A storekeeper deepened a stagecoach well in 1907 to pull business to his desert shop. The geodes were found later.
Wiley's Well is a natural artesian well in the Colorado Desert of southern California, west of Blythe in Riverside County, and the name covers the surrounding country as well as the water. It is named for A.P. Wiley, a Palo Verde storekeeper and postmaster, who in 1907 deepened a shallow well that a stagecoach company had dug in 1876 beside the Bradshaw Trail. Local ranchers and cattlemen kept it up for years afterwards.
The rockhounding started in the 1930s with the discovery of the geode beds, and the US Geological Survey records the Hauser Beds nearby in Imperial County as an occurrence of semiprecious gemstone. Decades of collecting have not emptied it. The area is still rich in chalcedony, citrine, quartz crystals, rhyolite and jasper.
The water has a harder history than the stones. The falling water table dropped the level to 60 feet within a dozen years of Wiley's work, and today the original well is only about 20 feet deep after wet weather and is not fit to drink. In 1985 the Bureau of Land Management drilled a new well 965 feet deep to supply the Wiley's Well Campground, one of only two developed campgrounds in the Mule Mountains Long-Term Visitor Area. That water comes up hot at 90 degrees Fahrenheit and heavily mineralised, and is pumped into a cistern to cool to something drinkable.
Season matters more here than at most sites. Winters are mild, which is why the campground fills with visitors escaping colder places. Summer temperatures have been recorded as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Do not treat this as a year-round destination.
Access is genuinely easy. Take the Wiley's Well Road exit off Interstate 10.
Geodes, agate
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
