Mohawk Valley

Thirteen miles west of Dateland, there exists a long, continuous stretch of Old U.S. Highway 80. This stretch runs for 33 miles and, even though it is merely a county maintained road now, it is a very busy road. It serves the farms in this area and the 3 towns that still exist along the old highway. These towns are: Tacna, with 600 people; Wellton, with 2,000 people and Ligurta with 30 people.  This stretch of the highway runs north of Interstate 8. In some places, it is only about half a mile from the busy interstate, in other places, it is 2 or 3 miles from the interstate. This stretch of the old highway has alot of traffic and seems like it could warrant a state highway designation, but it is merely a county road that is called "Old Highway 80."
  Almost immediately after departing Interstate 8 at Exit #54, Old Highway 80 crests Mohawk Pass, which is a gap in the Big Horn Mountains. In this mountain pass, three different alignments of the old highway are visible, but the two older ones are undriveable now.
 Just below the pass is a big lot of junked cars and two, antique gas pumps, vintage approximately late 1950s. There is a crudely handlettered sign that identifies this site as "Owl." But there is nothing left of this town except for a vast amount of surface debris, the gas pumps and the junked car lot. Most maps, however, show a town called Mohawk in this general vicinity. Mohawk is also a remnant of the past, but, either these two towns were very close together, they had interchangeable names, or the town changed names at some point, I'm not sure. Anyway, I like the old style gas pumps, they have character.
I'll bet all of these junked cars met their demise on highway 80 when it was the main travel  artery through this area.
  This is a rich agricultural area. Most of the water is delivered long distance from the Colorado River, but the Gila River  runs along the north edge of this area. Notice I said "runs" instead of "flows." The Gila River, one of the Colorado's longest tributaries (633 miles), is usually dry through this area, as it is for the final 300 miles of its length. There is subsurface water, but the water table gets lower every year as the population increases. Later, I will go into more details about how the Colorado's water is delivered to this area. It comes from a dam north of Yuma, astride the  California border. It is really sad what has become of a once great river, a river that carved the Grand Canyon.