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LaDelta Station, Cafe & Motel

21395 National Trails Hwy., Oro Grande, CA
Phone:

East < GO > West

This small building held what looks like four guest rooms for the 1930s La Delta Motel, Cafe and Gas Station. The original building here was Pinky's Service Station built by T. S. (Pinky) Ruiz in the mid 1920s. Ruiz was formerly a San Bernardino city police officer, According to newspaper accounts from the time he had a partner in the endevor, another former San Bernardino police officer, Harry Bailey.

The LaDelta name was first used by the second owners who bought the business in 1931. They only stayed about a year before returning to Los Angeles, but it seems like they built the auto court building during there short time here.

It is located just east of Robinson Ranch Rd on Route 66, west side.
GPS: 34.639888, -117.345423

The ruins of a rock structure stand near the fence close to the road. It's hard to tell, but this may have been the original station. The water tower and tank stood directly behind this structure.

Somewhere along the line, at least by 1937 a cafe became part of the business, but the rock ruins above were a pretty small structure about 20 feet square so it seems unlikely that it served as both the station and cafe. The house on the corner is a little larger and I wonder if that was the cafe, or the cafe building may simply have been demolished. The cafe also served as a flag stop for the Greyhound Bus.

I don't yet know when the business finally closed, or when the station/cafe building came down. The water tank and the tower it sat on fell sometime in 2018 or early 2019.

Photo(s): 2019