Yermo, California

Yermo (Spanish for "wilderness" or "wasteland") is an unincorporated community in the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California. It is 13 mi east of Barstow on Interstate 15, just south of the Calico Mountains. Its population was estimated at 1,750 in 2009.

Founded in 1902 and originally named Otis, Yermo is situated at a division point of the Union Pacific Railroad line. A post office was established three years later with William J. Flavin serving as Yermo's first postmaster. It later developed around serving motorists traveling the Arrowhead Trail (later U.S. Route 91), which ran through the community.

Today, Yermo is governed by an elected five-member board of directors comprising the Community Services District authorized by the County of San Bernardino. The board, which meets monthly, oversees the community's volunteer fire department, the Yermo/Calico VFD, as well as its street lighting, parks and water system. Yermo's ZIP Code is 92398, and it is in telephone area codes 442 and 760. Its USPS branch provides post office boxes to local residents and businesses; there is no letter-carrier service.

Yermo hosts the 1859 acre storage and industrial annex of the Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow.

Businesses
When Interstate 15 opened in 1968, Yermo was immediately bypassed by traffic traveling to and from Las Vegas, Nevada. As a result, 90 percent of its local businesses closed.

During its heyday, Yermo had 27 gas stations with mechanics, seven bars, two grocery stores, a hardware store, a pizza shop, four real estate offices, three motels, a thrift store, several restaurants, roadside camping sites and two parks. In 2009, it had one grocery/general store, one bar, one thrift store, three restaurants, four gas stations, one park, and one motel 3 mi to the south.

The fast-food restaurant chain Del Taco was founded in Yermo in 1964.

Yermo once had a California agriculture inspection station for traffic heading south on Interstate 15. It relocated in 2018 to just north of Mountain Pass, between Yates Well Road and Nipton Road.

Tourism
In the mid-20th century, the Yermo Chamber of Commerce styled the community as the "Gateway to the Calicos", referring to its location about 3 mi south of the Calico Mountains and the historic Calico Ghost Town. At the time, Yermo and Barstow were campaigning to establish a state park at Calico, which was an active silver mining town from the early 1880s until the turn of the 20th century. In 1952, former Calico resident and Knotts Berry Farm founder Walter Knott, whose uncle John King was once the town’s sheriff, and who worked at there as a carpenter in 1915, purchased Calico and restored it. He later deeded it to the San Bernardino County, which operates the site as a historical county park and a popular tourist attraction of the U.S. Southwest.

Schools
The Silver Valley Unified School District (SVUSD) is the education authority in the Yermo area. It operates K-12 schools in the communities of Yermo, Daggett and Newberry Springs, and at the U.S. Army National Training Center at Ft. Irwin.

Churches
In 2009 Yermo had three active churches, one Baptist and two non-denominational/fundamentalist.

Climate
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Yermo has a semi-arid climate, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps with long, very hot summers, sunny winters with cool nights and dry conditions year round.