MILO MAIZE ON RECLAIMED DESERT LAND NEAR HEBER
One of the first towns a man hears of now, when he enters the desert region, is Calexico, the most remote of the settlements in the desert north of the Mexican line. It is noted for two things, both of which have to do with the hotel, one of the half-dozen buildings which compose the town. When the visitor steps from the train at Old Beach, in the very heart of the desert, he is apt to be greeted with this question:
"Going down to Calexico?
"Waal, ye'll git the best meal there of any place in the desert, an' they've got a shower-bath at the hotel there, too," is the information vouchsafed when the visitor announces Calexico as his destination.
These are the things which have given Calexico fame. It was nine o'clock in the evening when the writer and his party arrived at Calexico in June, 1903, after a two-days drive across the dusty, burning plain.
"This way," said the landlord who answered our hail, showing us into a side room in the adobe structure. "Drop your luggage here. You can wash over there. And right in here," said he, proudly pointing the way, "is a shower-bath. Help yourselves."
A shower-bath in the very heart of the desert! It is no wonder the landlord is proud of it, for there is not another within two hundred miles.