Desert Sands Articles - Peter Lebeck Chapter #1866

Desert Sands Articles
By George Pipkin
George Pipkin lived and worked in Trona for some decades beginning in 1928. He
wrote books and articles on desert personalities and events, including a series of
articles published in regional newspapers during the 1960s called "Desert Sands". *
The text in these pages was scanned and reproduced in earnest. All typos, grammatical
errors, page breaks, and paragraph formatting have been retained from the original
manuscript. Any new mistakes, or corrections of old mistakes, are purely accidental.
The content of this document remains the property of the heirs and estate of George
Pipkin, wherever they may be.
Pages scanned and formatted by P X L "No Change"
*bio lifted from http://www.csupomona.edu/~larryblakely/whoname/who_aust.htm
DESERT C H R I S T M A S
CHRISTMAS COMES TO BALLARAT
Back in its hey-days, the town boasted a population of five hundred, that
is, not counting the Indians. Today the population has dwindled down to one
man. That man is "Seldom Seen Slim".
Christmas has always been a big day in Slims life, for on that day he
takes his annual bath. Slims habits are peculiar; he goes to bed at dark and
gets up at three A.M., long before daybreak. This Christmas morning, Slim had
heated a big tub of water and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.
When the sun broke over the Panamints it found Slim seated on the warm
side of the cabin, the side out of the wind. He was contemplating his christmas
dinner.
Unless some kindly tourist came along and gave him, maybe a cold baked
chicken or perhaps a couple of turkey drum-sticks, then he would have to fall
back on his own ingenuity.
On past christmases he had eaten chuckwalla, or a roast from a young
burro. He had even eaten coyote, when times were tough and game was scarce, but
Slim don't like coyote meat, says it’s too strong.
Slim won't be worrying today though for if some tourist don't furnish his
dinner, he is going to have something special, he will have badger meat.
When I went down to invite Slim to have Christmas dinner at Wildrose with
the rest of the old-timers, he said- "naw, I can't come. I might miss a sale".
Slim sells rocks to the tourists.
When I mentioned the badger hide on the wall, he said- "yea, if I can't
do any better, I got my christmas dinner". "How did you get him, Slim"? I
asked. That led to quite a story.
It seems that Slim had made a pet of the badger, several days ago the
badger appeared in his cabin and he had given it a few scraps of food. Every
day it would return and he would feed it.
I asked him why he had killed the badger. He said that he was afraid that
it would go away. Art Danields was with me and he said that a badger was one of
the hardest animals to kill.
Slim said, "not this one, as I shot it right between the eyes and it died
without a quiver". Anyway, Slim has his Christmas dinner.
************************
1
MEET THE SPANGLER BROTHERS
Seventeen miles south of Trona, on the Trona railroad, there's a whistle
Stop named Spangler.... nothing much there but a siding and a lonely water tank
surrounded by sagebrush and sand. To the east lies the sidewinder mountains;
and a couple of miles to the west, the mountains that are honeycombed by the
diggings of many a miner, are known as the Spangler Mining District. It is
there at the Spangler Mine that the sun is setting on the mining career of the
Spangler Brothers — Daniel Rea Spangler, born September 28, 1864; and Stonewall
Jackson (Tony) Spangler born September 28, 1866.
The brothers originally farmed on what was then known as the great Delano
Plain over in the San Joaquin Valley. In the year 1896, crops were poor, so
they decided to give up farming and try their hand at prospecting; they outfitted a four-mule team wagon, which included a 160-gallon water tank. On the
first day of August, they headed out for the Panamint Mountains where a mining
boom was then in progress, in the Ballarat District.
The route they traveled was over the Greenhorn Mountains down through
Kernville and then on through Walker Pass. Six days after leaving Delano,they
were camped at the present site of Spangler. It was there they found their
first gold, and where they ran out of water, but, as though by an act of God, a
cloudburst came and they managed to fill their tank with muddy water. As their
original destination was Ballarat and the Panamints, they started on, traveling
around Searles Lake on the east side and came to what was known as the Tanks,
situated near where Kings Ranch is now located.
