Yermo, California

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 were required to close. 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 three miles south of town. The fast-food restaurant chain Del Taco was founded in Yermo in 1964;[4] the original structure remains active as a local fast food restaurant, The Burger Den.

Yermo once had a California agriculture inspection station[5] for traffic heading south on Interstate 15. It relocated in 2018 to just north of Mountain Pass, between Yates Well Road and Nipton Road.

In the mid-20th century, the Yermo chamber of commerce styled the town the "Gateway to the Calicos", referring to the Calico Mountains and the historic Calico Ghost Town located 3 miles north of town. At the time, Yermo and Barstow were campaigning to establish a state park at Calico,[6] which was an active silver mining town from the early 1880s until the turn of the 20th century. In 1952, entrepreneur Walter Knott, whose uncle John King was once Calico's sheriff, and who worked at the town as a carpenter in 1915,[7] purchased Calico and restored it. He later deeded it to the San Bernardino County,[8] which operates the site as a historical county park and a popular tourist attraction of the U.S. Southwest.

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.

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