Rock-happy Quartzsite

Q U A R T Z S I T E

Snowbirds who have experienced Quartzsite in winter report a strange transformation in their outlook. Maybe it's the thaw, both psychological and physical, that comes from a sudden dose of 70° F. sunshine after months of cold. Or maybe it's the knowledge that they are in a town that will all but vanish in a matter of weeks. But there they are, kicking up dust to the fiddle tunes of the Desert Varnish Band, laughing at the reason for the seasonal population explosion (from a couple thousand to an incredible million-plus), and checking out the big gem and mineral extravaganzas that take place in Quartzsite from mid-January to mid-February. My sister gamely agreed to make the jaunt with me from Phoenix, though she was seven months pregnant. It was the second weekend in February, and traffic was no problem by then. Tyson Wells Sell-O-Rama was winding down, but Cloud's Jamboree was still going strong, as were booths in the Four Corners Swap Meet. A few exhibitors were packing up boxes and slashing prices on hand-lettered signs, adding the words "Make an Offer."

A GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHT S

Gene Colvin was hawking silver and turquoise jewelry shaped like tiny cowboy boots. "They call me the 'little boot man,'" Colvin told us as we checked out what he had left. Despite the nickname, Colvin is a tall cowboy from Payson, Utah, and he sells silver-horned bolas, too — as in Texas longhorns. "I paid the rent and had a month in the sun," Colvin said of the Quartzsite show. His tanned face crinkled as he smiled. Western-style kitsch like his sells here. So do T-shirts with slogans like "Go ahead and push me around. But you might want to know, my grandma's the biggest, baddest, meanest lady in town."

The mostly over-50 crowd that swarms to Quartzsite every winter is a hearty bunch. As a group, they do not believe in sunscreen or fancy clothes, and when they are not trolling the shows, they like to catch up with each other over campfires and games of bingo.

Wandering around, we ran into a group around singer Dale Mac. You could tell by the hollering that they were fans. Dale was belting out country-western classics into a microphone. Even after singing the same songs over and over for six and a half weeks, he still drew a crowd. A dozen people bobbed and smiled before him. They wore baseball caps and straw cowboy hats and yellow and pink plastic rollers on their gray-haired heads. One leaned on a cane.

Dale wore his own black cowboy hat. He'd been a Quartzsite fixture for seven years and had the bronzed, deeply grooved complexion to prove it. At the end of "Your Cheatin' Heart," the crowd clapped and whooped enthusiastically. Dale took a break to hawk his $6 cassette tapes, and I struck up a conversation with one of his fans, Bernice Rosevear, Bee to her friends.

Rosevear was an adventurer in her 80s with a pleasant pink-lipsticked smile. She had been making the three-day RV trip to Quartzsite from Alberta, Canada, every year since 1971. The gem shows were only one stop along the route she and her husband forged after he retired. "Have you ever been to Wiley Wells Campground?" she asked, her eyes lighting up. "It's only a little farther along Route 10," she said. "Patton trained his troops there. You can see where the desert grew back after his tanks ran over it."

After Rosevear lost her husband to emphysema in 1982, she continued to make the annual pilgrimage, bringing various companions. "I just come to see the people," she said. "We camp out there," she added, waving to the sea of RVs behind us. "We sit in the desert, then come in here and have fun." Granted, the familiar faces were dwindling. "I've lost a lot of friends over the years." Added her companion philosophically, "But you can sit at home and do the same thing."

From April to November, there isn't much to see at Quartzsite. Though there are more than 2,000 entries in the town's 14-page phone book, you won't notice much when you drive by — unless you spot the big white "Q" emblazoned in the desert varnish. Quartzsite is a sleepy town with summer temperatures hovering above 105°. There's little shade or drinking water, though a bit of the Colorado River was allocated to the community after the town was incorporated in 1990.

Quartzsite once was a stagecoach stop. It's also the site of Hadji Ali's tomb, known in these parts as Hi Jolly. Ali was an Arab employed by the U.S. War Department in the mid-19th century to drive camels between the Gulf Coast and California. The experiment was aborted, and after years as a prospector, Ali ended up buried in the middle of the Mohave Desert.

Snowbird campers discovered the place in the '60s. Many were rock-hounds who liked picking through the deserted mining sites nearby, an adventure that now is against the law. Launched in 1967, the big Pow Wow remains the season's central attraction with three-quarters of its wares gemor mineral-related. Run by volunteers, the Pow Wow sponsors barbecues and pancake breakfasts, square dances, ultra-lite plane rides, and field trips into the desert.

