Queen Lucy Leads a Tireless Life in Hub of the Desert

The sign approaching town proclaims: “Pearsonville--Hub Cap Capital of the World.”

This is the home of “Hubcap Lucy” Pearson, 63, the “Hubcap Queen.”

Hubcap Lucy has been collecting hubcaps since she and her husband, Andy, 65, founded Pearsonville in 1959.

Pearsonville is a wide spot in the middle of the desert on U.S. 395 in Inyo County, 60 miles north of Mojave.

Hubcap aficionados all over America know about Hubcap Lucy. She has 80,000 used hubcaps all over the place in Pearsonville.

They hang from the walls in Mom and Pop’s cafe, they are in grocery store shopping carts, in huge drums, hanging on fences, piled high in the Hubcap Yard, on shelves in the Hubcap Shop, and stored in a huge Hubcap Trailer.

“If I don’t have them, nobody does. I ship hubcaps all over the country, as far as New England,” Lucy said.

She buys, sells and trades hubcaps. She is a walking encyclopedia on the subject.

Hubcap Lucy and her granddaughter, April Hamlin, 18, make hubcap clocks that they sell for $35. “We will make a clock to fit any kind of hubcap,” Lucy said.

It was in the Pearsons’ wrecking yard where Whoopi Goldberg and Jim Belushi met in the movie, “Homer and Eddie.”

Lucy, Andy and their two children, Janice and Donald, came to California from Irvine, Ky. The Pearsons paid $8,000 for 80 acres here 31 years ago, and that was the beginning of Pearsonville, population 100.

“First year we were here, we lived in a 12-foot-by-12-foot shack Andy put up; no electricity, no water, no telephone,” recalled Lucy.

Because so many wrecks occurred on the busy Los Angeles to Reno road that passes through Pearsonville, Andy, a mechanic, went into the wrecking business.

“When Andy salvaged tires and wheels from wrecks, he’d throw the hubcaps away. I hate to see anything go to waste so I started collecting hubcaps and I’ve been doing it ever since,” Lucy said.

It has become an obsession.

Pearsonville has come a long way. The Pearsons own all the businesses--the wrecking company, garage, gas station, mini-mart, cafe, auto parts shop, hubcap shop and race track, where stock cars race every other Saturday night.

Cars in many places sport bumper stickers asking “Where the hell is Pearsonville?” and the Pearsons have sold thousands of T-shirts with drawings of hubcaps and the eye-catching message “Pearsonville--Hub Cap Capital of the World.”

“I hope to still be doing hubcaps when I’m 100,” mused Hubcap Lucy.