Daggett Railroad was built in 1898 to take over the duty of hauling borax from the mules. Daggett became quite a big city in the 1890s, boasting three stores, two restaurants, three saloons, three hotels, a lumberyard, and even a Chinese eating place. But after 1911 when richer borax deposits were discovered north of Daggett in Death Valley at the Lila C. Mines, all the mining operations were moved there, which caused Daggett to go into a steady decline which continues even to this day. Despite the establishment of the solar energy plants, Daggett still struggles to hang on to life. However, there are still some people who travel through the town to reach Yermo, California and Las Vegas today. Airport Daggett is close to the location of Barstow-Daggett Airport. The facility is a general aviation airport serving the Barstow area. It is also the regional weather information center. The airport was built as a modification center for the Douglas A-20 Havoc bomber aircraft that were sent to Russia as part of the Lend-Lease program during World War II. Schools Daggett is part of the Silver Valley Unified School District. The Silver Valley High School is located at 35484 Daggett/Yermo Rd, Daggett, CA 92327, (760) 254-2963. Demographics As of 2003, 1000 people lived in and around Daggett, though nearly 1500 live in the surrounding area. Only about 200 people actually live in the town. The town's elevation is approximately . Solar power generation The world's first commercial solar power plants, SEGS I (built in 1984) and SEGS II (built in 1985) of the SEGS network were located in Daggett. Daggett was also home to a unique solar thermal energy plant named Solar One, a pilot project which was operational from 1982 to 1986. The plant used mirror-like heliostats to aim sunlight at a collecting cylinder located on a solar power tower (a type of solar furnace), through which oil flowed. The large quantity of sunlight reflected on the sphere superheated the oil, which was then used to create steam for power generation. The plant was upgraded in 1995 as part of the Solar Two project. Solar Two substituted molten salt compounds instead of oil as an energy storage medium. During calibration of the power plant's thousands of heliostats, a ball of glowing light was sometimes seen in the nearby area. This effect was caused by the heliostats focusing sunlight onto