Desert Center

Desert Center has several claims to fame. Eagle Mountain, General George Patton, the Eagle Mountain Waste Facility and the beginning of the HMO industry.

Eagle Mountain was the site of the largest strip mine in the U.S. providing iron for much of the American war effort in World War II. It is now the site of a very controversial landfill project receiving the garbage of Los Angeles. Supporters point out that the pit is deep enough to take all our garbage well into the 21st century. Opponents feel that putting a garbage site so close to Joshua Tree National Park and so close to the San Andreas Fault is asking to contaminate the water supply sooner or later. Water and power from the Colorado flow nearby on their way to Los Angeles

George Patton chose the Coachella Valley and the Eagle Mountains to train his troops for desert warfare before going out and whipping Field Marshall Rommel's troops in World War II. Desert Center was his center for training and that's how it got its name. The George Patton Museum in Desert Center carries on his memory with many displays and photographs.

According to Stephen Gilford "In 1933, a young doctor from Los Angeles opened a temporary hospital at a workcamp just outside of Desert Center and alongside the 232 mile Colorado River Aqueduct. On the verge of bankruptcy he switched from fee-for-service to prepayment and found that his hospital thrived. He later teamed up with industrialist Henry Kaiser at during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and then in the Kaiser shipyards in San Francisco Bay and on the Columbia River. This was the beginning of Kaiser-Permanente Health Plan and the HMO industry."

To the north of Desert Center and the Chuckwalla Valley is Rice Valley, some of the most desolate countryside in California. To the south are the Orocopia Mountains where NASA trained Appollo astronauts to do field geology so that they would know what kind of rocks they were picking up. This led directly to the discovery of the famed "Genesis" rock on the moon.

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