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Cadiz Summit Ruins

Route 66, Cadiz Summit, CA
Phone:

East < GO > West

After the realignment of Route 66 in 1931, George & Minnie Tienken moved their business from the town of Cadiz to Cadiz Summit. By the 1940s there was a Mobilgas station, a garage, the Oasis Cafe and several cabins. With the interstate bypassing Route 66 in 1972, the businesses suffered the same fate as many others that were bypassed by "progress". All that remains are the walls of a few buildings, the steps to where the cabins stood, and some of the floor slabs, foundations and sidewalks.

GPS: 34.569587, -115.485303

This is what you find up the steps to where the cabins were located. Just a some broken up concrete slab and sidewalk.

The ruins of several buildings at Cadiz Summit seem to have been adopted as public participation art spaces or have become home to a graffiti fest. Whichever the case it does make for some interesting photos.

This is the same building from a different angle, it might be the most interesting building on the site.

What remains of a cross stands atop the hill behind the ruins.

The actual Cadiz Summit is within easy view of the ruins. One of many Route 66 stencils can be seen on the road here. The elevation of the ruins isn't really all that high only 1250 feet according to what Jack Rittenhouse noted in his 1946 book "A Guide Book to Highway 66". The road crests the hill at about 1302 feet elevation and drops down to Chambless and at 800 feet.

The steps to where the cabins stood are to the right of our car in this photo.

There are nine steps left more or less in place but there may have been a couple more. The building at the right gives an idea of how much of a rise there was.

The steps lead to what's left of a concrete foundations and a long sidewalk that I think ran in front of the cabins.

Enthusiasts often just call this "old Route 66", which of course it is, but long before it was designated as U. S. Route 66 it was called the National Trails Highway and/or the Ocean to Ocean Highway that dates back to 1912 and stretched 3096 miles from the east coast to the west coast. Today's maps show it as the National Trails Highway. In some places along historic Route 66 it is labeled as the National Old Trails.

Photo(s): Spring 2013