Rice, California
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Rice, California is a vacant town site in the southern tip of the Mojave Desert.
The town, located on present-day California State Route 62 near the townsite of Earp and approximately midway between Twentynine Palms and the state line, sprang up around a Santa Fe Railroad subdivision and siding. The subdivision and siding are still in use, but have since changed hands and currently belong to the Arizona-California Railway, a short line serving southeastern California from Rice to Cadiz, California and southwestern Arizona at Parker.
Rice gained some minor notoriety in recent years because of the Rice Shoe Tree, a lone tamarisk on a turnout just south of the highway. For reasons unknown, it became customary for travelers on Highway 62 (also known as Rice Road) to and from the Colorado River to hang an old shoe on the tree's branches. The tree was even featured on California's Gold, a PBS program hosted by Huell Howser. The Rice Shoe Tree burned to the ground in 2003 in a fire of suspicious origin. Though the tree is gone, travelers still stop to spell their names on the railroad with the multi-colored volcanic rock used as ballast. Hand-assembled graffiti lines the railroad for the entire distance that it parallels Highway 62.
There are no habitable buildings and no residents in Rice at present. A hand-painted sign on the western outskirts of the town once announced that the townsite was for sale, but that sign has since been removed.
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