This Town Is a Trip

a trip

From the half-man/ half-appliance sculptures around town to the annual Jimmy Hoffa, Birthday Bash, Chloride, Arizona, is a little bizarre Idiosyncratic, wacky far out those adjectives do a pretty good job of describing it as well.

By Roger Naylor Photographs by Geoff Gourley

HADY LADIES ATTIC Stenor.

Call it a Chloride moment. The bartender, wearing a garish shirt decorated with flying popsicles, leans across the bar and snorts: "Water? I'd rather give away my booze than hand over a glass of water. We're in the Mohave!"

Chloride Moment Number Two: I reach down to pet a Chihuahua, but the little dog trots past me with a chesty growl and a flash of small teeth that suggests, "You don't want any of this, pal." For days I've tried to befriend the little fleabag as he marches the streets, but to no avail.

On all of my road trips, an invisible hobgoblin rides shotgun. That's the only way I can explain it. One minute I'm cruising down the highway making good time, and then, for no real reason, I'll turn onto a sliver of side road, as if my unseen passenger has reached over and yanked the wheel. That's how I ended up in Chloride.

Along U.S. Route 93, between Kingman and the Hoover Dam, sits a blink-and-you-miss-it billboard, faded green like a leprechaun's gym socks. "Chloride, 4 miles," it trumpets, but instead of luring with food or lodging, it dangles the enigmatic promise of "Cliff Murals." I've passed the sign many times while whizzing across the creosote-whiskered flats. On this occasion, however, I careened onto the two-lane road. I was Chloride-bound.

Chloride was founded in the early 1860s, when folks started pulling silver and all manner of ore, including gold, copper and zinc, from the surrounding Cerbat Mountains. The area became best known for silver chloride, which is used today in photographic film and photographic-paper manufacturing.

Normal boom-and-bust cycles followed, with the population swelling to 5,000 at its peak. Most mines ceased operations after World War II, and as with dozens of rural Arizona towns, the "former mining town" label applies to Chloride. These places either evolve a new identity or disappear. Yet, decades later, Chloride still seems to be weighing its options. Historic buildings remain, a smattering of galleries and shops comprise a small commercial district, but the true appeal of Chloride lies in its colorful cast of characters.

James Rice, one of 250 residents these days, spent his first year in Arizona camping in a 1935 DeSoto, and now runs an occasional one-table flea market with a sales patter that makes Donald Trump sound like a ring-toss carny. Or, there's Allen Bercowetz, who, on his way to Vegas felt drowsy, pulled into Chloride, and ended up buying the general store. Or the Unwins, who'd lived and traveled all over the world before designing and constructing an elegant straw-bale home surrounded by a garden patrolled by two desert tortoises. Or the late Bob Stordahl, who, growing tired of metal piled in the desert, taught himself to weld and created haunting sculptures, half-man/half-appliance, that loom all over town.

"We're a big family," says Diane Silverman of the residents, "a big dysfunctional family. But I knew when I crossed the cattle guard coming into town that this was the right place. And we looked for eight years before we found Chloride. What do you think is wrong with me?"

"You just never know what will appeal to people," admits John McNeely, owner of Sheps Miners Inn and Yesterday's, Chloride's only motel and restaurant. "So we go eclectic, to cover all our bases - any excuse to throw a party."

McNeely, whose wardrobe of rowdy Hawaiian shirts makes Jimmy Buffett look like a funeral director, rattles off a twisted roster of regular events, such as soapbox derby races for adults, hotdog-eating contests, the annual Jimmy Hoffa Birthday Bash, pet parades, all-town yard sales and songwriter showcases.

A sock hop on a Tuesday night brings out the best of people.

Nadine Thompson showed up in her bobby socks and saddle shoes carrying a copy of Life magazine from 1952her high school class was in it as part of the bobby socks campaign for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Offbeat festivals aside, mock gunfights form the backbone of the Chloride economy - there are two gunfighter troupes vying for street time. On Saturday mornings you can't swing a dead cat in this idiosyncratic town without hitting some woman poured into a satin saloon dress or a steely-eyed gent with a hogleg strapped to his thigh.

The Immortal Gunfighters first saddled up in 1995, then two years later built Cyanide Springs, a ramshackle replica of an Old West town smack-dab in the middle of Chloride. Using only hand tools, either because they strived for authenticity or because they were drinking, depending on who tells the story, they peeled aged lumber from nearby mines and slapped together the rustic town within a town.

Three other groups sprang up - the Widda Makers, the Black Mountain Gunfighters and the Wild Roses of Chloride, the world's only all-female gunfighter troupe - though now only the Black Mountain and Wild Roses casts continue to perform.

"Kids love to play cowboys and Indians with little wooden guns," says Carolina Reb, formerly of the Widda Makers. "We're just 60-year-old men with $600 guns, playing the same thing and enjoying it a heck of a lot more."

That skewed passion defines Chloride. The entire town bristles with folk art and soaring swipes of self-expression, from Stordahl's metal creations to angst-ridden teen poetry scrawled on park picnic tables to yards overflowing with assorted collectibles, antiques and knickknacks.

Theories about the source of this creative energy abound, rang ing from Sedonalike vortexes to people with way too much time on their hands. Or maybe it gushes forth a mile or so up the can yon, where Roy Purcell painted his murals.

Chloride Moment Number Three: The colors leap off the rocks, grabbing for your eyeballs like a jelly-fingered 2-year-old. Among them are exploding oranges and reds, swaddling yellows and blues, and a purple so vivid it competes with lilac bushes. Then the images start pinging around in your brain - the writhing serpent, a rising goddess, the town dwarfed by a giant taloned foot. In 1966, Roy Purcell worked as a miner in Chloride. When not scratching for ore, he painted a 2,000-square-foot set of murals on the granite face of the mountains. Called The Journey... Images From an Inward Search for Self, the murals launched Purcell's cel ebrated artistic career, and by proxy, Chloride's.

"When I painted the murals, this was just an old ghost town with good, down-to-earth people," Purcell says. "Over the years, I've watched as they started doing all this crazy stuff. Maybe I started something. If I did, it feels pretty good."

Purcell returned in 2006 with family and friends to repaint the now-famous murals. "It's been 40 years, and it took me that long to live and to learn exactly what I did. I feel like I've made the complete circle. This time my son and my daughter helped me paint, and I said, 'This is your job now; in 40 years, it'll be up to you to paint it again.' The journey continues."

And so it does, but if your idea of a vacation is being submerged in a hydrating stew of mineral salts designed to fling open your pores, steer clear of Chloride. With no spas or pampering resorts, visitors need to flash some initiative. Stop at the Mineshaft Market, the official information nerve center. Then swing by Yesterday's Restaurant for a cup of 25-cent coffee and a glance at McNeely's shirt. Both will jump-start your day. Improvise. Just roll with the humor and weirdness of the town. Collect a few moments of your own.

The singer in Yesterday's belts out an Elvis tune, couples twirl around the floor and two guys at the bar debate the merits of cross-draw holsters. I'm on the phone with my wife, but all she can hear are snippets about murals, yard art and a cold-shouldered Chihuahua.

She interrupts, "I thought you said it was quiet there."

"It's Chloride, baby. Don't try to figure it out."