11 articles
Amboy, California
Amboy, California: a near-ghost town on former Route 66 (National Trails Highway) in the Mojave Desert, founded as an 1858 mining camp and 1883 railroad station, best known for Roy's Motel & Café and nearby Amboy Crater.
Cypress, Texas
Cypress, Texas: unincorporated suburban region of northwestern Harris County on U.S. 290 northwest of Houston, settled by Germans in the 1840s, served by Cy-Fair ISD, population over 200,000.
EPIC City, Texas
EPIC City, later rebranded The Meadow, is a proposed 402-acre Muslim-centric master-planned community near Josephine, Texas, by the East Plano Islamic Center's developer Community Capital Partners, facing state investigations, a closed DOJ probe, and securities litigation.
Hinkley, California
Hinkley, CA, is an unincorporated Mojave Desert community in San Bernardino County, California, west of Barstow, founded in 1881 and known for the PG&E chromium contamination case.
Pahrump, Nevada
Pahrump is an unincorporated town in Nye County, Nevada, about 60 miles west of Las Vegas and the county's population center, home to about 44,000 people in the Mojave Desert.
Paradise Cay, California
Paradise Cay, California: unincorporated 1960s fill-land waterfront community on the Tiburon Peninsula in Marin County, over 200 homes with yacht docks, dredged by County Service Area No. 29, ZIP 94920.
Pioneertown, California
Pioneertown, California: unincorporated Mojave Desert community near Yucca Valley, founded 1946 by Dick Curtis, Roy Rogers, and Gene Autry investors as a working Western movie set; Mane Street, hundreds of productions, Pappy & Harriet's music venue.
Slab City, California
Slab City, also called the Last Free Place in America, is an off-grid squatter community of about 640 acres in Imperial County, California, on the concrete slabs of the former Camp Dunlap Marine base, with no utilities and state-owned land no resident can own.
Stehekin, Washington
Stehekin, Washington: roadless unincorporated village at the head of 55-mile Lake Chelan in Lake Chelan NRA, reached only by ferry, barge, foot, or floatplane; about 80-104 year-round residents, hit by 2024 Pioneer Fire and December 2025 floods.
Tonopah, Nevada
Tonopah is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Nye County, central Nevada, and the county seat, grown from a silver strike in 1900 into one of the richest mining camps of the American West.
Zzyzx, California
Zzyzx (ZYE-ziks), formerly Soda Springs, is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County, California, within Mojave National Preserve. Founded as Curtis Howe Springer's 1944 health resort, named to be alphabetically last, it now hosts the CSU Desert Studies Center.