Quartzsite, from the get-go

Owing to my work career as a jewelry designer, I had known about Quartzsite’s famous desert-sprawling mineral show which happens each winter. The American jewelry industry is well aware of Quartzsite’s remarkable mineral and gem show. The show has a good reputation and is attended by large numbers of jewelers from around America. Many swing from the Quartzsite show right into the Tucson show, which is the world’s largest gem, mineral, jewelry and fossil show. Having had businesses in both manufacturing and retail ends of the jewelry industry, I for many years knew people who traded at Quartzsite.

But I did not know about the possibility of some outlaw from Ohio or South Carolina hiding out under an alias while working in the camel stables at Arizona back in the 1850s.

Did I say “camel stables”? In Arizona? Yep. There is a really cute little tidbit of southwest American history waiting for you at this link:

http://www.outwestnewspaper.com/camels.html

Here is a teaser – [quoting] “…in 1855 when Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was told of an innovative plan to import camels to help build and supply a Western wagon route from Texas to California. It was a dry, hot and otherwise hostile region, not unlike the camel’s natural terrain in the Middle East.

“Davis, convinced of the idea, proposed a Camel Military Corps to Congress. “For military purposes, and for reconnaissances, it is believed the dromedary would supply a want now seriously felt in our service,” he explained.

“Congress agreed and appropriated $30,000.

“Major Henry Wayne was sent to the Middle East where he bought 33 of the animals. With much difficulty, they were loaded onto a Navy ship (with part of its deck modified to accommodate the large creatures) and transported to Texas. There Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale took over. Forty-four more camels arrived later.” [end quote]

Camel Monument Quartzsite

But while the camel caravans are now just old history, a new type of caravan musters at Qaurtzsite each winter. An “RV Big Tent” show rolls into tiny Quartzsite well before the mineral show. The camp crowd which shows up each winter in their RVs and Motor-homes and Campers can swell the town’s population from under its customary four thousand citizens to more than a hundred thousand. This annual flock of snowbirds descends upon little Quartzsite and turns the desert into what is sometimes billed as “the world’s largest desert parking lot”.

Quartzsite Big Tent RV Show

So we see that Quartzsite has some interesting color in its desert culture. And now on July 20, 2011, I sit to write about another story in Quartzsite. It had been playing around in my head since mid-June, a month earlier, and today I knew I had to start writing it. I had received a call from a gentleman who lives in Quartzsite, Arizona, who told me quite a desert-styled tale of intrigues and overt corruption.

That call in June was unbelievable, but I would soon become a believer. You probably will too.

That is when this story started for me – when a guy called back in June of 2011. (Let’s call him “Daryl”, which is not his name but will serve to protect his anonymity.)

Daryl was highly concerned, worried. Yet he was composed and coherent. He was obviously accustomed to speaking with people. His voice carried concern without sacrificing his poise as a man of dignity. But there was urgency in his voice, and he could not hide it. He was reaching out for help.

Daryl spoke of ten Quartzsite police officers who had compiled 200 pages of written allegations against various members of local government, including the Chief of Police in Quartzsite and the City Council. He spoke of the Mayor of Quartzsite being arrested by the Chief of Police. The Chief of Police is alleged to be corrupt.

He had previously read coverage of the Oath Keepers ceremony at the Jose Guerena memorial on May 30, Memorial Day 2011, at Tucson, Arizona, and he thought of Oath Keepers in his personal moment of stress. Learn why he would naturally think of Oath Keepers by reading, in case you missed this, here –

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