John Searles owned the "Tanks" and water flowed from springs up in the
Argus Mountains. The water was used principally for his cattle and his borax
mining on Searles Lake.
It was there that Rea and Tony Spangler first met John Searles and his
son. Searles had them dump their muddy water and fill their tank with his
mountain spring water. They traveled on to Ballarat and the Panamints where
they prospected for a few days, but not finding any ore as good as they had
discovered at Spangler. They returned to their claims and the district which
bears their name; and there they mined off and on for over forty-five years.
Tony and Rea's father, Daniel Spangler, came to California from
Pennsylvania by way of the Isthmus of Panama in 1850. He first settled in the
Feather River Country and worked as a gold miner. After the boom was over, he
moved to Tulare County and married and settled down. It was there where Tony
and Rea were born, five miles north of the town of Hanford. The two sons say
that their father made a trip back to the east coast once, sailing around the
Horn. He fought In the Mexican War and in later years built the railroad from
Goshen Junction to Visalia. He died in 1886.
Both brothers have had many a thrilling adventure and a brush with death
is nothing unusual for them. At one time, Rea drove an eighteen-mule team
hauling freight from Johannesburg to Ballarat; a wagon and two trailer wagons
were used and twenty tons of freight could be hauled.
The old Searles borax plant was being dismantled at this time and Rea, on
his return trip from Ballarat would haul a load of machinery to Johannesburg.
Rea says the machinery was shipped from there to a borax works in Death Valley,
One time when Rea was going down the north side of the Slate Range
crossing alone and with a heavy load of freight, the rear wagon broke loose and
was partly over the grade and off the road. Unhitching his team he drove them
back and hooked on the trailer wagon; rolling it back up the road he maneuvered
it as
2
close to the second wagon as he could with the team, and by scotching the
wheels, he tried to couple the wagons together by hand. Due to the steepness of
the grade the wagon ran over the scotch and collided with the back of the other
wagon,catching Rea's head between the protruding floor boards of each wagon.
But the fact that one of the boards had been broken off a little saved his
life. His head was caught in this small opening and, being alone, he had no way
to release himself.
His head was being squeezed and the blood was flowing freely where the
rough boards had cut his face. Self preservation was mighty strong in those
days so Rea took out his pocket knife and whittled the board from around his
head until he could release himself and then calmly proceeded to couple the two
wagons together and continued on to Ballarat with his load of freight.
After Rea and Tony Spangler discovered the Spangler Mine, they staked out
the claims; built their monuments and then made the long trek back to their
farm on the Delano plains in the San Joaquin Valley. They tore down the
farmhouse, loaded the lumber along with an 800-gallon water tank on their
wagon, added another pair of mules to the four-mule team that they had used on
the long prospecting trip into the Panamint Mountains, and started their return
trip to Spangler. On returning to Spangler, they first built a cabin and then
started mining. The ore was hauled by ten mule teams to Mojave - the nearest
railroad point - and then shipped to San Francisco; it required a week to make
a round trip, as the roads were rough and sandy. They estimated that they had
shipped a thousand tons of ore via Mojave before the coming of the Santa Fe
Railroad to Johannesburg.
The average run of their ore netted them forty dollars per ton and they
have certainly mined many thousands of tons in the past forty-five years, one
has to see their mine to realize the enormous amount of work that has been
done. They have dug shafts and tunnels, all by hand, to the extent of
approximately four thousand feet. Some of this work was done by leasers, but
the two brothers have done most of the work swinging a "single jack". In recent
years they formed the Gold Point Mine and Milling Company but the company is
now extinct.
Only the two brothers are left at the mine and they were still digging
until Tony was injured by a piece of falling quartz, which put him in the
hospital. While Tony was in the hospital, Rea was a very lonesome old man, He
worried about Tony, they had been inseparable these many years.
