Victorville's Oldest Area and Cutting Boards for Benchwork

We'll continue our tour of Victorville by crossing the tracks to the oldest part of town, and then I'll report on some progress in cutting boards for the benchwork.

Victorville was originally built on the far side of the tracks, near the Mojave River, and later the town grew and moved across the tracks, leaving the oldest part of town to become the barrio.  The depot and most of the early buildings were across the tracks, and in the 1920s they picked the depot up and moved it straight across to the newer side of the tracks.

Here is the part of my track plan that models this area:

Near the 6th Street grade crossing is the depot, which was originally located in the empty area across the tracks.  Behind that empty area you will see the Hotel and the Cafe, which were named the Santa Fe Hotel and La Paloma Cafe.  The hotel goes back to pioneer days, but the cafe was a postwar addition to the barrio.

Here's a close-up of the hotel from a 1943 Jack Delano photo of the area:

And here's a blurry photo of La Paloma Cafe, which was just to the right of the hotel:

In the 1971 motorcycle movie "The Hard Ride" there is a scene in front of the hotel and the cafe:

To the left of the Hotel in my track plan, you will see an Office and an Old Jail.  The office is actually the old Sheriff's Office, a historic building which I've relocated from 7th Street to this barrio location, because it goes so well with the Old Jail, and because there is an HO Campbell kit for this building, which my friend Bill Messecar has kindly built for me.  Here's the prototype after it was later placed out in Apple Valley for use as a real estate office:

Behind the Sheriff's Office in my plan is the Old Jail, which is still standing there in its original location:

We will later visit other barrio buildings to the left of this area on my track plan. 

As for progress on my benchwork, it was slow at first after Ted had to stop visiting and helping me.  I watched some videos about operating my compound sliding miter saw, figured out all the controls, and then got to work cutting more girders and joists from 1x4 boards.  Here I am, about to make another miter saw cut through a board:

I've been laying out all the framework boards on top of the plywood and full-size paper plans for Sections 9, 11, and 10A, but I haven't connected them together yet.  Here's a recent view of the boards that have been cut so far, on the floor of the staging room:

On the left is Section 9, which Ted built, but I've added an extra girder on the left to support the overhang there, and I've added some pieces to support the triangular part of 9 in the right foreground.  On the right is Section 11, and behind that is Section 10A.  In the distance is Section 10, whose girders and joists will be cut next.

In the center of this staging loop area is a black V-shaped object, which is a Rockler Adjustable Clamp-It Assembly Square, a tool which just arrived and which will let me clamp together boards that meet at odd angles while I drill and screw them together.

So, when all the boards are cut for these sections, I will start work on assembling them into separate frames to support each section of plywood.  And these are only for the lower deck; someday this process will have to repeated for the upper deck!