A California town was deserted for years. Someone bought the whole thing for $6.2M
It’s halfway between Los Angeles and Phoenix, but when racing past it at over 65-miles-per-hour, you wouldn’t even give the Town of Desert Center a half of glance.
Yet, it just sold for $6.25 million.
“At an abandoned gas station, the pumps are stripped of their outer shells and wiring,” The Press-Enterprise reported. “The convenience store is covered in graffiti, its door kicked in, contents looted. Nearby restrooms are smashed and unworkable, but the stench suggests that hasn’t stopped everyone from using them. The sign over the station announces 24-hour service, a claim that hasn’t been true in years.”
According to the listing on Realtor.com, Desert Center was auctioned off in a probate sale and comes with a cafe that was built in 1908, a post office and a gas station.
The Desert Center Cafe, with its ghost-like sign still in place, closed its doors to customers almost a decade ago.
“It was open all day, from the day that it opened. Until obviously it wasn’t,” Brandy Nelson, whose great-grandparents Stephen and Lydia Ragsdale founded the town, said to The Desert Sun.
“There’s nothing out here. So is there hope that (the new owner) can revitalize Desert Center? Yes,” Nelson said. “It’s just unfortunate that my family weren’t the ones that could get along to do it.”
A popular YouTube video blogger, AdamTheWoo, shot footage of the abandoned town in 2016.
On July 13, Balwinder Singh Wraich bought Desert Center, which is actually not a “formal” town, The Press-Enterprise reported.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 12:47 PM with the headline "A California town was deserted for years. Someone bought the whole thing for $6.2M."