Victorville

Victorville is a city in the Victor Valley of San Bernardino County, California, on the Mojave River in the high desert. Herman Mankiewicz and John Houseman wrote the first drafts of the screenplay of Citizen Kane while staying in the town.

The Serrano people lived along the river before travelers came. Aaron G. Lane opened a waystation called Lane's Crossing on the Mojave River in 1858, selling shelter and supplies to people crossing the desert toward San Bernardino. When the California Southern Railroad came through, its telegraph station at the siding was named Victor, after the railroad's general manager Jacob Nash Victor. The postmistress Abbey Turner suggested the longer name Victorville in 1901, because the post office had been confused with Victor, Colorado.

The Southern California Logistics Airport took over part of the former George Air Force Base after its closure, and airlines park, repair and take apart jetliners on its ramps in the dry desert air. In the 2000s its streets hosted the DARPA Urban Challenge, a race of self-driving robot cars. Cement plants on the limestone hills north of the river have supplied builders across Southern California since the early 20th century.

Route 66 crosses the city as D Street and the National Trails Highway, and the California Route 66 Museum on D Street keeps signs and photographs from the old road. The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum stood in Victorville for decades before it moved to Missouri. The steel truss bridge over the Mojave River in Old Town appears in music videos and films set in the desert.