For many drivers coming from the Los Angeles area on Interstate 10, Quartzsite is the first Arizona town they see. This map of Quartzsite prints the Hi Jolly Monument and Cemetery, Tyson’s Well Stage Station Museum, the Quartzsite Community Center, Quartzsite Town Park and Celia’s Rainbow Garden, Quartzsite Elementary School and the Tyson Wells Show Grounds, with Boxcar, Granite Mountain and Q Mountain giving shape to the desert.
Quartzsite is a town in La Paz County, where Interstate 10 meets U.S. Route 95.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 and gave modern data the look of a vintage atlas. The shaded relief of Boxcar, Granite Mountain and Q Mountain comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the streets were drawn from Census Bureau files. The Hi Jolly Monument and Cemetery was confirmed against the National Park Service and the National Register of Historic Places. The town lies on the western side of the La Posa Plain along Tyson Wash, with the Dome Rock Mountains on the west, Granite Mountain at its southwest edge and the Plomosa Mountains across the plain to the east.
Tyson’s Wells
Quartzsite began as a waterhole, used from 1863 into the 1880s, and then as a stage station called Tyson’s Wells on the road from La Paz to Wickenburg, about 20 miles from the Colorado River steamboat landing at La Paz. According to the Quartzsite Historical Society, Charles Tyson dug his well by hand in 1864. The stage station he built in 1866 still stands at 161 West Main Street and now houses the Quartzsite Museum, which tells the town’s pioneer and mining history; next door is the restored Oasis Hotel, first built in 1900. Prospectors worked the valley around Tyson’s Wells from the Colorado River Gold Rush of the 1860s until the 1950s. In 1897, during a minor mining boom, the town was officially named Quartzsite, for the quartz found in the area.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
Names on this map
These names are printed on this map.
Streets and roads: Tyson St, Saguaro St, Boyer Gap, Sunkist Trl, N Central, Old Bouse Rd, Plymouth Rd, E Quail Trail St, Airport Way, Sonora Dr, Acacia Rd, Main St.
More street names, A to Z
Chandler St, Cone Ln, E Coyote St, E Mockingbird St, E Sunset St, Mockingbird St, Mountain Rd, N Dome Rock, Old Yuma Rd, Paulo Verde Ave, Pso Chico, Saguaro Ln, Sunset St, W Main.
Hi Jolly and the camels
Hadji Ali, whose name was Americanized to Hi Jolly, is buried here. He was born Philip Tedro in Smyrna around 1828, an Ottoman subject of Greek and Syrian parentage, and in 1856 he became one of the first camel drivers the U.S. Army hired for its experiment with camels in the Southwest. He was the lead driver on a round trip between Texas and California in 1857. After the experiment ended he stayed in the Southwest as a prospector, desert guide, mail courier and freight hauler, and in his last years he mined around Quartzsite and sometimes scouted for the government. He died here in 1902. Townspeople spent weeks building a pyramid of petrified wood and quartz over his grave, and it was dedicated on January 4, 1903, the same year the town cemetery was renamed in his honor. In 1934 the Arizona Highway Department added a plaque and a steel camel on top, and placed in a vault at the base the ashes of Old Topsy, the last surviving camel of the experiment. Governor Benjamin Moeur dedicated the plaque in 1935, and the monument was listed on the National Register in 2011.
A winter town
Quartzsite gets very little rain, about 4.58 inches in an average year, and it once reached 122 °F, on July 28, 1995. Winter is its season. Winter visitors camp here in recreational vehicles, tourism is the major contributor to the town’s economy, and nine major gem and mineral shows and 15 swap meets draw about 1.5 million people a year, mostly in January and February. Vandwellers gather each January for the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, the Arizona Peace Trail runs through town, and Joanne’s Gum Museum shows a collection of gum wrappers from around the world. The Quartzsite Community Center, Quartzsite Town Park and Celia’s Rainbow Garden, Quartzsite Elementary School and the Tyson Wells Show Grounds all appear on the map, along with Boxcar and Q Mountain. The town has turned up in fiction too: William Hogan’s 1981 novel The Quartzsite Trip is set mostly here.
This Quartzsite map is a fine addition to an office, library or den, and it can help teach children the geography and history of the area. It’s made for anyone who calls Quartzsite home, along Tyson Wash, and KNOWOL created it in 2026 to show the town as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Quartzsite map.
Sources
