Wiley's Well is a natural

artesian well An artesian well is a well that brings groundwater to the surface without pumping because it is under pressure within a body of rock or sediment known as an aquifer. When trapped water in an aquifer is surrounded by layers of Permeability (ea ...

in the Colorado Desert of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

as well as the name of the surrounding region. It is west of

Blythe, California Blythe () is a city in eastern Riverside County, California, United States. It is in the Palo Verde Valley of the Lower Colorado River Valley region, an agricultural area and part of the Colorado Desert along the Colorado River, approximatel ...

, in Riverside County. It is named after Palo Verde storekeeper and postmaster A.P. Wiley who, in 1907, made a shallow well deeper that was dug in 1876 by a

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

company which frequented the nearby Bradshaw Trail. Wiley expanded the well in the hope of attracting business to his remote desert store; it was maintained by local ranchers and cattlemen for years afterward. However, the rapidly falling water table meant a drop of the water's depth to within a dozen years. Today, the well's original depth is only about at best after wet weather and is unfit for drinking. In 1985, the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

drilled a new well in depth to support the new Wiley's Well Campground, one of only two developed campgrounds in the

Mule Mountains The Mule Mountains are a north/south running mountain range located in the south-central area of Cochise County, Arizona. The highest peak, Mount Ballard, rises to . Prior to mining operations commencing there, the mountains were heavily f ...

Long-Term Visitor Area. The water is both hot at 90 °F/32 °C and heavily mineralized; it is pumped into a

cistern A cistern (; , ; ) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. To prevent leakage, the interior of the cistern is often lined with hydraulic plaster. Cisterns are disti ...

to help cool it to a temperature suitable for drinking. Wiley's Well is also a popular rockhounding site, beginning in the 1930s with the discovery of

geode A geode (; ) is a geology, geological secondary formation within sedimentary rock, sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Geodes are hollow, vaguely spherical rocks, in which masses of mineral matter (which may include crystals) are secluded. The crys ...

beds. Despite its popularity over the decades, the area remains rich with

chalcedony Chalcedony ( or ) is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, composed of very fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite. These are both silica minerals, but they differ in that quartz has a trigonal crystal structure, while moganite is monoclinic ...

, citrine,

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

crystals,

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture (geology), texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained matri ...

and

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

. Though winters are mild, making the campground a popular destination with seasonal visitors from colder climes, summer can be extremely hot with recorded temperatures as high as 130 °F (54 °C). Wiley's Well is easily accessible via the Wiley's Well Road exit off

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

, west of Blythe. The entrance to the campground is south of the highway.

Notes

{{reflist

External links and references

Wiley's Well Campground, Bureau of Land Management
* ttps://archive.today/20050404160204/http://www.rockhoundnotes.com/Articles/wileywells_dgr.htm Article about Wiley's Wellby Delmer G. Ross of La Sierra University Blythe, California Geography of Riverside County, California Lower Colorado River Valley Bradshaw Trail 1907 establishments in California Springs of Riverside County, California Hot springs of California