Imperial County · California, USA
Slab City: America's Last Free Place
Built on the concrete slabs of an abandoned World War II Marine base in the Sonoran Desert, Slab City is a fully off-grid, rent-free community of squatters, snowbirds, and artists living outside the reach of government services.
In the scorched flats of the Sonoran Desert near the Salton Sea, a patchwork community of RVs, tents, and hand-built shacks occupies the abandoned concrete foundations, or slabs, of Camp Dunlap, a World War II era Marine Corps training base. Since the military abandoned the site in the 1950s, Slab City has grown into an unofficial, unincorporated settlement where residents pay no rent, no property tax, and receive no municipal water, electricity, or sewage service. Population swells each winter as 'snowbirds' flock in RVs to escape colder climates, while a smaller core of permanent, often marginalized residents lives there year-round, generating their own power through solar panels and generators. Famous for its outsider-art landmark Salvation Mountain and the graffiti-covered social hub East Jesus, Slab City has earned a reputation as 'the last free place in America,' a haven for those seeking to live entirely outside conventional society.
From Marine Base to Squatter's Paradise
During World War II, the U.S. Marine Corps established Camp Dunlap on this stretch of desert to train troops, complete with barracks, a hospital, and infrastructure built on concrete slab foundations. When the base was decommissioned after the war, the buildings were removed but the concrete slabs remained, giving the site its enduring name.
Throughout the following decades, the land, technically owned by the state of California, went largely unmonitored, and people began settling on the abandoned slabs rent-free, gradually forming a loosely organized, self-governed community with no formal leadership, utilities, or law enforcement presence.
Life Completely Off the Grid
Slab City has no connection to any electrical grid, water main, or sewage system. Residents rely on solar panels, generators, and batteries for power, haul in their own water, and manage their own waste disposal individually. There is no trash collection, and residents are responsible for hauling out their own garbage.
Despite, or because of, this total lack of infrastructure, a stable and structured social fabric has emerged, with residents organizing communal gatherings, a low-power radio station, weekly farmers-style markets, and informal security arrangements to help keep the community functional and reasonably safe.
Salvation Mountain and East Jesus
Just outside Slab City's entrance stands Salvation Mountain, an enormous, brightly painted adobe and hay-bale hill covered in religious messages, built over decades by the late folk artist Leonard Knight starting in the 1980s. The site is registered as a National Folk Art site and draws thousands of visitors annually, appearing in films and documentaries about the area.
Within the Slabs themselves, an area called East Jesus functions as an evolving open-air sculpture park and artists' residency, built from scavenged and repurposed materials, television sets, bicycles, and industrial scraps transformed into surreal installations.
Population, Precarity, and the Future
Slab City's population fluctuates dramatically with the seasons, from a few hundred hardy year-round residents to well over a thousand snowbirds during the mild winter months when RVs pour in from colder states and Canada. Many residents are drawn by economic necessity, unable to afford conventional housing, while others choose the lifestyle deliberately for its radical freedom from bureaucracy and cost.
The community's future remains uncertain, as the land is state-owned and occasionally floated for development or sale, and residents have no legal title to the ground they occupy, leaving Slab City's long-term survival as precarious as the desert conditions its residents endure daily.
Fun facts
- Slab City sits on the abandoned concrete foundations of Camp Dunlap, a decommissioned World War II Marine Corps base.
- Residents pay no rent or property taxes and receive no electricity, water, or sewage service from any government body.
- The population can swing from a few hundred year-round residents to well over a thousand seasonal 'snowbirds' each winter.
- Salvation Mountain, a hand-built folk art landmark nearby, took folk artist Leonard Knight decades to construct.
- The community is often nicknamed 'the last free place in America.'
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Text on this page is original Terralocate editorial. Background facts compiled from the public sources listed above. Images via Wikimedia Commons under their respective licenses (typically CC BY-SA or public domain).