Living Without Laws: Slab City, USA

There are no signs leading to Slab City. From Los Angeles you head east deep into the desert, and then south, past the Salton Sea. For years, a diverse group of people has been drawn to the abandoned Marine base, but the troubled economy has driven even more travelers to the place dubbed "The Last Free Place in America."

Following the tire tracks of countless RVs, trailers, vans and campers, you pass a landscape of the vehicles that have taken root here, their tires now soft on the desert floor.

"You kind of give yourself your own address out here, and we're 100 Low Road," resident Vince Neill says. Neill parked his aging brown and tan RV here a few months ago.
Link to article

www.youtube.com...

Do you think you could survive in a place like Slab City and would it appeal to you to try?

Interesting comments from the youtube video above:

There should be a Slab City in every state. It's a shame that you have to go out into the middle of a barren desert to feel free in a supposedly free country.

There is trust me you just don't see them because there deep in the woods or out where there no road

Anyone been to Slab City or a place like it? Any stories to tell?

No one would disagree that the Wild West element has its darker side. Hang around the evening campfires a while and strange stories pour out: disappearances, mysterious drownings in the mud baths, the man who showed up in camp with his finger apparently bitten off, claiming he'd been attacked by a cannibal. The border patrol keeps a visible presence, searching for illegal immigrants that ply the region. When there's serious trouble, though, firemen must drive over from Niland, a derelict town five miles to the west that boasts the closest grocery store and post office. In 40-plus years on the job, Michael Aleksick, 63, the recently retired fire marshal, says he's been repeatedly shot at, stabbed and gotten in too many fistfights to remember, often with people he knows. Crime has worsened. "The crystal-meth influence," he says, "has been huge."

"There's the good, bad and the ugly," says "Shotgun" Vince Neill, 38, a newcomer who got his nickname partly for stopping a man from stealing a friend's solar panels with a blast of rock salt. He first visited the Slabs as a boy and returned this winter with his wife and six children in tow after he lost his audiovisual business and their home in Northern California. Sometimes he worries about his family's safety, but Neill reckons that Slab City's problems are proportionate to any normal city in the country. And he has no regrets about bringing his kids (ages 2 to 18). In this case, math and English lessons are rounded out with training on catching scorpions and rattlesnakes. "They're much happier learning in the great outdoors; it's the best school," he says. Still, Slab City is more of a parking spot than a long-term solution: come summer, the family will head to Los Angeles so he can look for full-time work.
Link to article

I wouldn't want to live in a lawless society. I'm more of a moderate.

Great topic! We have actually talked about this, mostly in jest, but we are retired and have a truck and travel trailer and we spend lots of time camping.

We'd both be a little freaked out there, first off it's got way too much junk around. It looks like a rock festival gone bad in a junk yard. My idea of off grid doesn't involve sitting and frying myself in the desert heat with a bunch of old hippies and other sundry kooks. And yes I am generalizing because I know, from reading about it anyway, that there are many many good decent people living there, mostly out of necessity. And just because they want to, which is the most important reason to do anything.
And I'm not slammin "old hippies" because I am one myself.

We already have a place we can go if we ever do want to be "off grid" and it's very isolated and in the woods and on a river.

Well anyway I can most definitely see the appeal of Slab City and it has called to me, it's a somewhat romanticized place but the reality of it is quite grim. And I know I'd be sleeping with a loaded pistol and so would my husband.

hahahahaha...yeah, its all fun and games till the mob justice kills the wrong man, or a kid gets shot by mistake by someone defending himself.

These guys are like little kids playing make believe. I cant think of anything worse than living with them.

originally posted by: 3danimator2014
hahahahaha...yeah, its all fun and games till the mob justice kills the wrong man, or a kid gets shot by mistake by someone defending himself.

These guys are like little kids playing make believe. I cant think of anything worse than living with them.

