George Van Tassel

He finished high school in the 10th grade and held a job at a small municipal airport near Cleveland; he also acquired a private pilot license.

[1] While pumping gas at the garage, Van Tassel met and befriended Frank Critzer, an eccentric loner who claimed to be working a mine somewhere near Giant Rock, a 7-story boulder near Landers, California in the Mojave Desert.

After learning of Critzer's death, Van Tassel applied for a lease of the small abandoned airport near Giant Rock from the Bureau of Land Management and eventually was given a Federal Government contract to develop and maintain the airstrip.

Van Tassel eventually built a new home, a café, a gas station, a store, a small airstrip, and a guest ranch beside the Rock.

Van Tassel claimed it was made of non-ferromagnetic materials: wood, concrete, glass, and fibreglass, lacking even metal screws or nails.

Guests trekked to the desert by car or landed airplanes on Van Tassel's small airstrip, called Giant Rock Airport.