The night I went up to interview them, Tony had just been brought home
from the hospital and Rea was bubbling over with joy at having Tony back. He
was like a child with a new toy. You know, when a man at the age of seventy-six
is injured, the old body doesn't heal as quickly as that of a younger man. We
could tell by Rea's action that he had been afraid that Tony wouldn't return
home.
Neither brother ever married. When asked, they laughed and said, "why
shucks, we never had time to marry, and if we had wanted to, there wasn't many
of the opposite sex on the Mojave Desert in our younger days".
We were in for another surprise when they told us that they had never
smoked or drank ... and that's something unusual for a hard rock miner. No
wonder they were able to work for nearly half a century at one of the toughest
jobs, mining.
3
As we sat and talked in their cabin by the light of a kerosene lamp, Tony
confessed that their mining days were now over and that they would never again
go in a hole to swing a "single jack" or wind a windlass.
One just had to know the two Spangler brothers to appreciate what fine
old fellow they really were ... the salt of the earth, literally speaking, a
credit to their life long career, mining.
If all men were as honest and straightforward in their personal lives and
in their dealings with their fellowmen as are Daniel Rea and Stonewall Jackson
(Tony) Spangler, then the need for law and justice on the great Mojave Desert
would be about as useful as the little sidewinder rattlesnake that slithers across the hot sands with its peculiar side winding motion.
When in the presence of these brothers, one seems to recapture a tang of
the Old-west; not the gun-toting, rip-roaring, hell-bent kind that's so vividly
interpreted in the pulp magazines of today; but something finer, something
deeper, that makes you realize that here are two men who personify the type of
solid, hard-working, law-abiding citizens that really built the west to what it
is today.
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GARDEN CITY
One mile south of the Trona railroad present Garden City, at the forks of
the old Ballarat Stage road, lies a pile of rusty cans and a concrete building
foundation which represents the only visible sign that this spot was once the
site of the original Garden City, where John Searles had a stage station. This
stage station was a veritable oasis in the desert brought about by water, which
Searles had piped from nearby springs. A four acre vineyard, vegetable garden,
a barn large enough to house one hundred mules, a store, an eating house and
seven or eight cabins, comprised the extent of the Garden City stage station.
In the year 1896, the firm of C.J. and E.E.Teagle - who were merchants in
Johannesburg, leased the station and in 1900 they bought it outright. For a
span of six years there was a post office there. In 1908 they, leased the
station sat so they would be able to devote the entire time to their business
in Johannesburg, where they owned a general merchandise store; three large
warehouses and a feed yard. Charles J. Teagle has since passed away, but Ed S.
Teagle owns and resides at the Stockwell Mine, three miles north of Valley
Wells. Mr. Ed Teagle is a frequent visitor in Trona.
When the Trona Railroad was built in 1915, the Teagles sold their water
rights to the railroad and the old stage station passed into oblivion.
************************
WIBBET CANYON
On January 27th, 1948, 1 received a letter from the late Dr. Homer R.
Evans. The letter told of a murder that happened in Wibbet Canyon, back in the
days of John Searle. There are few people living today who will remember Wibbet
Canyon, as the name has been changed.
In 1914 the canyon now known as Homewood Canyon was called Wibbet Canyon,
old man Wibbet was a very old man at that time, probably in his nineties and
lived alone in a little rock cabin which stood at the very mouth of the canyon,
on the left as one drove off the floor of the desert into the canyon. Mr.
Wibbet was a civil war veteran and received a substantial pension. He was fast
losing his eyesight, eventually became totally blind. He died in Sawtelle
Veterans Hospital about 1918 or 1920. You may have noticed a grave across the
road from the little stone house; this grave is enclosed within a low enclosure
of pipe with stones built up to form a low wall around the grave mound.
