WELCOME TO 

OLD TOWN VICTORVILLE

Once, travelers on Route 66 paused to buy whiskey at the Barrel House or sleep over at the Green Spot Motel as they passed through the heart of tiny Victorville.    In fact, at one time Victorville sold more liquor per capita than any other city in the United States.

Victorville history stretches back to the early 1850s when a band of Mormons blazed a trail westward through the hills to settle here along the Mojave River, living peaceably alongside Indians who grazed their livestock on the grassy riverbanks.    Stagecoaches began following the Mormon route, leading to the opening of a station with a trading post for travelers and miners.

When Southern California Railroad built a line here in 1885, the wide spot in the road known as Huntington Station was dubbed Victor after the railroad's construction superintendent, J.N. Victor.

Victorville - the name was lengthened after confusion in the mails with Victor, Colorado - began springing up in the 1910s and '20s with the first bank, church and school.   Laboring jobs came with the 1917 opening of the Southwestern Portland Cement Company.

As the age of the automobile dawned, Victorville basked in the benefits.   The former stage line known as National Old Trails Highway became part of U.S. Route 66 in 1926, bringing traffic through town along D Street from Barstow and angling onto Seventh Street before heading south to the Cajon Pass.

Victorville's image as a boozing, brawling Old West town punctuated by weekly shoot-'m-ups between cowboys and miners - mellowed into general moral leniency as the town grew.

Beguiled by Victorville's modern amenities like strip shopping centers and a proliferation of national restaurant chains, many of you probably don't even know the downtown exists.

And, in fact, merchants and city officials agree the term "downtown" is a misnomer.    Instead, the new identity for downtown Victorville is…

Old Town Victorville.

As the city's oldest section, OTV has been prone to all of the ills of declining sections of towns everywhere: empty storefronts, businesses slipping into the margins, homeless people wandering the streets, drug sales, prostitution, vandalism.

And yet, the city's police chief as well as residents and merchants say the wave of crime has receded, that the bad reputation unfairly lingers even after most of its causes have fled.

Earlier government-led attempts to revive the area were aborted amid mistrust and fears that whole blocks would be bulldozed.   Now, city officials have won support for a more modest plan - to give OTV a facelift in hopes of sparking an economic revitalization.

City plans have already been implemented to widen the sidewalks along Seventh Street (Route 66), plant trees and hopefully foster a pedestrian culture absent from Victorville's other shopping areas.    Plans are also in the works with strategies to attract and retain businesses, shore up the oldest buildings, spruce up sidewalks and building facades, repair homes and develop new housing.

"Marketable assets”, according to the City Plans, include the historic buildings, the emotional attachment many old-timers feel to the area, the high traffic volumes and the natural beauty of the Mojave Narrows and river, but…

Until these assets are marketed or emphasized, the area will continue to decline and the cost to revitalize the area may soon be beyond the financial ability of property owners, private investors and even the city government to address.

While OLD TOWN VICTORVILLE does not now serve as a “destination”, but rather …a place to go through - not a place to go to, any revitalization, to be successful, needs to turn that around, and that is the purpose of this website, and everyone represented here is confident that the area can bounce back and become a funky, fun place to stroll, shop, eat, live and raise a family - a small-scale equivalent to Old Pasadena or Old Town San Diego.

Won’t you please join us in this ambitious endeavor to revitalize

OLD TOWN VICTORVILLE?

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