By Lianne Stevens - Reprinted from Ranch & Coast magazine, April 1990 - Courtesy of Pala International

Since he was eight years old, Bill says, he has been a fanatic about digging in the earth for mineral specimens. He met Josephine ('Josie') Scripps, San Diego County's premier mineral collector, soon after he moved here from Minnesota with his family. She helped the young enthusiast into his present career. By the time he was 13, he had graduated from trading small tourmalines scrounged from local mining dumps to setting off dynamite for more serious treasure hunting. Bill earned a degree in geological engineering - and a Tau Beta Pi key - from the Colorado School of Mines and to served in the US Army special services teaching lapidary and jewelery making. After a stint searching for Alaskan Gold, Silver and Copper, he hurried back to San Diego to the hard-rock pegmatite mining he really loves. There he and partner Ed Swoboda created Pala Properties International in 1968 with lease-purchases of the famous Stewart, Tourmaline Queen and Pala Chief mines in Pala, California. In 1972 they hit the Blue-cap Pocket of Tourmalines at the Tourmaline Queen mine, described by Dr Vince Manson as the find of the Century. Swoboda and he split up in 1978…Ed to persue mining in Brazil and Bill to persue Sri Lankan mining…both projects proved difficult. Larson kept the core mineral and gem business, which was renamed Pala International. Larson not only collects, trades and mines fabulous mineral specimens from around the world, but his finds and acquisitions are represented in more museums and publications world-wide than he can count. He's supplied hundreds of specimens to the Smithsonian Institution alone. Bill and his wife Jeanne own Pala International, a mining, trading, lapidary and jewelry-design and sales organization that has operated mines on three continents - including San Diego County's most famous and productive tourmaline mine, the "Himalaya" in Mesa Grande. Their retail shops in the Four Seasons Hotel Aviara, and Fallbrook, appropriately named The Collector, draw visitors from many countries to ogle the museum-like displays. Both stores are in beautiful, natural settings (the Fallbrook shop is not far from the Larson's hilltop home). Inside, specimens of raw crystal formations blend artfully with finished jewelry, often designed by Jeanne. The rainbow arrangements feature colored gemstones such as sapphires, tsavorites and San Diego's famous pink-and-green watermelon tourmaline.