Birth
of the
Havasu Man
Excerpt from Where the Road Ends, Havasu Palms...Recipes & Remembrances
The year was 1966. The USA was involved with an
unpopular war in Vietnam. The country was struggling with civil rights,
and man had not yet reached the moon. In spite of a growing population
of flower children, anti-war protests, and political marches, families
continued to dream and move forward.
One of these was my own. My father, Walter Clint Johnson,
was a general contractor. My mother, Caroline Glandon Johnson, was the
traditional homemaker, seeking no career for herself outside of our
family.
As an independent general contractor, Walt
began specializing in commercial buildings. It proved to be a smart
move, as the housing industry in Southern California declined in the
late sixties. Even more fortunate, was the business relationship he
forged with Winchell's Donut House, which kept him busy building one
donut house after another.
In the late sixties our family took several
water ski trips to Lake Havasu. We'd previously enjoyed numerous
holidays at the river along the Parker Strip. Long time friends. Gene
and Margaret Mushinskie suggested our family try Havasu. We camped
across the bay from the Nautical Inn, at a beach where the channel now
cuts to make way for the London Bridge.
My mother's eldest brother, Ken Glandon,
told us of a campground, Havasu Palms, for sale along the California
side of Lake Havasu. From a vehicle's prospective, Havasu Palms,
California in 1966 was a world away from Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
There was no highway in those days which connected the southern end of
the city to the Parker Strip. Unless you traveled via water, a voyager
needed to commute through Twentynine Palms and Needles California, in
order to reach Lake Havasu City from Parker.
Havasu Palms, Inc., originally named Road's
End Camp, is located some 12 miles north of Parker Dam, California.
Today, as it was in 1966, the last eight miles of road is dirt, winding
through the rugged, yet picturesque, Whipple Wash.
We discovered a quaint fishing camp,
littered with unsightly shacks, a dilapidated general store, pieced
together with weathered boards and planks. Rickety wooden boat slips
dotted the shoreline, while an enormous array of debris - tires, old
cars, engines, rusted tools, reels of wire - lined the roads of Havasu
Palms, leading from the store to camp. It offered a modest trailer park
with approximately 20 pads (several were occupied) and limited camping
facilities.
The then owners of Havasu Palms had a lease
with the Bureau of Land Management, which ran to 1984. The leasehold
included over four miles of shoreline, which bordered on the alleged
Chemehuevi Indian Reservation. On this neighboring piece of property a
small dirt airstrip was situated.
Walt looked beyond the tool shack, which
sported an array of disgusting dried up fish heads, and the lack of
telephone service, no television, and the fact that the nearest town was
Parker - 28 miles away. Instead he saw the incredible sunsets over clear
blue water, a retreat for fishermen, water skiers and boat enthusiasts.
He saw an adventure with limitless possibilities.
When first negotiating the purchase of
Havasu Palms, Walt asked the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) if there
was ever the possibility the lease land could be added to the
neighboring Chemehuevi Indian Reservation. He'd heard stories of unhappy
business leases along the river on reservation properties. The BLM
assured Walt that such an occurrence was impossible, because the
shoreline was located on a public reservoir, and as such could not be
part of the reservation.
Accepting the verbal assurance, Wait, along
with two other business partners, bought Havasu Palms in 1967. (The
lease land was added to the Chemehuevi Reservation in 1974.)
Although Walt's accountant thought he was
crazy to leave his successful construction business, Walt convinced his
wife, Caroline, and two daughters, Lynn (age 17) and Bobbi (age 13), to
leave the security of home for parts unknown.
Not only were Walt and Caroline the major
shareholders of Havasu Palms, they would be its general managers for the
next 22 years. In January of 1968 the Johnson family moved into an old
trailer, installed a mobile phone in their truck, and discovered life
without television, or neighbors.
The BLM assured Walt that if he hired a
professional architect to develop an acceptable master plan of Havasu
Palms, and if he realigned a portion of the access road into the resort,
a, long term lease would be forthcoming. Walt met the demands of the
BLM, yet lease negations stalled, for unbeknown to Havasu Palms, the
Department of Interior was making plans to transfer the lease land to
the Chemehuevi Reservation.
Without a long-term lease there could be no
development loan. Armed with ambition, creativity, perseverance, hard
work, humor, and the assistance of family and friends, Walt became the
Havasu man and captured his dream, in spite of un-kept government
promises and endless challenges.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Havasu Palms’ lease with the Chemehuevi Tribe expired in 1999. The Tribe, which refused to negotiate with Havasu Palms for a new lease, seized much of Havasu Palms’ personal property in 1999 – a direct violation of terms set forth in the lease between the two parties. Havasu Palms Inc. went to Federal Arbitration with the Tribe, and although the judgment was in favor of Havasu Palms, the federal government later set aside the judgment, stating it was not in the best interest of the Tribe.