging people to uh get their kitchen legalized for food production and sale. How are we doing on helping people uh increase their uh production of small handicrafts, etc. etc. etc. Some really local things. There's a group of us that are wanting to step up and help uh encourage the placement of accessory dwelling units ADUs on many properties so that people can come here and stay for a few days and enjoy. Imagine staying in the middle of a pistachio farm and looking at those hills during the moonrise when the moon rises up at 9 p.m. or during the sunrise.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Or those gorgeous sunsets.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

And it's and the sunsets are off the charts, gorgeous. And so there's a lot of us that are wanting to start there. We're also uh wanting to start a small village that has a little market because we don't want to drive 25 miles to Barstow to go to a market. There is a little gas station here, and a bottle of ketchup is eight dollars. And uh we're we're looking to go beyond that. We uh are choosing to put something together where nobody in Newberry is gonna have to pay tourist prices.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right. So I I'm curious, and uh I was hoping not to interject too much, but you you said something that really struck a chord with me. And I need to give you a little context, is so I rent uh two rooms in a house back in Las Vegas. The the the woman and her boyfriend want to start and create a an ex a community for 55 plus, uh and it's comprised of an accessory, the ADU's accessory development units. That's where you live and you would rent, create units that become the hotel to rent. And then there's actually I'm sure you've heard of this, the the the the big shipping containers that are turned into growing pods. There's there's a whole industry around that. But the idea of I wonder if I was thinking maybe I can tell them forget Oregon, come to Newberry Springs.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

It can be done in Newberry Springs, absolutely. We have a factory in Newberry Springs that builds homes out of shipping containers.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I I think I I'm gonna change their friends with the guy that owns it. I love this. I'm gonna change I'm gonna have the conversation with the uh the roommate and her boyfriend when I get back, but I just think that's a wonderful idea. I mean, there you're I mean, right now you can tell it's gonna be a beautiful evening, and there's so much possibility. And and I love the fact you're also getting together on a regular, consistent basis and having these conversations.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

We are.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

A question that I would be curious about what are what is your on a scale of one to ten, what's your level of hope regarding I mean, we already know five years from now what the grove is going to be like, but to take this vision that you just articulated and Carla has articulated, what where do you see this going?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

So I'm at a ten. You're at a ten to see Keller's Kinnolean coffee and date shakes on Route 66. If you can do coffee, by the way, I'm here. Amen. Same here. I'll just live there. Just move into the coffee shop. Carla's corner uh bakery, uh, somebody's little market, uh, with a couple of little ADUs that are close by and a few other stores that are useful in a small town.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Our dream cute and quaint.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

And cute and quaint, and not tacky, and not tilt up, and not looking like some of the uglier towns that we might uh see in other places. We won't name them. Yet there are ways to bring development into a small town. We have 2,200 people right now. And my uh assumption is that 5,000, we would not have traffic problems, we would have a better tax base, we would have support for a little laundromat, for a little market, for a date shakes place, and of course the sign by the freeway, get off here for date shakes. And Carla, tell us a little bit about your tourism business.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Well, approximately three and a half, four years ago, I was a happy furniture designer out here with my husband, and I realized, hmm, what's really missing is to emulate some of the successful development in tourism here to create weekend stays, expand our ability to uh intertwine the amazing history here and the amazing beauty here and the quiet places. So I'm actually now a wedding aficionado, and you can get married at the back room of the barn right on Route 66.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

An offici an officiator perform weddings and marry people legally.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

And so Wonder Hesse got married.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

You know, I I was I've never been married, and I was actually thinking, how cool would that be to have a uh a Wonder Cussie style marriage to say I've been married? You saw that video? Yes, I did. Oh, that wasn't that fun. That was actually how I just right then and there, Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening. I'm sitting I usually sit at my PC, watch YouTube videos, and just kind of chill before I go to bed. I saw Wonder Hussie had the Route 66. Route 66 had been on my mind, and there was Carla, and I thought, I want to reach out to Carla, and I literally did it that evening.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

