These hiking poles are sturdy, and great to help keep your balance on short or longer hikes
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For the first half of the 20th century, Joshua Tree National Park was a place where miners hunted for gold and silver. Nowadays, you’ll find mines, homesteads, and many interesting abandoned places, one of which is the Wall Street Mill. It was used to process ore that was mined from the Desert Queen Mine and other mining operations. Wall Street Mill is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is considered the best-preserved gold mill in Joshua Tree. To visit this place, you can hike an easy 2-mile Wall Street Mill trail. If you’re a history buff or looking for an easy yet interesting hike in Joshua Tree National Park, you should check out the Wall Street Mill trail.
You can start the Wall Street Mill Trail from two locations:
• Barker Dam Nature Trailhead
34.025061, -116.141959
• Wall Street Mill Trailhead
34.027960, -116.138598
Paved lot at Barker Dam trailhead, dirt lot at Wall Street Mill trailhead.
There is a fee to enter Joshua Tree National Park. For more information, check out the park’s website. You can also use your America the Beautiful pass!
Vault toilet at both trailheads.
Leave your pet at home. They are not allowed on the trail!
• 2.4 miles (out and back) from Barker Dam
• 2 miles from Wall Street Mill
80 ft
Easy
Takes about 1 hour.
Since this is the desert, the best times to hike this trail are October through May when the weather is cooler.
You can start the Wall Street Mill Trail from two locations, from the Barker Dam Nature Trail or at the Wall Street Mill Trail trailhead. They are about 0.4 miles round trip from each other. Both of these trailheads are well-marked and have maps with points of interest along the way. Most people will start at the Barker Dam Trailhead so they can hike both the Wall Street Mill Trail and Barker Dam Nature Trail without having to move the car.
To get to the Barker Dam Trailhead, use Barker Dam Road. It is located on the left-hand side at the end of the road. For the Wall Street Mill Trailhead, instead of turning left into the parking lot for Barker Dam, via right turn onto Queen Valley Road. Queen Valley Road is a dirt road and it might be closed depending on the weather or road conditions. After a short distance on Queen Valley Road, you should see a sign telling you to turn left toward Wall Street Mill Trail. This road will lead to a decent size dirt lot. This is where the Wall Street Mill trailhead starts.
Since we’ve hiked Barker Dam multiple times before, we decided to hike straight from the Wall Street Mill trailhead instead. After parking, we found the trailhead sign for the Wall Street Mill and quickly followed the worn path. By the way, even though this trail is easy, it can get a bit confusing to navigate. This is because multiple paths intersect the main trail. That being said, it is easy to find your way back to the main trail. As long as you stay along the sandy wash, you’ll find your way to the Wall Street Mill without any problem.
After a short distance from the parking lot, we came upon a fork in the road. From the main trail, we could see a pink abandoned structure in the distance on the left-hand side. Turning left at this fork would take us to this interesting little detour. We decided to save this spot for the way back.
Not too far from this abandoned structure, we saw something that looked like a rusty car, also on the left-hand side. Of course, we had to check it out. This old rusty car was pretty cool to see, especially since we love abandoned things.
About 0.3 miles from the Wall Street Mill trail trailhead, we came across an old windmill, to the right of the trail. There’s something interesting about an old windmill, a rusting spire, rising out of an arid landscape. After another 0.2 miles, we came across the Worth Bagley stone, a memorial for Worth Bagley.
The mill’s proprietor, Bill Keys had a property dispute with his neighbor, Worth Bagley, over the use of the road accessing the mill. With the escalation of the argument, Mr. Bagley was killed because of the gunfire. Because of this, Keys was convicted of murder and sent away to San Quentin Prison. Five years later, Keys was released when a judge ruled that he shot Bagley in self-defense. This Worth Bagley Stone is a memorial marking the spot of the gunfight. Unfortunately, someone vandalized this marker in 2014, so the Park’s staff relocated the stone to the park’s museum for safekeeping. What remains here is a sculpture presenting the original marker.
A short distance after the Worth Bagley Stone, the Wall Street Mill trail turns into a sandy trench. We followed this trench for another 0.2 miles before reaching our destination, the Wall Street Mill. Even before reaching the site, we came across a few more abandoned cars. Dustin loves things like this so he was in heaven photographing all the rusty car’s compartments.
The Wall Street Mill itself was interesting to see. It’s fenced off the prevent vandalism so you can’t get close. However, you can walk all around it. If you do, watch your footing, some sections are a bit slippery. If you want a different view of the mill, you can scramble up the large rocks toward the left of it. This mill was a complete and operable gold ore cruising mill using two-stamp mill machinery. Its building is framed with heavy timber and built on a downward-sloping hillside to take advantage of the gravity in the milling process. To this day, Wall Street Mill is the best-preserved gold mill in Joshua Tree.
After we said goodbye to the Wall Street Mill and its beautiful surrounding landscape, we returned the same way we came from. However, we did not forget to make that detour toward the abandoned pink structure near the beginning of the trail. This place is called Wonderland Ranch Ruins, a partially ruined pink house sitting at the bottom of Wonderland Wash. There isn’t any signage here so we have no idea about the history of this place. But we could still imagine how it felt to live in the middle of this rock paradise. To be able to see this beautiful landscape every day must be pretty cool!
If you’re looking for more short yet awesome hikes, check out Arch Rock Trail, one of our absolute favorites, or the Hidden Valley and Barker Dam Nature Trail. They’re both pretty cool. If you like scrambling, we love Hall of Horrors. For more moderate but popular hikes, check out Ryan Mountain. If you’re looking for things to do in Joshua Tree, check out our list.
Happy Adventuring. Don’t forget to check out the related posts below for more inspiration on your upcoming adventures. While at it, follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel! We’ll love you forever!
These are the gear that we personally use and find helpful for this particular adventure. Don’t forget to check out our Recommended Gear section as well.
These hiking poles are sturdy, and great to help keep your balance on short or longer hikes
If you tend to have foot blisters on hikes, get this! We use this all the time.
Our favorite hiking/travel jacket. It's warm and packable, perfect to bring on a hike or a road trip.
Our favorite hiking/travel jacket. It's warm and packable, perfect to bring on a hike or a road trip.
This jacket is packable into a super small and light little ball. Perfect for when you just need a little…
This jacket is packable into a super small and light little ball. Perfect for when you just need a little…
It's always good to bring a GPS tracker with you. We use the Garmin inReach.
This is Vy's favorite hiking bag! It has tons of room for snacks and water!
Our favorite biodegradable, eco-friendly, reef-safe sunscreen!
This is our go-to camera for all of our adventures. It comes with us everywhere!
Compact GoPro pole that extends to 25", perfect to bring on your adventure.
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Hi! We are Dustin & Vy, the proud creators of That Adventure Life. We created this website because we wanted to inspire others to live their lives to the fullest. On here, you’ll find everything from hiking, canyoneering, kayaking, and snorkeling to adventure and travel tips, gear reviews, and bucket list items such as bungee jumping or wing walking. We’ll show you the ropes so you can do them too!
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