Say what you will–and you will say something–Quartzsite is one helluva place. To begin with, almost anyone there in July or August (and very few are) will cheerfully tell you you’re in hell. At 122 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s how hot it feels. Folks who own black cars and lay hands on them can leave part of their fingers, done to a turn.
On the other hand, this tiny settlement of 2,000 hardy souls is great in the wintertime–which is largely why the 2,000 become hundreds of thousands of happy RVers by mid-January. Motor homes are so closely packed in the 70-odd RV parks in the surrounding desert that you can almost jump from roof to roof.
Quartzsite lies beside busy Interstate Highway 10, which is both blessing and bane. A bane when you try to get your motor home onto I-10, but a blessing because the interstate can whisk you right to the biggest trade show of rocks, gems and minerals–not to mention every other kind of merchandise imaginable–in the known universe. You can even buy motor homes here.
Tina Positano of Quartzsite’s Chamber of Commerce says, “People, especially the snowbirds who are fleeing northern winters, have been coming here for more than three decades. But the biggest single attraction–and one that makes the population explode–is the annual rock, gem and mineral show. We host over a million trades people, buyers and visitors each January. People come from all over the world to this show. Believe me, it’s mind-boggling.”
Believe me, it is. When Missouri trader Gary Mitchell and I first saw Quartzsite, dusk was falling on the desolate but beautiful desert, and motor home lights were winking like lost fireflies. By the time we had reached the site, some 20 miles later, it seemed as big as Chicago.
“Talk about your instant cities,” Mitchell said. “I ought to be able to hoodwink a lotta people here.”
Perhaps some hoodwinkery goes on, but not much. It’s like a gigantic medieval marketplace. There’s everything available, from dinosaur teeth to hot air balloon and biplane rides. And, of course, any kind of gem or mineral available in North America and Mexico.
Quartzsite (named for quartzite–sandstone cemented with quartz–with an “s” added in long ago, apparently by a bad speller) is the base for eight gem, mineral and “tradin’ ” shows between Jan. 10 and Feb. 15–an enormous magnet for would-be buyers and bargain hunters.
Antiques of almost any variety are here, and one of the biggest gun and knife assortments in the west inhabit canvas tents or booths. “It’s the best place in the world to buy an unregistered gun,” one trader told me, and offered to sell me a submachine gun for $780, adding, “All you have to do is remove a pin and it’s full-auto.” Well, now we can guess where L.A. gangs (not to mention others) come to buy armaments. Arizona is still the Wild West, and in fact one of its open-range steers cost me a minivan last year.
But hey, it ain’t a perfect world, okay? There’s so much to like here, you soon forget anything that might upset you. I was soon admiring piles of lovely rose quartz at the Scott family’s motor home. Mrs. Scott, a South Dakotan from Custer, explained that she, her husband and children (this year, they were back at the family mine) had been coming here for years to sell rose quartz.
“For nearly a century,” she said, “the Scott red rose quartz mine has produced quartz for gems and monuments. It was opened by Samuel Scott in 1893, and is 7 miles east of Custer. It has yielded the best red rose quartz in the U.S., and we have many buyers from Europe. Several thousand tons have been mined since the 1890s, and we estimate another 107,000 tons remain.” (How do they estimate such stuff?)
Premium grade red rose quartz brings two bucks a pound–so a ton is a chunk of dough, mister. I couldn’t begin to decipher all the other types of gems and minerals at this vast show.
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Even people who eschew deserts find themselves liking this very arid, dusty area. I know, because I am one. I don’t know why exactly. After Mitchell had finished his hoodwinking and made about a million dollars, he took me to meet some of his friends, who had been coming to Quartzsite–some 20 miles east of Blythe, Calif.–for years. Retired, with a fifth-wheel trailer and a pickup, they arrive in October and stay six or seven months on Bureau of Land Management land.
The BLM has made the desert available to RVers, provided they take good care of it, for as little as $50 for six months. Shorter periods are possible but you’re responsible for your own water, electricity, trash and sewage–and accommodations are nothing like the ones furnished by Leona Helmsley, though some might be as good as those the government furnished her.
Wilbur and Phyllis Causey are retirees (Wilbur once worked with Mitchell as a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman). Their lifestyle consists, they say, of living as comfortably as possible as cheaply as possible. So they camp for seven months on that unimproved BLM desert land, then before Quartzsite gets egg-frying hot in mid-May, they hook up their trailer and go to other BLM lands at a higher, cooler altitude. Both seem eminently satisfied with their situation.
They also smoke like the Titanic trying to back off that iceberg, so I excuse myself and go find cleaner air. There’s plenty of it, but my greatest discovery is to find that the desert sky has a trillion more stars than I ever saw in Missouri.
Did I say stars? Diamonds are more like it, scattered by the hand of that old Gemologist in the sky, so brilliant you can actually walk by starlight. I am moved to write a poem but, alas, lack talent.
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Quartzsite is not merely every trader’s dream of paradise. It is also the location of Hi Jolly’s last apartment–small by any standards at six feet by three. Topped by a one-dimensional camel, the grave is a tourist attraction.
Hi Jolly was an Arab camel jockey for the U.S. Army in the 1850s, when the Army imported camels for use as freight animals in the vast southwestern desert. The program was discontinued within a few years, meaning it was probably a great idea. Jolly (the soldiers couldn’t pronounce his Syrian name, Hadji Ali) tried starting a camel freight line, but it failed. For the last 30 years of his life he was a desert guide in the ruggedly beautiful country around Quartzsite, which takes in the Colorado River and the Kofa and Plumosa mountain ranges.
He died in 1902, and each fall “Hi Jolly Daze” honors him, replete with live camel races and a big festival (this year: Oct. 26). The grave, dedicated by the then-governor of Arizona, is one of the most-visited spots in the southwest.
It’s proper to say that Quartzsite never closes. Something is always going on, although in the intense heat of summer, it goes on slowly and under the protection of big hats. The average temperature in July and August is more than 105 degrees, according to a Chamber of Commerce pamphlet. Fall and winter temperatures are–well, let’s just say gorgeous. This is when the desert blooms with thousands of RVs.
“To be absolutely on target,” says one C-of-C source, “say that we put over a million through here between mid-January and mid-February, and that June, July, August and September are the least-visited months.”
Those numbers fluctuate rather madly, she quickly adds. “Quartzsite is such a big deal,” she explains, “you just never know.”
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Hearing that the surrounding mountains and desert contain remnants of mining towns and abandoned mines, Mitchell and I head for a “town” that once housed miners. When we get there, we find little but foundations, a few bleached planks and one precariously upright shed.
“Let’s check it out,” Mitchell said, and eased his way into the wreck. I followed and we stood in the silence, with only a light desert wind humming through the planks. Then we both heard it–a tiny scratching noise, under an old plank on the dirt floor.
Mitchell flipped it over with the toe of his boot, yelled, “God almighty!” and leaped back. His face was pale as he pointed down to a horrifying sight. An enormous centipede was wrapped around a dying mouse, like some mini-python. It was the mouse’s quivering feet, scratching the plank that we’d heard. It was already full of venom, and nearly dead.
Forgetting it was nature at work, Mitchell automatically stomped both centipede and mouse. All the way back to Quartzsite, he couldn’t stop talking about what he had seen.
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For further information about Arizona’s gem, rock and mineral shows, balloon rides, camel races and thousands of buyers, sellers and traders, contact Quartzsite Chamber of Commerce, Box 85, Quartzsite, Ariz. 85346 (520-927-5600).
