Tyson Wells Museum

Just a last look at what Quartzsite has to offer as far as history.  They have a little museum crammed full of artifacts from the town and surrounding area.  Mr. Tyson came to the area and built a water station for the stagecoach.  It became known as Tyson Wells.  Its really what put the area on the map.  I can't remember if gold was found soon after or about the same time.   The top picture shoes a little table made out of cactus skeleton.  They used the skeleton of saguaro cactus a lot as building material.  The bottom picture has a metal roof covering what is left of an adobe building.  The problem with adobe made from mud and straw is that it slowly washes away.  A local guy made all of these miniature buildings out of rock as a little tribute to the old buildings around town.

We said good bye to Quartzsite and are now parked in Yuma for the winter.  We are trying to get all of our running around ( repairs and maintenance) done before it gets busy down here.  A lot of Canadians come down but with their dollar so low it will be interesting to see the impact that has here this winter. 

Hi Jolly -- Camel Herder

This is the tomb of Hi Jolly.  He came to Quartzsite in the 1800's and the U.S. Army had him herd camels.  They did an experiment to see if camels would work in this desert to haul supplies.  It probably would have worked out but they didn't give it much of a try.  Hi Jolly came over from Syria and his name was Americanized to Hi Jolly because that is what it sounded like in English.   Below the plaque on the tomb is a bronze time capsule.  It is said to contain the ashes of his camel.

The rock that makes up the tomb is local rock.  The top is white quartz and then their is blue domerterite (close to the right spelling) and below that the darker colored rock is all petrified wood and then another layer of quartz and then some harder stone as the base. 

This tomb is the centerpiece of the main cemetery in Quartzsite.  It is all very neat and carefully tended which is a surprise.  If you have been through Quartzsite it looks like a scary down and out little town.  There are a few nice areas in town you just have to look.

Quartzite Mining History

There is a lot of mining history in and around Quartzsite.   The town is situated in a valley called the La Paz Valley and it along with the surrounding mountains held lots of gold at one time.  There was also some silver and a little copper mined here but mostly gold.  One 47 ounce nugget was found along with lots of good sized nuggets back in the beginning of the "gold rush" here.  There was hard rock mining as well as placer mining.  Hard rock mining is where gold is found in rock that needs to be crushed to get the gold out.  Placer mining is the kind of mining we do just digging in the dirt and running the material through a machine to separate the gold from the sand. 

These old structures are left overs from the old mining days.  We guess that they were stamp mills where the gold was processed into saleable gold.  It was a little bit of a hike out in the desert close to the long term dry camping area just south of town to get a close look at this bit of history.  There were signs near these structures stating that the area was protected as an Arizona historical artifact.  People are crazy enough to take pieces of anything as "souvenirs" so Arizona is trying to protect its history by making it illegal to get too close or take anything. 

Arizona Sunsets Again

Yeah, we are back in the land of beautiful sunsets.  We moved from Wickenburg to Quartzsite where we will be staying for a few weeks.  We joined the local prospecting club and have started looking for gold on one of the claims.  When we got here everyday was about 105 degrees and the nights only got down in the 80's.  Now its started to cool down to the high 80's, lower 90's and in the 70's at night -- much better.  We feel like we finally are enjoying summer after being cold in Alaska. 

A few people are starting to trickle down from up north besides us.  So we aren't the only crazy ones coming here this early.  With any luck and some hard work digging we hope to find a little gold while we are here.  So we are happy that its cooled down enough to go out in the desert!