Rasor Ranch: Two large salt cedar trees commanded the landscape along with a 30 foot high 30,000 gallon water tank. Steam engines refilling here could make it all the way to Death Valley Junction.

One reason I loved Rasor is that after filling up, the steam engines would blow out their pipes and cause a miniature rain storm just to the left of the picture. Other reasons were the shade under these big Tamarisks and plentiful water.

Rasor supported a section crew and track walker full time and the Outfit occasionally. The track walker's job was to check every railroad tie for loose spikes. He got around on a hand-and-foot powered three-wheeled track walker, or velocipede. Pablo Martinez was the track walker at the time of the flood in 1938. Pablo and his wife lost several children after birth in the 1930s. His daughter Cholie and a friend rode some 50 miles each way to school in Yermo. Her friend went on to Barstow, an extra 10 miles each way—he was in high school. Such daily treks were not exceptional for desert folks.

The depression East of the track bed was the Well. The water table was only about 3-4 feet down in those days. The Union Pacific build a diversionary dam after the 1938 flood washed out their line in Afton Canyon. The Mojave river has ever since dumped into Cronese Valley to the West, using names that applied back then. As a result, the water table in the Rasor area dropped to the bottom of the pit, limiting water supply. An attempt to drill a proper well was aborted when the road shut down. The pit had a corrugated iron housing over it. Two pumps, one a "modern" Fairbanks Morse powered a centrifugal pump that drained the sump in a minute or two. The other was a low-tension ignition one-lunger that did most of the pumping via a piston pump. Except for some fluoride content, the water was excellent. Rasor was THE vital water stop after the Ludlow to Crucero link was closed.

—Harry Rosenberg, The Amargosa Groups

"Clarence Rasor was surveyor who laid out the T&T road bed around 1901 give or take a year or so. Louis was his brother. Louis Rasor did a lot of surveying for the US Borax Company, the Ryan, Lila C and Gerstley deposits.

Rasor Road was named after Clarence." —Harry Rosenberg, 2004-Nov-1