According to wikipedia, Slab City started in 1965:

1965 migration to Slab City Begins[edit]
Riverside County ordered people to leave a camping area at Painted Canyon near Mecca, California. These people had all sorts of living arrangements. Besides the trailers, there were cardboard and plywood shacks, all sorts of vehicles and school buses. Some migrated to what is now Bombay Beach, Georgetown which is south of the Fountain of Youth and the abandoned Marine Training Base Camp Dunlap, now known as Slab City.
en.wikipedia.org...

If that's true then this is the 50th anniversary. Are you sure the people living there are "like little kids playing make believe"? Fifty years is a long time. I would say the fact that it's still going strong is a sign that it's a genuine success, no "make believe" at all after fifty years in my opinion.

Also, apparently you didn't read the following article below that I included in the original post. Slab City has had lots of mishaps and problems but after 50 years, I think it's proven itself in reality, not "make believe."

No one would disagree that the Wild West element has its darker side. Hang around the evening campfires a while and strange stories pour out: disappearances, mysterious drownings in the mud baths, the man who showed up in camp with his finger apparently bitten off, claiming he'd been attacked by a cannibal. The border patrol keeps a visible presence, searching for illegal immigrants that ply the region. When there's serious trouble, though, firemen must drive over from Niland, a derelict town five miles to the west that boasts the closest grocery store and post office. In 40-plus years on the job, Michael Aleksick, 63, the recently retired fire marshal, says he's been repeatedly shot at, stabbed and gotten in too many fistfights to remember, often with people he knows. Crime has worsened. "The crystal-meth influence," he says, "has been huge."

"There's the good, bad and the ugly," says "Shotgun" Vince Neill, 38, a newcomer who got his nickname partly for stopping a man from stealing a friend's solar panels with a blast of rock salt. He first visited the Slabs as a boy and returned this winter with his wife and six children in tow after he lost his audiovisual business and their home in Northern California. Sometimes he worries about his family's safety, but Neill reckons that Slab City's problems are proportionate to any normal city in the country. And he has no regrets about bringing his kids (ages 2 to 18). In this case, math and English lessons are rounded out with training on catching scorpions and rattlesnakes. "They're much happier learning in the great outdoors; it's the best school," he says. Still, Slab City is more of a parking spot than a long-term solution: come summer, the family will head to Los Angeles so he can look for full-time work.
content.time.com...

Interesting that "the good, bad and the ugly" is mentioned in one of the quotes above, no coincidence in my opinion. Would you say that the people living in the Wild West were "like little kids playing make believe" too? By all accounts I've read, Detroit is far more dangerous than Slab City. By your logic, no one should be living in Detroit. Is that your position?


www.youtube.com...

a reply to: Profusion

Of course the people i the Wild West were not playing ...they had no choice. They had to live in those horrible places.

Excellent, so the town has been there for 50 years. Now...how long do you think it will last if more people started to arrive to live there? I'd wager not long.

Michael Aleksick, 63, the recently retired fire marshal, says he's been repeatedly shot at, stabbed and gotten in too many fistfights to remember, often with people he knows. Crime has worsened. "The crystal-meth influence," he says, "has been huge." 

Anywhere that I read something like this about a place I am immediately put off going.

Well there you go folks, you can have your little slice of 'anarchy' here in the good old USA!

I wonder how long they'll be left alone before they're chased away?

originally posted by: 3danimator2014
hahahahaha...yeah, its all fun and games till the mob justice kills the wrong man, or a kid gets shot by mistake by someone defending himself.

These guys are like little kids playing make believe. I cant think of anything worse than living with them.

Happens all the time where there are cops...

I saw this about a year ago, I couldn't believe the dude had tame pet rattlesnakes around his neck, WTF!!!

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Well considering the video was uploaded in 2012 I figure they've got awhile still.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if new age hippies in tiny homes started invading.

I used to live out in the boonies. Not exactly the same thing but truth be told, it was as close as I care to get to having to rely on the basic goodness of my fellow humans. All I know about SC is what I've seen on Youtube (not much) but I suspect people who don't know how to take care of themselves don't stay there long.

Its not that bad in slab city.

Yes some people get beaten, burned out and once found floating face down in the irrigation channel.

Yes slab city has rules,

First don't get caught stealing from other slabbers or you may face the above.

kernut.com...