  Trona
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| Page Views: 3,722 Last Visit to Trona: February, 2006 | Death of a Smelly Town by ClarkRB - last update: Sep 12, 2006 |
THIS PAGE HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE TRUTH POLICE | photo by ClarkRB - Trona CA |
There is a town in California that is quickly becoming a ghost town. This same town smells like rotten eggs, looks like a 3rd world country after war, and cannot grow grass. Abandoned houses line the streets, and animals die when they drink the alkali filled water. Houses are cheaper here than anywhere in California, and yet nobody will buy them. The town is known as Trona, named after one of the many minerals being mined by the one business that started this place, chemicals. So, why would a town that smells like rotten eggs lose 50% of its population in the last 10 years, and why should you visit? Read on.
It all started around 1913, when American Trona, and eventually the American Potash and Chemical Corporation started mining from Searles Dry Lake, an aftermath lake of the post-glacial region. Many mineral deposits were found in this lake; however, the dry lake was many miles away from any population center, especially in a time when cars weren’t the norm. Trona, California was born as a company town and became a master planned community. It was created on an empty slice of desert soil; an abstract grid-like development with commercial, residential and recreational districts. It was more or less an experiment necessitated by the desolate and inhospitable landscape that held little attraction to settlers except for the employment at the prosperous mines. Trona was the only place around to get potash during World War 1, an element used in gunpowder. Business boomed, and Trona became an important place. However, the demand for these chemicals diminished, the chemical plant changed hands, and the community began to dissolve. |
| Photo by ClarkRB - Trona Pinnacles |
|  | Trona today is quickly becoming a modern day ghost town. How can a town be a modern day ghost town? Well, most ghost towns in the west are mining towns, but were deserted anywhere between 1890 and 1940, with the buildings in an arrested state of decay. Trona is a town with facilities that existed past these times, like recreational centers, modern day gas stations and a credit union. Hence, Trona would be the first modern day ghost town. Half the town already has become one. There are plenty of abandoned houses and services.
Over time, the chemical plant changed hands, and the mining of the Searles Dry Lake has taken its toll. The ground has so many chemicals that even the cemetery and the golf course has little to no grass. The pungent fumes in the air give the town a smell similar to sour milk and rotten eggs boiling in the hot sun. The migrating birds are drowning in a man made pond weighted down by salt deposits all over his feathers. The morale of the citizens has truly sunk in a town that isn’t worthy of one single photograph, and definitely nothing to brag about. Other than the occasional movie filmed at the nearby Trona Pinnacles and the home field football game played on the high school’s all-dirt football field, tourists avoid this area like the plague. Football teams in the same league hate playing Trona since the sand field scrapes the players’ skin raw, and the air makes (them) nauseous. Junkyards are large enough to be visible with looking at Google Satellite just north of the town limits. Half the businesses are gone: the nearest barber is 25 miles away in Ridgecrest. The closest fast food restaurant is 30 miles away. The nearest mall is over 100 miles away. Would you consider this a fun place for someone to grow up? |
| photo by ClarkRB - Trona Road |
| | While there seems to be many reasons to stay away from this foul smelling slice of the Mojave, I think it is one of those places you have to “see it to believe it.” Stand in front of an abandoned house, and see what a horrible view they had from their house of a chemical plant spewing smoke into the sky. Drive through “downtown” like we show in this picture. Gas stations are like a standing time capsule. They have old names that don’t exist like Standard (it’s called Chevron nowadays), with prices well below a dollar a gallon still displayed from the day it was shut down. See what it is like to be in a former company town, and be glad that you never had to call this home.
The main reason to come to Trona is to be proud you are not from here |
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| Pros: | "The Trona Pinnacles" | | Cons: | "Everything else" | | In A Nutshell: | "Its ugly and stinky...fits right in with the rest of CA" |
ClarkRB's Trona Travel Tips
 Comments for ClarkRB about Trona | | | | |
lee.evelyn Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:52 UTC
How shocking! I drove through there over ten year ago, it wasn't a place where I'd wanted to stop but wasn't a junkyard.. | BorderHopper Mon Jun 2, 2008 04:24 UTC
You perfectly summed up Trona. Fantastic observations. I couldn't fathom how a place like this could still exist in CA. If this was the 1st place an immigrant to the US saw they'd hightail it back to the 3rd world country they came from...its that bad!! | craic Fri May 2, 2008 14:12 UTC
fascinating page | ATXtraveler Wed Feb 6, 2008 18:20 UTC
I played Trona several times in football... man the sulphur hurts when you get rubbed in it. |
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