Robber’s Roost Ranch Ghost Town

Fun stop for the kids to run around! The bathrooms are nice and clean. The store has some fun unusual items in it.

My hubs and I finally decided to check this place out while heading out to AV a couple weeks ago. This ghost town is about 15-​ish minutes from the 178 connecting to the 14 highway. There isn’t really a turn out road, so you gotta be sure to slow down as you get closer.
As advertised, this ghost town is free to enter and everyone is encouraged to purchase something from the mini mart that has been newly built. The store used to be part of the main entrance, but I’m assuming they moved only a few feet so they would be in a nice AC’d room, as opposed to an old rickety shop with only the desert wind coming through.
We noticed a few people sitting outside, who ended up being I believe the owners.
I’ve never been to a ghost town before so I didn’t know what to expect. But for a free tour, what’s not to like about it?
There is a bathroom located near the entrance of the ghost town.
Some of the buildings we walked through were a saloon, which was cool because they had art on the wall that had been painted on there, a couple gambling tables set up, and a couple bathrooms set up-​how it used to look like I’m assuming. There was also a house with a small bed/​kitchen/​bathroom, a bank that is also connected with the jail cell. They set up a fake body in the cell that freaked me out initially then realized it wasn’t real. And a small wishing ‘well’ towards the end of the town/​entrance. Afterwards, we went into the mini mart to see about the frog balls that are advertised. We only ended up getting a can of pop which cost around $ 1.35, which is kinda expensive and never ended up asking or seeing any ‘frog balls.‘
I would definitely come back here if I had some out of town visitors and am definitely interested in seeing more ghost towns.

While visiting the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, picked up a brochure of places to see in the area with this antiques store/​ghost town on the cover. «FREE!» written across the top with their hours being ’til 5 p.m. daily. It’s 3 p.m., so we truck on over there, arriving at 3:30-ish and discover the place entirely deserted with the antique store closed.
The entrance to the «ghost town,» however, was unlocked (it’s a handle-​less screen door, for the record, but honestly you could just walk around the fence). We were worried about trespassing, but since the hours were posted ’til 5, we figured maybe we’d see someone in the back (which we didn’t).
Anyway, this place really is a roadside attraction with this big statue in the front of a barefoot backwoodsman with a buxom gal on one arm and a jug of moonshine in the other. A sign in the tree behind it calls them Lil’ Abner and Daisy May.
The rest of the «ghost town» is pretty much a bunch of abandoned buildings from the 1930s that were taken over by this family who seem to be filling these dilapidated houses with whatever they could find to make it look vaguely Old West. I mean, we’re talking an old fax machine in their «bank» and the «wishing well» being a bucket sitting in an old tire. Everywhere there are wooden signs with whitewash lettering over-​labeling everything: «house,» «pickett fence,» «loose gravel,» etc. The «jail» is an empty room with a couple discarded toilets. Other rooms were just filled with scraps and debris (see photos).
The area actually has a lot of history. In the nearby mountains is an outcropping of rocks known as «Robbers Roost,» called so for the bandit Tiburcio Vasquez whose gang used to hide out up there and rob stage coaches, traveling the trail that’s now Highway 14, on their way to Los Angeles. One of the crosses in the fake ghost town’s «Boot Hill» cemetery is marked Vasquez. A plaque on the property is dedicated to Sidney and Violet Armistead, «Pioneers of the Mojave Desert Inn and Station, Est. 1931.»