Calling the Loneliest Phone Booth on Earth

I'm trying to explain to some guy from England what Joshua trees look like. Photo by Mary Shaffer

In the middle of absolutely nowhere deep inside the Mojave National Preserve, four-wheel drivers suddenly pass a place known as "The Loneliest Phone Booth On Earth."

The phone booth sits beside a cattle pen more than six miles from the nearest building (a lone mobile home) and is surrounded by a vast Joshua tree forest.

But the phone never stops ringing.

Who is calling and why?

NBC and CNN have filed news reports from the booth that was installed sometime after World War II. The phone number is passed along the Internet. The phone booth has its own website.

We stopped to call Mike Hodgson, a Nipomo friend and former co-worker who kindly watched our two dogs and four cats while we explored the desert.

In the 10 minutes it took us to dig out Mike's phone number and figure out how to work our calling card, we answered phone calls from San Diego, Seattle, Arkansas and London, England.

The callers wanted to know where we were from, what we were doing and what the landscape looked like. Explaining oddly shaped Joshua trees to a London resident was challenging.

Several callers reported trying to call for days before finally not getting a busy signal.

And when they got through, the chance of someone being there was really slim. We didn't see another human for four hours while we slowly drove the back road.

Travelers have turned the phone booth on Aiken Mine Road into a shrine of sorts, if you don't count the scattered bullet holes.

They have left a plastic pink flamingo, a cassette marked "play me" (We didn't have a tape player with us.), sign in sheets and business cards.

They scribbled website and e-mail addresses on the sides of the phone booth and left strange little totems, including plastic horses, used coffee cups and a fine wooden bench for sitting on while contemplating the weirdness of calling people from such an unusual spot.

If you want to call, the number is 760-733-9969.

You can also visit a website dedicated to the phone booth. The mojavephonebooth.com website includes a video tour of getting to the world's most remote phone booth.