4
I have it on good authority that old man Wibbet dug this grave himself
and he buried his own brother there. It was many years ago when the famous
"Morning Star" Mine was in operation in Mountain Springs Canyon and Wibbet was
employed there. The Morning Star was located on the western slope of the
mountain, branching off the old stage road to Inyo County at a point about
where the little settlement of Brown now stands. A trail ran from the mine
across the summit of the Argus Mountains to connect with a trail into Homewood
or Wibbet Canyon. It's a long but interesting story, and it goes something as
follows: Old man Wibbet, employed at the Morning Star mine, had not been home
for over a month. He had left his brother alone there in the stone cabin and
upon his return by horseback, he saw buzzards flying around and some arising
from the ground near the cabin, on riding closer, he saw the badly de-composed
remains of his brother half reclining against a bunch of greasewood. It appears
this brother was crushing ore in an arrastre just south of the cabin or near
the gulch and had died while resting in. the shade of the greasewood bush. Two
burros hitched to the pole of the arrastre had died of thirst or starvation and
lay dead and were being eaten by the vultures. Borax (Trona) was the nearest
habitation to the Wibbet home and many hours away by horseback, so the story
goes.
Wibbet dragged his brother’s body over beyond the cabin and buried it,
wrapped only in a piece of canvas. The old man would sit in a chair, close to
his brother's grave for hours at a time. As to cause of death, old Wibbet
always claimed certain enemies of his brother and himself, had visited the
cabin, and had killed his brother. Wibbet always thought, by shooting. Anyway,
no autopsy was ever held and no doubt the death is unrecorded at Independence.
To bear out Wibbets contention that murder had been done, he claimed that not
only had the arrastre runs been well cleaned of gold dust, but a large poke of
dust together with other valuables had been removed from his ransacked cabin.
Still claiming that he had enemies who sought his life and property, he came
into Borax after his brothers death one day and got medicine from Searles, or
some of Searles employees, for treatment of badly inflamed eyes. He related the
following story:
He had been away from home for several days and arrived home late in the
night. As he approached his cabin he discovered a horse tethered to a bush near
the house and a candle light was burning in the cabin. This brought no
surprise, as it was a common thing to find a friendly visitor occupying ones
house in those days. But as he dismounted and approached the cabin door, the
candle was doused suddenly. Old Wibbet drew his six-gun and jerked the door
open, yelling, "Who is in there!". The only answer he received was a handful of
red pepper flung at close range into his face, a scurry of feet, followed by
the clank of a shod horse on the rocks of the road as the rider rapidly rode
away.
Wibbet was completely blinded by the irritating pepper and could not
pursue his assailant. He spent the balance of the night bathing his injured
eyes and applying olive oil. When he became able to see the next morning, he
discovered a large amount of gold dust had been stolen from its hiding place,
as well as money, gold and silver coin, also a half pound can of red pepper was
empty, the contents lying on the cabin floor. There was no law representative
convenient and the matter was dropped.
Wibbet (Homewood) Canyon is steeped in history and tragedy. The famous
Ruth Gold Mine at the head of the canyon was originally owned by a real oldtimer, Doug Graham. In the winter of 1932 he was snowed out of the mine, he was
living temporarily in the old Wibbet cabin at the mouth of the canyon, when he
was kidnapped, robbed and then murdered.
5
PANAMINT
CITY
In April, 1873, R.C.Jacobs, R.B.Stewart and V.L.Kennedy discovered rich
silver ore at Panamint City, and were quickly followed by highvaymen and hijackers.
The fabulous riches of the mines, coupled with its isolation and
inaccessibility attracted a motley crew of desperadoes, most of whom had prices
on their heads,they came from San Francisco, Los Angeles, and from Nevada. From
Frisco they traveled south by rail to Delano, from there they staged to
Bakersfield and on into Owens Valley. The rest of the journey, some seventy
five miles, was made afoot, or by mule back. From Los Angeles, they crossed the
Mojave desert and over the slate range which was worse. From Nevada there were
no trails and there was dreaded Death Valley to be crossed, but they came
anyway, traveling mostly by burros, making their way by installments of twenty
to fifty miles between water holes.
A few of the desperadoes acquired rich claims which they worked, and as
their own bullion was carted down surprise canyon, they would ambush the Wells
Fargo Stages add carry off the bullion to be sold again.
