Desert View Tower

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Built as a roadside attraction, a.k.a. tourist trap in the 1920s, this 70-foot-high stone lookout provides panoramic views of the surrounding desert, including a fugitive border passage between California and Mexico. It’s a trap that works—you’ll want to stay and wander nearby Boulder Park, a maze of quartz granite boulders featuring bizarre but artful sculptures. The carved bison, lizard, skull and other figures were added by outsider artist W. T. Ratcliffe during the Great Depression.

History