The Mojave phone booth ( ) was a lone telephone booth in what is now the Mojave National Preserve in California. It attracted online attention in 1997 for its unusual location. It was located at the intersection of two dirt roads in a remote part of the Mojave Desert, from the nearest paved road (Interstate 15 to the northeast, Kelbaker Road to the southwest) and miles from any buildings.
History
thumb|right|The headstone commemorating the phone booth (later removed)
The phone booth was originally set up in 1948 to provide telephone service to local volcanic cinder miners and others living in the area, at the request of Emerson Ray, who owned the Cima Cinder Mine nearby. It was assigned the name Cinder Peak Policy Station, part of a network of "policy stations" placed by mandate of the California government to serve residents of isolated parts of the state. The Mojave phone booth probably replaced an earlier booth to the south. The original hand-cranked magneto phone was replaced with a payphone in the 1960s.
In 1997, a Los Angeles man spotted a telephone icon on a map of the Mojave Desert and decided to visit it. He wrote a letter about his adventure to an underground magazine and included the booth's telephone number. An Arizona man, Godfrey Daniels, read the letter and started a website devoted to the Mojave telephone booth. Soon other people began calling the booth, others made websites about it, and a few even took trips to the booth to answer, often camping out at the site. Several callers kept recordings of their conversations. Over time, the booth became covered in graffiti left by visitors.
Removal
The booth was removed by Pacific Bell on May 17, 2000, at the request of the National Park Service. Per Pacific Bell policy, the phone number was retired. Officially, the removal was because of visitors' environmental impact on the national preserve, A headstone-like plaque was later placed at the site, but it too was eventually removed by the National Park Service. Fans of the booth feared that Pacific Bell had destroyed the booth, which was confirmed by Pac-Bell spokesperson Steve Getzug. In 2018, Adventures with the Mojave Phone Booth was published, a full-length book chronicling the booth's history, rise to fame, destruction, and aftermath. The Mojave phone booth's number, 760-733-9969, was acquired from the CLEC by phone phreak Lucky225 on July 31, 2013, and would ring using voice over IP to a conference he and Teli Tuketu set up, as well as a text based IRC-like chat. Callers joined a conference where strangers could once again connect just like when the phone booth was active.