Beginnings: "Desert Steve" Ragsdale The town was founded in 1921 by Stephen Albert Ragsdale, also known as "Desert Steve", and his wife, Lydia. Ragsdale was an
itinerant preacher and cotton farmer, originally from
Arkansas. In 1915, he left his farm in the
Palo Verde Valley along the
Colorado River to attend to some business in
Los Angeles. The road between
Phoenix and Los Angeles was mostly sand, and Ragsdale's vehicle broke down near a place called Gruendyke's Well. This featured a hand-dug well and was inhabited by a prospector named Bill Gruendyke. Gruendyke rescued Ragsdale and gave him food, shelter, and water until his vehicle was repaired and he could resume his journey to Los Angeles. Upon his return, Ragsdale bought out Gruendyke and moved his family to the remote spot, where they constructed a small shack with a lean-to that served as a repair garage. A
Model T truck was modified to serve as a tow car. Gasoline was pumped by hand from a 55-gallon drum. Lydia served food and refreshments to thirsty and weary travelers. In spite of the remote location— in any direction from anything—the Ragsdales prospered. Ragsdale named his outpost "Desert Center". In 1921, it was announced that the sand road running through Desert Center would be relocated about north, straightened, paved, and named
U.S. Route 60, a modern "high-speed" highway. In March 1926, The San Bernardino Daily Sun reported that 21 miles of grading was being done on a new road from Desert Center to Hopkins Well, changing the location of the desert highway and running over better soil. :"'The old highway there will be abandoned when the new work is completed,' said Mr. [E. Q.] Sullivan [division engineer for the
California Highway Commission], 'and we will later surface such stretches of the new road as are necessary.' F. C. Payton is the contractor handling the grading work." Ragsdale abandoned "old Desert Center" and built a poured-concrete café in the adobe style with an attached gasoline station and a huge
service garage. Across the road, a series of wooden structures were built, including a
market (which at one time was the largest
Coleman camping equipment dealer in the country), and a post office. He also built several cabins for travelers, and a large "plunge" (swimming pool) next to the café where travelers could escape the desert heat. Ragsdale was a desert eccentric of the first order, and his advertising for Desert Center in publications such as
Desert Magazine reflected his personality: "U Need Us – We Need U", "Our Main Street is 100-miles long!", "We lost our keys...we can't close!" (a reference to the fact that the café has been open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year since it opened in 1921), "Free Room and Board Every Day The Sun Doesn't Shine In Desert Center", "If You Don't Believe Me, You Can Go To
Hell, or Visit Me in Desert Center in August! Nuf sed, Steve". When Ragsdale needed a teacher for his own children and the few others in the town, the county declined to send one; there weren't enough students to warrant the expense. Ragsdale hastily built a basic structure of stick framing with paper board walls to use as a schoolhouse, and placed an ad in Los Angeles newspapers asking for an auto mechanic with a large family, which he got, and a teacher was indeed provided by the county. Ragsdale frequently retreated to his writing shack near the north tip of the rock formation called "The
Alligator" (across I-10 from Desert Center) where he composed poetry—the stanzas are referred to as "Spasm #1", etc.—to be distributed in booklet form to travelers. Ragsdale was a close friend of many classic "desert people" such as Randall Henderson, founder of
Desert Magazine; Marshall South, the
hermit of Ghost Mountain; desert painter John Hilton; noted biologist
Edmund C. Jaeger; and
Harry Oliver, with whom Steve co-founded the annual
Pegleg Smith Liar's Contest in
Anza-Borrego. Oliver often printed items about Desert Steve in his 'newspaper,' the
Desert Rat Scrap Book. Within a few years, Ragsdale operated a number of satellite businesses in locations such as Cactus City,
Hell, Skyway, Box Canyon, and Shaver's Well. Around 1950, he left Desert Center, living the rest of his days at his log cabin retreat near the summit of
Santa Rosa Mountain. His sons, Stanley, Thurman, and Herbert, took over operations of Desert Center, and Stanley eventually purchased the town from his father. Stanley ran it for decades, adding a hamburger stand and the Stanco gasoline station.
Early prepaid health insurance In the early 1930s, Dr.
Sidney R. Garfield, who had just graduated from University of Southern California, went to visit a former classmate with a practice in
Indio. The practice was thriving to capacity, while Garfield was nearly without business in Depression-era Los Angeles. Garfield's friend explained that he was the closest doctor (50 miles) to 5,000 men digging the
Colorado River Aqueduct under direction of
Six Companies, Inc. The project site's headquarters was just southeast of Desert Center. Garfield borrowed money from his father and constructed a 4-bed
clinic near the construction site. The clinic was cooled by an ammonia
air-conditioning system and at the time was the only air-conditioned building between
Riverside and Phoenix. Garfield would treat the men, who would promise to pay on payday, but who would usually go to Blythe or Indio and drink their
paychecks. Within a year, Garfield was broke and announced that he would pull up stakes. Garfield's Contractors General Hospital evolved into
Kaiser Permanente, the largest
managed health care system in the world, but its origins are in Desert Center. In 1992 a roadside historical marker at the site was unveiled by Garfield's sister next to the grocery honoring Desert Center as the birthplace of Kaiser Permanente.
General Patton – Desert Training Center By 1942, Desert Center had very few residents. It was then that the Army, under the direction of Maj. General
George S. Patton, established the
Desert Center Army Air Field and the
Camp Desert Center to support operations in the
California-Arizona Maneuver Area. The base covered . Its purpose was to train troops for combat in the deserts of
North Africa against the forces of German
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The enormous operation came to a close in 1944, when the Allies were victorious in the North African theatre. A museum honoring Patton and his training complex is located in
Chiriaco Summit. After the military's departure, the town became quiet again, remaining relatively unchanged as the old
U.S. Route 60/
70 was replaced by
Interstate 10.
Eagle Mountain Mine and Prison The site of
Kaiser Steel Eagle Mountain Mine, which was one of the largest
open-pit iron mining operations in the world at the time of opening, is located about north of Desert Center. The rich iron ore deposit was discovered by geologists employed by
Henry J. Kaiser during construction of the
Colorado River Aqueduct in the early 1930s. The Eagle Mountain Mine operated at capacity from World War II until Kaiser closed the mine and the town of Eagle Mountain in early 1982. Movies & TV shows have used the mine as a
filming location, including scenes from the
Terminator 2: Judgment Day—first
Terminator movie in 3-D. A for-profit prison was operated by Utah's
Management and Training Corporation here in facilities leased from Kaiser Steel. Nine weeks before it was closed on December 31, 2003, a
race riot claimed the lives of two black prisoners. Plans for a project to operate an enormous
waste management landfill at the mine site were stopped by environmentalists' legal actions taken to protect the surrounding
Colorado Desert ecosystem and the
groundwater aquifer. ==Desert Center today==