That's great. No, I have to say, you and I are the right demographic for watching Wonder Hussie videos.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

So what I didn't know after living here for 15 years is that we have about three to four thousand bighorn sheep in these mountains. We have petroglyphs, clusters throughout these mountains where the indigenous live. We have a prehistoric ceremonial cave right here. We have a what I call ghost town uh called Echo Ranch with a two-room jail and an old boarding house, which was a stagecoach stop, and a uh pony express stop. And kind of, I always think back to my movies, some of those movies you saw where people were traveling around. Well, there wasn't any street life, so you had to go from location to location. You had to rest your horses, rest your people, and get back on the road in the morning. And this was one of the locations that developed a town. No, I'm even sure there was a hanging tree there.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Why was it such a great location to stop to give your horses water? Well, why did somebody choose to set that up in Newberry Springs more than 130 years ago? What was the big attraction?

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Water. We had literally in this community you could dig 12 feet and hit water. So we had, in a sense, not as dry of a d desert then. We had a lot more of an oasis. We had the Mojave River running, and we also had old national trails, and that was one of the stops. And the old Mormon trail comes through here.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

And we still have a significant presence of LDS folks in this entire valley. Sure. And the railroads both go through both sides of Newberry, and the Newberry River is about a quarter mile away from where we're sitting right now. On my other parcel of land, my piece of land touches it, and there is an old dock, an old bait store, an old tourist uh stay house there that in 1972 was still operating. And in 1973, the Water Authority built a dam and created a gorgeous lake halfway down the San Bernardino Mountains on this side, the desert side. Gorgeous place. Yet it was for the orchard owners in Apple Valley and Victorville. And they put their claims in first. And in the Western United States, you put your claim in first and you get the water. So those people, those families, still get to say, we don't want Newberry Springs to have any water. We want that water. And the water authority says, okay, according to the law, we're gonna help you do that. And they build another orchard and they build it the old-fashioned way with what I think of as very wasteful forms of irrigation, et cetera.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

When the economic development organization and and the residents get together and have the conversation, is there a let's just say for the sake of a better word, top ten list? Like we need to do, this is the first thing we need to do. There's an old there's an entrepreneurial adage that I've learned. It's called build the airplane as you fly it. So what are do you have an idea of like let's get this piece of low-hanging fruit? It's another old analogy, or is there is there a disagreement there? Is there is there a coalescing of ideas like let's get started, start building that airplane now faster, so we're starting to build have that engine.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

What if I name the first thing and then Carla names a few more?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Well, let me backtrack one second.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

The Newberry Springs Economic Development Association is like a left hand, but the right hand is the Chamber of Commerce. Right. The Chamber of Commerce is become stronger through uh the attraction of many leaders, including Keller, a number of us, and now the centennial, and now it's huge. So we're really talking history is morphed into the chamber becoming in the last three and a half years the driving force of our chain.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Absolutely. Any s for a top ten list in the both. So I'll give one thing. We would like the chamber and the Newbury Springs Economic Development Group. We would love to see some simple businesses here come back.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Another little restaurant, a little coffee place, a little market where you can buy real food. How about organic food that we've grown here?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

A laundry bat, I think I mentioned that. Uh number two and three. There's a list.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Well, food and food production.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

More food production. Preferably it from a permaculture point of view. And everybody's on board with that on the chamber and the development group. Well, everybody's uh on board with, yeah, let's do permaculture food production here so that we're selling really healthy food that's not covered with chemicals.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

And I go out of my way to find good fruits and vegetables. I love the far I love the markets. Love the markets.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

And and there's a a number of people who could have a fabulous nursery and have had a fabulous nursery where they could help propagate more uh pistachio trees or other. You've time to have something like that, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Right. Um I'll be growing about twenty different species of berries and fruit trees and nitrogen producing trees that are adapted, species that are adapted to high desert. And I have 40 acres on this property, 40 acres on the other property. And so I have a lot of space to be growing trees in one gallon and three gallon pots and offering them to people throughout the high desert. Sure. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

