I spent some time this past weekend at the Mojave National Preserve and greatly enjoyed the vasts amount of open desert (pictures forthcoming). The trip made me recall an Internet phenomenon that took place six or so years ago: the Mojave phone booth site.

The site started when the creator found out about a pay phone that was situated tens of miles down an isolated dirt road in the middle of the Mojave desert. He became so excited about the strangeness of it that he went through a series of adventures to find and use the phone booth, all while documenting his journey on the website. For some reason, the booth captured the interest of the Internet-at-large and suddenly people were frequently calling the booth and making trips into the wilderness to find it.

The National Park Service eventually tired of all the publicity and, citing the negative effect of all the attention on the wilderness, had the booth removed. The booth is still gone, and nothing remains to mark its place, but a film inspired by the booth is coming out later this year.

I had always thought the booth was on some major road in the preserve, but after my trip (and as you can see in the image above), I realized it was actually down an unmarked dirt road that goes right into desert nothingness near the 30 or so volcanic cinder cones in the park (those are the spots in the picture). The yellow road to the east of the booth is a small paved road that heads into the heart of the park, so there really is no practical reason to drive down the over ten miles down the road (4×4 suggested) that led to the booth, unless you were one of the private miners, or just exploring.

Note: the image above is an area 60 miles or so southeast of Las Vegas. I-15 is the major highway between Vegas and Los Angeles.