Word: towns
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI say it will take months to determine what caused the crash. But that has not stopped a rash of rumors from circulating in Pensacola, a town of 60,000 where Gulf Power is one of the biggest employers. Many thought the crash was caused by either suicide or sabotage and is linked to the investigation. The speculation was fueled by a telephone call made to the local sheriff's office three hours after the plane went down. "You can stop investigating Gulf Power now," said an anonymous caller. "We took care of that...
North of Yuma, east of the Colorado River and smack in the middle of nowhere, Quartzsite is not an official town. Never incorporated, possessing no mayor, no schools, no stoplight, no town water or sewer system, no zoning rules or local police, the "gem of the desert" is home year round to maybe a thousand people...
...Quartzsite is subject to the same forces that control the vast flocks of migratory birds that traverse the continent twice a year. In winter the town swells to absorb 200,000 people. They are refugees from the frozen North, most of them retirees making their seasonal escape in RVs. Then, usually in April, when the temperature begins to rise and the lure of the North is greater, the huge encampment with its bustling activity rolls away, evaporating like runoff from a desert cloudburst...
...This is one of the hottest places in the States," says Johnny Braswell, owner of La Casa Del Rancho restaurant, "but you learn to live with it." Braswell and his wife Betty have lived here for 17 years and raised six kids, packing them off to school in nearby towns. In a community where no one is in charge, Braswell takes it upon himself to maintain the big Q sign on Q mountain. "A while ago, I filled my pickup with 4-H kids, drove up there and poured whitewash over the Q. Got to go up there again." Like...
...east end of town, James ("J.J.") and Bonnie Jackson run a shop for gold prospectors. "Lot of folks here got the fever, gold fever," he says. The Jacksons have done well during their first year in business selling gold pans, metal detectors, black-sand magnets and an instrument that separates gold flecks from gravel. ("You run water through it, and the gold walks up the veins into your little catchall. Just walks on up like it has a mind of its own.") "Folks around here like to dig in the dirt...