Along California’s Highway 15, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles, stands an enormous weather-beaten billboard of a girl in a hula skirt. The sign says, “You’ve reached Hulaville,” a desert park built and operated for almost forty years by poet and artist Miles Mahan.

Recorded in Victorville, CA. Premiered July 7, 1993, on All Things Considered.

This documentary comes from Sound Portraits Productions, a mission-driven independent production company that was created by Dave Isay in 1994. Sound Portraits was the predecessor to StoryCorps and was dedicated to telling stories that brought neglected American voices to a national audience.