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Carty's Camp

201 E. Broadway, Needles, CA.
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The former Carty's Camp started out in 1923 as Bill Carty's and Dick Mansker's Camp Ground and Service Station. Bill Carty and his wife had stayed in an Auto Court at the Grand Canyon and brought the idea back to their friend Dick Mansker in Needles. The two men quickly went to visit the auto court and decided to build their own Camp Ground and Service Station in Needles. This long closed camp reportedly played a role in the movie Grapes of Wrath.

It is located next to the Route 66 Motel as you enter Needles from the east on the old road.
GPS: 34.833210, -114.595817

Within a few years Carty bought out Mansker and renamed the business Carty's Camp. Howard Carmody bought the camp in early 1940 and soon changed the name to the Havasu Court, AKA Havasu Auto Court and Service Station. The Carmody's sold the court to Clifford and Ruby Quinn in early 1946.

It seems like the history of the place gets a little less clear after that. I'm not quite sure, but it seems like the station and the cabins may have become separate businesses right after WWII. The Carty Camp cabins seem to have been abandoned or not in use by the late 1940s. The station went on into the early 1970s under different owners than the cabins.

The camp was known by a number of other names over the years including, Carty's Big Camp Service City and Havasu Court, and Havasu Auto Court. The canopy over the pump islands changed shaped and size over the years. There were 28 cabins separated by garages. The camp played a bit part in the Grapes of Wrath movie.

The camp offered not only cabins and gas but also groceries, a cafe of sorts and various stuff for your car. In the mid to late 1920s you could buy a number of new cars here, including Buick, Paige, and Jewett.

The former gas station and store stands out front near the street. The little building on the left in this photo was part of the camp, but I'm not sure what its role was. The larger camp cabins building is behind the trees. That building consisted of several guest units separated by garages.

The early Shell station became a Standard Oil station. It later became a Chevron station selling Atlas Tires and Batteries, and lubrication services while still offering groceries and lunches.

At some point early in the camps's history a small duplex was added to the back of the gas station and one half of the duplex provided housing for the owners. This building has been repainted since this photo was snapped in 2015 as can be seen in the top photo from 2019.

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Vintage Advertising Highlights

Carty's Camp, East Side, Needles, Cal., on U.S. Highway 66

NOTE: It's hard to read on this early undated postcard, but the image shows signs for Kelly Tires and Mobil Gas as well as Carty's Camp. There's no descriptive text on the back of this card.
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Photo(s): 2015