This morning, we flew out to the Iron Mountain pumping plant located about halfway between Palm Springs and the Colorado River. Because the plant is so remote, many of the employees live in homes that Metropolitan built on the property.

One of the longtime workers took me on a tour of the facilities, and then we drove around the perimeter, past many of the homes. His father worked at the plant and his father-in-law was the plant manager in the 1940.  As we passed a small house, he said, "I've got a photo of my mother-in-law with Patton that was taken inside the house." 

Patton?  Hmmmm. We got back to the main office and I thanked him. Then asked, "when you said Patton, what did you mean?"

Apparently, the desert training camp where General Patton's brought his troops before they went to North Africa was right next door.

"Do you want to see it?" he asked me.  And off we went.

The most visible remaining features were some of the stone altars that were built for Sunday worship. There's also miles of driving and foot paths that were lined with small rocks that were placed by hand by the soldiers.

The camp was built adjacent to Metropolitan's Colorado River Aqueduct. Each soldier was given one gallon of water a day, but that wasn't enough and soldiers would often sneak out to get more. Other times, they would come over to cool off in the pool at the pumping plant. 

Fed up with this, Patton once came over and told our superintendent to take out the pool so it wouldn't be a temptation to his men. Our Superintendent reportedly told Patton, "you may be the general, but I'm the boss here. The pool stays."

And when we took off that afternoon and flew over the site, I could still see the many roads that had been built 75 years ago.