Pearblossom is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

located in the

Antelope Valley The Antelope Valley is a valley primarily located in northern Los Angeles County, California, United States and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, Kern County, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated ...

of the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

, in northern

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

, United States. The town has a population of 2,435. The ZIP Code is 93553 and the community is inside

area code 661 Area code 661 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in the U.S. state of California. The numbering plan area comprises the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley and the far northern part of the Los Angeles metrop ...

. According to the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance report of 2009, the '' Palmdale / Lancaster''

urbanized area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

has a population of 483,998, of which Pearblossom is a part.

Geography

Pearblossom is located about southeast of Palmdale in the

portion of southern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The name Pearblossom came from the multitude of local pear farms along the southern ridge of the Antelope Valley. A few still exist today, but most of those farms are now abandoned and have returned to the desert landscape or have been overridden by small-scale housing development. Pearblossom is also a popular destination, for its annual Duck Races; convenient location for hiking in the foothills; and picturesque photo opportunities. Pearblossom is well known by Southlanders as the site of one of the most dangerous roads in the US. State Route 138 ( Pearblossom Highway) is the main street in Pearblossom and as of 2004 has been the location of numerous serious and fatal automobile accidents in its Palmdale to I-15 segment. Daily traffic on the recently expanded highway ranges from 25,000 to 30,000 vehicles, including many short & long haul freight trucks. Overuse of Pearblossom Highway is chiefly on Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, the time period many use the route to travel to

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

. This section of 138's route is commonly used as a bypass of the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Metropolitan region, and as a route from the Antelope Valley to the

Inland Empire The Inland Empire (commonly abbreviated as the IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County and Or ...

. Highway 138 or Pearblossom Highway has been somewhat improved, now with three or four lanes along some segments, and some of the dips taken out of the highway in many of the most dangerous areas.

Arts

Pearblossom (in name only at present) is found in the following creative works: * ''The Crows of Pearblossom,'' authored by

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...

* Aldous Huxley's home in the early 1940s was nearby in Llano and is now the filming location o
Pearblossom Picture Ranch
* ''Pearblossom Highway,'' a photographic collage assembled by

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...

* The community is mentioned in ''

I Love Dick ''I Love Dick'' is an epistolary novel with autofiction elements by American artist and author Chris Kraus. It was published in 1997 by Semiotext(e). ''I Love Dick'' merges fiction and memoir formats to explore the writer's psycho-sexual o ...

,'' the 1997 novel by Chris Kraus * The community is briefly mentioned in '' The Gambler (2014 film).'' * While not specifically named in the 1939 John Fante novel Ask the Dust, it is mentioned in the movie adaptation starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Arturo Bandini (Farrell) receives a postcard telling him that Camilla Lopez (Hayek) is dying of tuberculosis and that he should come to see her at the shack in Pearblossom where she is trying to recuperate.

's photocollage ''Pearblossom Highway'' (1986) was actually photographed in the Littlerock rural vicinity; it, like Huxley's ''The Crows of Pearblossom'', is not about Pearblossom proper. In 1997, Western actor Louis R. Faust died in his Pearblossom lodgings on highway 138. His son, Louis R. Faust Jr., expired there in 2010.Los Angeles County death certificate and property tax assessor records.

Notable people

Sam Crawford Samuel Earl Crawford (April 18, 1880 – June 15, 1968), nicknamed "Wahoo Sam", was an American outfielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Crawford batted and threw left-handed, stood tall and weighed . Born in Wahoo, Nebraska, he had a sh ...

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...

outfielder with the

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...

and

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. One of the AL's eight chart ...

George Lazenby George Robert Lazenby (; born 5 September 1939) is an Australian retired actor. Lazenby began his professional career as a model and had only acted in commercials when he was cast to replace the original James Bond actor, Sean Connery, playing ...

, actor who, among other roles, portrayed James Bond * George Voskovec

References

External links

Pearblossom Chamber of Commerce
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Los Angeles County, California Antelope Valley Populated places in the Mojave Desert Unincorporated communities in California