{"id":297113,"date":"2026-05-02T22:39:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T22:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/297113\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T22:39:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T22:39:25","slug":"he-inherited-a-quirky-calif-roadside-attraction-its-miserable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/297113\/","title":{"rendered":"He inherited a quirky Calif. roadside attraction. It’s ‘miserable.’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most people, Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch is a fun roadside attraction, a folk art pit stop within a longer\u00a0Route 66<\/a> road trip. The scene is simple enough to grasp from the roadway: A dense forest of bottle \u2018trees\u2019 \u2014 metal posts with \u2018branches\u2019 of old glass bottles \u2014 fills the front yard area of a small home in the middle of the high desert northeast of Victorville, along a sun-baked stretch of asphalt long bypassed by Interstate 15<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The ranch has been a popular destination for more than 20 years, attracting visitors from around the world and receiving countless write-ups from travel blogs. Over a thousand blue, green and amber bottles fill the 2-acre property, which also serves as an ad-hoc museum to the high desert and Route 66. The trees are topped with relics found around the desert, from an old city limits sign for Barstow to railroad signs and abandoned red gas pumps. Visitors stream in and out of the free site all day, snapping photos of the bottles and stretching their legs before continuing their journey on the Mother Road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But for Elliott Long, visiting the ranch is \u201ca miserable experience of reliving everything you\u2019ve ever lost.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Rows<\/p>\n

Rows and rows of bottle trees at Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch on Feb. 15, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE\"Street<\/p>\n

Street signs from Long Beach, Calif., made their way to Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch off Route 66 in the California desert, seen here on Feb. 15, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE\"Elmer\u2019s<\/p>\n

Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch, seen here on Feb. 15, 2026, was created over many years by Elmer Long with objects found in the surrounding desert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

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Long became the caretaker of the ranch in 2019, after his father, Elmer Long, died. Elmer spent years building and maintaining the bottle tree ranch in the front yard of the family home (where Elliott and his two brothers grew up), eventually retiring to make it a full-time endeavor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elliott, 48, always knew he\u2019d be the one to inherit the task of maintaining the small forest of bottle trees. His two brothers were never as into the \u201ccomplete total destruction of themselves\u201d that is required when working long days in the desert heat, Elliott said, whereas he could spend hours traversing the land in a Jeep with his dad, having so much fun he\u2019d forget to even drink water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Elmer\u2019s<\/p>\n

Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch on Feb. 15, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE\"A<\/p>\n

A car door found somewhere in the desert is displayed at Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch in Oro Grande, Calif., on Feb. 15, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

Still, Elmer\u2019s death in 2019 was sudden and sooner than anticipated. Nearly overnight, Elliott found himself in charge of a quirky roadside attraction 120 miles away from his home in Orange County, and with a baby at home.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been a struggle to manage the ranch since then.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSince his passing, We\u2019ve done what we can to care for the Ranch. Some progress has been made\u2014we\u2019ve made small improvements, cleaned up areas in need, and started sharing his story with new audiences online. But I won\u2019t sugarcoat it: the Ranch is suffering. Time, weather, and neglect and the basic cost of running a property for free are catching up with it faster than we can keep up,\u201d Elliott wrote in a recent post<\/a> on the ranch\u2019s website.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bottle Tree Ranch is just one of several examples of folk or \u201coutsider\u201d art that have become tourist destinations. In Los Angeles, Simon Rodia spent years constructing the Watts Towers<\/a> from found objects. Near the Salton Sea, Leonard Knight spent decades using clay and paint to create the colorful Salvation Mountain<\/a> in the middle of the desert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Elmer\u2019s<\/p>\n

Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch, seen here on Feb. 15, 2026, was created over many years by Elmer Long with objects found in the surrounding desert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE\"Objects<\/p>\n

Objects displayed at Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch were found in the surrounding desert as far back as the 1950s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

But these works also have something else in common: They each were created by a singular, obsessive visionary. And the problem with such a giant outdoor piece of art is that when the visionary dies, the path forward for the art is often unclear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Watts Towers was nearly demolished in the 1950s before becoming a state park<\/a>. Nonprofit Salvation Mountain, Inc., formed to preserve Salvation Mountain after Knight\u2019s death, with volunteers now maintaining the art and fundraising to purchase<\/a> the land it sits on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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For three years after Elmer\u2019s death, Elliott Long \u201cdidn\u2019t set foot in the place.\u201d A friend moved into the house to help out and remains there now. \u201cI\u2019ve had plenty of time to heal, and it still hurts every second of every day when I\u2019m up there,\u201d said Elliott, who now visits about once a week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elmer\u2019s father \u2014 Elliott\u2019s grandfather \u2014 first started collecting old glass bottles and other found items in the desert in the 1950s. The pair would camp out in the desert and use a metal detector to hunt for treasure. Elmer passed this tradition on to his children, but by then the family had plenty of glass bottles: The search was on for \u201cjunk.\u201d When they couldn\u2019t find good junk in the desert, they\u2019d stop by the landfill and dig around in other people\u2019s trash.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Favorite found items are attached to the towering tops of the bottle trees, where it would be harder for a visitor to swipe them as a souvenir. Historic road signs, streetlights and a partial surfboard are just some of the tree toppers.<\/p>\n

\"Old<\/p>\n

Old road signs and tires found in the desert are displayed at Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch on Feb. 15, 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE\"A<\/p>\n

A dense forest of bottle trees at Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch, a roadside attraction created by Elmer Long in Oro Grande, Calif.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Rode\/SFGATE<\/p>\n

The bottle trees and junk found in the desert aren\u2019t the only things tying together three generations of Long men: Elliott believes a sense of grief has long been present at the ranch, even before his father\u2019s death. Elmer spent several of the same years he was constructing the ranch taking care of his own father, who had Alzheimer\u2019s.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cHe told people that the Bottle Tree Ranch was something he did just for the fun of it. But now that I\u2019m here doing the work he was doing, it was 100% therapy,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cWhen he was putting up those bottle trees, I guarantee you, all he was thinking about was those desert trips and his dad. And when I put those trees up, or I\u2019m rooting in the dirt looking for an antique to put on a tree, it\u2019s just natural: Every thought I have is about my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ranch needs constant maintenance to survive the harsh desert environment. Wind storms barrel through and knock down bottle trees; regular wear and tear builds up quickly. On any given week, Elliott estimates there\u2019s \u201c150 hours\u201d of backlogged work to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elliott \u201cnever, ever\u201d wants to charge for entry, but is thinking about offering merchandise or art for sale to help make the property more self-sustaining, which in turn might make it easier to hand off to someone else who could keep it running.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve never wanted to be the bottle tree man; that\u2019s my dad,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cI just want to be a tourist and go visit once in a while and marvel at it like the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most people, Elmer\u2019s Bottle Tree Ranch is a fun roadside attraction, a folk art pit stop within…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,2008,107684],"class_list":["post-297113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-sfgla","tag-sfglaoutdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}