http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=641
100 years ago Picacho was a gold mining town with 100 citizens. Today the site is a State Park, popular with boaters, hikers, anglers and campers. The park offers diverse scenery, including beavertail cactus, wild burros, bighorn sheep and thousands of migratory waterfowl.
Day use is $5.00
Main Campground: $20.00
Outpost and S4 Beach Camp: $25.00
For additional information or questions, you can call the park office at (760) 996-2963.
Here are also a few points of interest folks might want to check out along the way and in the area.
Felicity & Camp Pilot Knob- Felicity is named after Jacques-Andre Istel’s wife Felicia, and Jacques-Andre somehow got Imperial County to incorporate it as a town with a population of two. Felicity is also the center of the world and a pyramid that you can walk into marks the spot to stand on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicity,_California
Camp Pilot Knob just east of the center of the world and one of a series of Desert Training Centers of World War II. Training was tough. One exercise was a mile run in the midday heat with full gear and rifle and it had to be done in under 10 minutes. Google maps: 32.75095, -114.7548
Old Plank Road- (32.710317, -114.922783) The Old Plank Road is a plank road in Imperial County, California that was built in 1915 as an east–west route over the Algodones Dunes. It effectively connected the extreme lower section of Southern California to Arizona and provided the last link in a commercial route between San Diego and Yuma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Plank_Road
American Girl Mine & Tumco Historic Mining Town- (32°51'21"N 114°47'7"W & 32°52.51N 114°48.53W) Tumco is an abandoned gold mining town. This open area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. A few old buildings and some mine shafts are all that remain of the original mine and town site. http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/elcentro ... tumco.html
Driftwood Charley & Hanlon Heading- In 1947 the doctors said that Charles Kasling had only a short time to live unless he moved to a hot, dry climate. First he moved to the Death Valley area, and in 1960 he left for Yuma, Arizona, where Driftwood Charley's World of Lost Art was created. The site has since been decimated. Google maps: 32.730902,-114.726877
On the east side of California 186, across from the Andrade parking lots, is a plaque memorializing the Hanlon Heading, which is an old water diversion facility built in 1905 by the California Development Company. The facility was used to divert Colorado River water west to the Imperial Valley until the All American Canal was built in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Today, the facility is owned by the Imperial Irrigation District and serves as a check gate on the Colorado River in conjunction with Rockwood Gate one mile north. An old wooden bridge crosses the diversion gate on the south side, and the building associated with the structure is in disrepair. Google maps: 32.72106,-114.725253
