The history of Road's End Camp and Havasu Palms

from a speech given by Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes to the Lake Havasu City Historical Society in 2005

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            According to the professor, the Indian Claims Commission rendered a judgment in favor of the Tribe for $996,834.81 for "aboriginal lands including whatever interest it may have possessed in the alleged Chemehuevi Valley Indian Reservation on the west bank of the Colorado River".
            In the early 1960’s our family used to take water ski trips, camping along the Colorado River, between Parker and Parker Dam. We lived in Covina California, and my father, Walt Johnson was a successful general contractor, who worked primarily in commercial construction. My mother, Caroline, was a traditional homemaker. They had two children, my older sister, Lynn, and myself.
            Walt Johnson had a desire to build something other than buildings for clients. My uncle, Ken Glandon, lived in El Monte California, and told Dad about a place on Lake Havasu, called Havasu Palms. One of the owners lived in El Monte, and they were considering selling.
            We made a number of ski trips to Lake Havasu from 1965 to 1967.   Once we stayed across from the Nautical Inn, where the London Bridge Channel now replaces the beach we camped on. We stayed at the motels at Black Meadow Landing, and another time at a rented trailer on the peninsula…now the island.
            It was several years after the first trip to Havasu Palms, before we embarked on our new adventure. We actually moved from Covina to Havasu Palms during Christmas break, bringing in the new year of 1968 in our new home.
            Our new home in Havasu Palms was much different than our large custom house in Covina. We were moving into a10 wide trailer…not a mobile home….this was a trailer. It had two bedrooms….and one bath…you had to walk through the first bedroom to get to the bathroom and second bedroom. Eventually my parent’s king-size bed was put into the trailer’s living room. It was the only place it would fit, and it filled the space.
            We could lounge on their bed, and visit with whomever was cooking in the kitchen. Before the first Christmas, Dad added a new living room onto the trailer.
There were no phone lines, and of course, no cell phones in those days. My father did get a mobile phone, which was initially installed in his truck. It was a party line phone with other mobiles in Parker.
            We had no TV, but we did have air conditioning. Not like the quiet central air we have today, they were noisy wall units. But they kept you cool.
            At that time, there were about 20 trailer sites, some were occupied, not all. No one lived there full time. There was also a campground, with public restrooms. The store that had been built in Bob Orchard’s day had been added onto…it was a bit of a patchwork construction, pieced together with recycled material. It had a tin roof, an uneven red rock porch and was surrounded by tamarisk trees. The building had three rooms. First was the icehouse.

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