So we we're also developing this through festival. So we currently have our traditional 27-year pistachio festival. We have our 3rd of July fantastic firework. But now we have the big birthday bath on May 2nd, and we're gonna have a Wonder Hussy meetup October 3rd and 4th, music festival, and all the things that we can come up with to make it super fun. So that is another increase to bring awareness to our community because you know what happens, just like you, Howard. You get a look around and you think, I kind of like this place. I think I might check it out seriously.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

I'd be able to live here. There you go. And at that birthday bash, May 2nd, we're gonna have a classic car collector's group, classic motorcycle collectors group. We'll have a great big military transport vehicle moving people back and forth between parking and the festival. We'll have a carnival atmosphere. Carla's working on organizing helicopter rides. There will be a beer garden, there will be a children's play area.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

And two stages.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Two outdoor concert stages complete with lighting, sound, everything. That's already been arranged. And uh we're really excited. We're uh working on all the different bands but want to perform. And not all of them are gonna be appropriate, so that's okay. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

So, one last little thing you may not know is there's a movie premiere coming soon called Back to the Baghdad Cafe.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Tell a little bit about that. I've been looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Well, our beloved Andrea Pruitt, who ran the Baghdad Cafe uh for 32 years. During that time, she's had her really difficult times, and in comes uh stumbled on the Baghdad, a French woman named Leia, and she actually started thinking, hey, I'm a pr movie producer, I think there's a movie here. And so for four and a half, five years, she's been uh doing her content, and now she's about ready to release it. That's probably gonna bring a lot more Baghdad Cafe followers, and also how many people Andrea actually touched because she had an angelic smile and treated everybody like a long-lost for intimate friend.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Now, a lot of your listeners might not know that there is a cult film called Baghdad Cafe. That is really popular in Japan, Germany, France, France, and one other country, Italy. We have so many buses full of tourists come by, they drive by the Baghdad, they buy some tourist things, anything that says Baghdad Cafe on it. In the old days they could actually get a meal, right? And the ceiling fell in on the kitchen, so they're not able to get a meal that's being repaired as we speak right now. Right. And we're really excited to see the Baghdad be part of what's really great about Newberry coming back.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

I I love that. And it's funny, uh so I've been in Las Vegas for five years and going on six, and I remember hearing about the Baghdad Cafe, and it's so it always been on like a far-off radar, like I knew it was there, and it was literally not until again this episode with Wonder Hussey, and then talking to you, Carla. Now I get to I watch the the video, the the movie, and it's it's again it's it's a great anchor.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

So the fun part about developing this area is that the barn has been there for 70 years, which is our iconic Route 66 roadhouse bar and grill. And you're gonna have an experience there next, Howard.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I was gonna ask you what's next, Carla.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Okay. And what's happening is we're focusing all of our Route 66 centennial energy right there, and Renee, who you're going to meet, is just blowing this up. She has become the powerhouse to bring two fabulous stops to Newberry Springs. And so you're gonna see how this by May, this is gonna be like the crescendo of our area.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

I love it. Listen, you guys, thank you so much for this next uh conversation of this you two just kind of sharing and the flow between both of you and the interaction. It uh it's lovely, and it's great for me to be a part of it. So thank you both very much. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming out. All right, okay, folks, this is Howard, and we again just been chatting with Keller Horton and Carla Claus. Uh, we're gonna take a little break, and as Carla just shared, we're on our way to the barn. I'm there very excited. I don't think there's a marriage in my future, but one can only one can dream or hope. But I hope you enjoyed this brief segment and just the kind of stream of consciousness and thought between Carla and Keller. And hope you enjoyed it, and we will look forward to sharing this with you uh as well as any photos again in our show notes and links to so you can hopefully come out to Newberry Springs in May for this wonderful birthday batch. All right, we'll see you on another episode here in beautiful Newberry Springs. Take care now.