The Main Event is a newer, splashier addition, hosting some thousand dealers — wares range from Native American crafts to Depression glass - and a two-week carnival of nightly big-top shows, rodeos, music festivals, hot-air balloon rides, fireworks, skydiving, antique car shows, and camel and ostrich rides and races.

Both the Pow Wow and the Main Event had folded their tents when we arrived. But Australian dealers still had their blue and green opal rough poking up from shallow trays of water so that you could see the play of color. Jewelers and gem cutters had taken the best after much stooping, frowning, and peering through magnifying loupes. But as Lois Gilmore put it, “There are plenty of pretty rocks left.” Lois and her husband, Frank, were visiting from Oregon. “We’re on our children’s honeymoon,” she announced proudly. (The newlyweds skipped the Quartzsite side trip.) And pretty rocks there were. Huge geodes of Brazilian amethyst sat propped in their crates with sawdust still clinging. Tables held a spread of malachite from Zaire, Peruvian pyrite, Montana sapphires, Arkansas quartz crystals, and Idaho star garnets. We even found some stateside opals from Nevada too fragile for jewelry but nice on a sunny windowsill.

Santa Fe jewelry designer Falk Burger showed up with geologic maps of Quartzsite’s surroundings. He was taking breaks from the shows to explore the desert for rock specimens. “I take it easy when I go,” he said. “I camp for a few days, go back to see what’s there, then camp again.” On various hikes he found hematite, pink rhyolite, and “scads” of purple fluorite. “There it was,” he mused, “all cleaned up, just lying there.” While signs along the road forbid vehicles in these off-road sites, they don’t forbid rock-hounds. Visitors should be wary, however, of private property. That means “no trespassing.” The last and only estimate by La Paz County turned up a winter headcount in Quartzsite between 1 and 1.5 million people, according to Patti Redd of the town’s chamber of commerce. That makes this the second-largest city in Arizona during its high season, she pointed out. Despite her businesslike demeanor, Redd called me “babe” several times. “You can’t body-count at that point, babe,” she explained. “Since the visitors are not residents, you can’t do an official census. But generally speaking, if your tax revenues are up, you know the number of visitors increased that year. And our tax revenues increase every year.” After an hour of strolling in the dust, we stopped for a bite. Our options seemed to center around buffalo burgers, an image that turned my pregnant sister slightly green. She vanished and reappeared with a double-dip ice-cream cone.

After lunch we visited Reese’s rock shop, one of the town’s few permanent vendors, and glanced through its dusty trays of obsidian eggs and turquoise marked “$15/lb not pick; $25/lb your pick.” Outside, two tiny girls danced earnestly in front of a music box labeled “Green Machine the Frog Band,” featuring mechanical frogs and the '70s hit “I’ll Keep Holdin’ On.” A table nearby offered Jack Rabbit milk marked “Novelty item only/not recommended to eat.” We found a booth of fossil specimens where I had the pleasure of introducing my sister to coprolite (fossilized dinosaur doodoo) and watching her mouth drop open. We decided to buy some for our nephew who was having a birthday; an eight year old was sure to appreciate this. As we chose the best specimens that is, the most graphic Bryant Washburn approached. “I sold 700 pieces of that stuff this year,” he announced. At the mention of our nephew, Washburn’s eyes lit up. He pointed to a sign over a box of fossilized dinosaur bones: “Free for children only.” “Does he know much about rocks and minerals?” he asked. “He should have one of these . . . and one of these. . . .” He began to fill a bag, carefully wrapping each rock specimen in tissue paper. At prices of 25 to 50 cents per piece, the man was clearly less interested in making a sale than in the pleasure of introducing a child to the Earth’s treasures. He threw in some free dinosaur bones, a snail turatella from Wyoming, a couple of sharks’ teeth (“Tell him these are 350 million years old”), Apache tears, orthoceras, tiny ammonites, and selenite crystals from Oklahoma. The hefty bundle came to $8.

We stayed to chat with Bryant and his wife, Edna, for a while. They hailed from Richfield, Utah, where they run B-E Rocks & Gems B-E for Bryant and Edna, of course. They looked sorry to see us go, and smiled and waved like old friends.As we joined the folks departing this expandable town, we were already thinking about next year’s “bizarre desert party.” Editor's Note: For information about the January-February, 1997, Quartzsite rock shows and other activities as well as local sights-to-see, contact the Quartzsite Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 85, Quartzsite, AZ 85346; (520) 927-5600.