Qualla: Felicity, California

Felicity, California: Introduction

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirs10 (talk), CC BY 3.0. Jacques-André Istel sold his parachute business, bought 2,600 acres of California desert, named the town after his wife Felicia, and set about carving the history of humanity into granite panels. He also convinced the Imperial County Board of Supervisors to designate his town the Official Center of the World. That was in May 1985. The museum is still being built.

Read more: Felicity, California on Qualla

Image: Kirs10 (talk) | CC BY 3.0

Felicity, California: A Town Designed from Scratch

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Perdelsky, Public domain. Felicity is an unincorporated community in Imperial County, California, established in 1986. Istel bought the land in the 1950s and developed it in the 1980s after leaving the parachuting business. The town sits at an elevation of 285 feet in the Colorado Desert, near Interstate ...

Read more: Felicity, California on Qualla

Image: User:Perdelsky | Public domain

Felicity, California: History Written in Stone

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirs10 (talk), CC BY 3.0. The Museum of History in Granite is the project that defines Felicity. Istel has been developing it since the town's founding, and it consists of dozens of granite panels, most of them over 100 feet long and weighing approximately 500 tons each, etched with a historical record of...

Read more: Felicity, California on Qualla

Image: Kirs10 (talk) | CC BY 3.0

Felicity, California: A Desert with Layers

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirs10 (talk), CC BY 3.0. Before Istel arrived, the land had its own history. During World War II, Camp Pilot Knob occupied this area — one of the Desert Training Center's satellite camps where soldiers from the 85th Infantry Division and 6th Infantry Division prepared for combat. The Felicity train stati...

Read more: Felicity, California on Qualla

Image: Kirs10 (talk) | CC BY 3.0

Felicity, California: At the Center of Something

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kirs10 (talk), CC BY 3.0. What draws people to Felicity is precisely its absurdity — not as a criticism but as a description. In a landscape of flat desert and sky, someone built a pyramid, declared it the center of the world, and started carving history. It is an act of monumental eccentricity, which is ...

Read more: Felicity, California on Qualla

Image: Kirs10 (talk) | CC BY 3.0