Slab City: "The Last Free Place in America"
Andrew Shewell
Abstract
Slab City is a small anarchic community in the Sonoran desert that attracts people from all walks of life who seek independence. Situated on the former site of a now dilapidated military base, with no infrastructure, and currently in jurisdictional limbo, many of its permanent and seasonal residents feel tension between authority and a strong desire to express a level of freedom not available in modern society. This setting has in turn nurtured the development of a bricolage style of art, which encapsulates and promotes the community’s shared values of individualism and sustainability, while critiquing modern society.
History
Camp Dunlap was created as a training base for the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II. It was abandoned and dismantled a decade later, leaving behind a number of concrete slabs and no infrastructure, though parts of it remain functional purely as a testing ground for artillery. This provided both the foundation and name for Slab City.
Since taking root here, Slab City has enjoyed some level of autonomy in part due to a longstanding national land ordinance, which requires portions of every township to preserve sections of land for public schools, among other uses. Slab City does not have a public school, but any revenue from the area does go to a California retirement fund. In short, the "Slab" enjoys a thin layer of legal protection, and the harsh climate makes it relatively uninteresting for potential development. Nevertheless there have been some recent public and private efforts to remove or repurpose the city (Hailey, 2008).
People and Places and Dogs of Slab City
Why Slab City?
Slab City has come to be known as a bastion of freedom and individuality, and in recent decades has helped to foster an art style that promotes those values. National attention and tourism has helped in this regard. However, it is not strictly an artist colony. People move here for a variety of reasons, the most common being some level of rejection of society (sometimes for legal reasons, but generally for enjoyment of autonomy). Though there is no electricity, water or plumbing, not everyone is destitute; some have money and live in relatively nice RVs (Sorenson, 1988). Here is a quick list of the major groups within:
- Slabbers - Full time residents (hundreds)
- Snowbirds - Seasonal winter residents (thousands)
- Bush Bunnies - Especially destitute and often disenfranchised, barely managing to sustain existence.
- Agricultural Workers - Usually migrant workers from nearby agricultural businesses in need of shelter. (Du Bry and Rissolo, 2001)
The artistic community consists mostly of slabbers and snowbirds, though art has only recently been more heavily featured (with the exception of Salvation Mountain, which has been there for decades). Slab City has a long tradition of "gleaning," or collecting unwanted or unused found materials and repurposing them for functional or artistic use. These materials include car parts, old televisions, and pieces of artillery. This longstanding practice of gleaning facilitated a natural transition into what will be referred to as the bricolage art of East Jesus.
