A mystery buyer just purchased entire California ghost town Eagle Mountain for $22.5M

A road diverges in the yellow flats along the outer rim of Joshua Tree National Park. The two lanes in the middle of the desert peel off Interstate 10, about an hour and a half from Palm Springs. They break at the entrance to Eagle Mountain, a ghost town in the California desert that has attracted continuous attention since its untimely end in 1983.

Unlike other California ghost towns, Eagle Mountain never truly died. Now, an unknown buyer has purchased the town to add a new chapter to its storied history.

(Abandoned structures stand in Eagle Mountain, Calif., in November 2017.-FilmPalmSprings.com)

Formerly a company town for Kaiser Steel, Eagle Mountain provided a palm tree-studded oasis for some 4,000 residents.

Most were employed by the mine. Workers drilled, blasted and shoveled the nearby mountains in search of iron ore.

At the mine’s peak, they broke records for daily production levels, but it only took a few years of poor outcomes for the mine to shutter, evicting the population.

Eagle Mountain rose from the arid brush at the end of the 1940s to thrive for a generation or two. Although it’s mostly empty today, the town’s destiny is not as barren as it appears.

An employee of Eagle Mountain’s now-former owner spoke with SFGATE and was granted anonymity due to fears of professional repercussions, in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy.

He mentioned how large red trucks have become a regular sighting. A “for sale” sign at the town’s entrance promising rock products and minerals may have been answered.

(The entrance into the desert ghost town Eagle Mountain, Calif., near Joshua Tree National Park, is seen in April. (Silas Valentino/SFGATE))

In documents obtained by SFGATE, the real property and mining claims were sold for approximately $22.5 million on April 17.

The seller was an Ontario, California, company called Eagle Mountain Acquisition LLC, apparently the last of various Kaiser subsidiaries to own the town over the past 40 years.

The buyer? Ecology Mountain Holdings, an LLC with even more limited public

information besides a Cerritos, California, business address.

(Eagle Mountain, Calif., is scouted for Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet.” The film’s climax was shot in the desert ghost town. - FilmPalmSprings.com))

 Henry J. Kaiser inspects the Kaiser Steel Mill in Fontana, Calif. (University of Southern California/Corbis via Getty Images)

Abandoned buildings and structures stand in Eagle Mountain, Calif., in November 2017. (Courtesy of FilmPalmSprings.com)

Connie Ottinger, who lived in Eagle Mountain, Calif., for 35 years, walks in her former neighborhood in October 2003. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Ref: A mystery buyer just purchased entire California ghost town Eagle Mountain for $22.5M (sfgate)