The "heat" was put on a few of these desperadoes; they were forced to
sell their mines. The deal usually had to be made through a middleman, in one
instance a sale was made and when the payoff came in San Francisco, The Wells
Fargo Company stepped in and demanded $12,000 to cover losses due to former
depredations on its treasure boxes in Surprise Canyon by the parties that were
selling the mines. In this case the party concerned was given his choice of
making the payment or submitting to arrest. He paid and cooly asked for a
receipt in full.
Weils Fargo discontinued its line into Panamint City, by then former
U.S.Senator Bill Stewart of Nevada and Senator John J.Jones, also of Nevada,
had acquired most of the mines.
They were stumped for a time as how to get their silver bullion out
safely, eventually they solved the problem of getting the silver to the mint by
casting it into balls of quarter-ton each. The bullion moved out safely in a
freight wagon without a guard.
The major hi-jacking of the Panamint City era has dwindled down through
the years to the present day. Now in comparison, it is just petty stuff, a few
tons of good ore will be stollen while the owner is away and mine and mill
machinery will be carted away from an unwatched mine. Hi-jacking was not
confined to rich ore and valuable mining equipment. During the prohibition, Ash
Meadow, located east of Death Valley in southern Nevada, was a haven for
moonshiners. Whisky was run by the barrel from Ash Meadow across Death Valley
and through the Panamints into Searles Basin. After different intervals hijackers would lay in wait in the Panamints and at gun point relieve the driver
of his load of whisky.
They say, and it must have been true that Ash Meadow whisky was the best
in the country. Operating out of Homewood Canyon was the most prominent
bootlegger in Searles Basin. He handled Ash Meadow whisky exclusively. He was
big and tough and did his own whisky running from Ash Meadow, He had several
brushes with the hi-jackers, fortunately he always managed to fight them off or
to elude them as he knew the Panamint country well.
Panamint City, eleven miles northeast of Ballarat is situated at the head
of Surprise Canyon, high in the Panamint Mountains. Today it is truely a ghost
town and a very interesting place to visit, that is, if your car can make it up
the 3556 grade that constitutes the last five miles of travel, 34 which you
climb 4,000 feet.
The big stampede was on at Panamint City from 1873 to 1880, during which
time three and one half million $3,500,0000 dollars in silver was taken out of
the mines. During that time the town had a population of five thousand…… and a
newspaper.
6
A L I A S P E T E MI L L E R
Shotgun Mary once said that it takes all kind of people to make a world,
the good, the bad and the indifferent. She was so right,
Death Valley and its country, especially the Panamint Mountains, had its
share of the bad ones. They came early, following the silver stampede into
Panamint City in 1873. Fifty years later they were still coming when Peter
Schultz, alias Pete Mueller, alias Pete Miller arrived. By the early day
standards he wasn't too bad. He was a border-line case, on the shady side of
the border.
He was a breezy, brassy nuisance. At times he could make you so angry
that you would want to kill him, and the next moment he would try to wheedle
money from you to but a drink. His approach was; "you lend me a half a dollar,
I will pay you back Saturday". Saturday was one day that never came in Pete's
life. If he couldn't mooch a half-dollar, he would settle for a dime. A dime
in those days uould buy a ten ounce glass of beer. Pete normally spoke with a
heavy Boche accent, yet at times when the occassion arose he would speak clear,
precise english.
Physically, he was squat in statue, a powerful man when he was in his
prime, He was of the dutch type, blond with blue eyes. When he cleaned himself
up he wasn't too bad looking a person, but he seldom cleaned up, when he did,
it was because he was working an "angle", trying to promote a few dollars or
make a small deal on his so called mine. Among Pete's many failings, such as
not keeping his word, not telling the truth, "lifting" a few things here and
there, being foul mouthed, and at times, filthy, he was also an alcoholic when
he had money. Disorderly conduct while under the influence of alcohol made him
familiar with the inside of all the jails within a radius of a hundred miles
and quite a few in the Los Angeles area. He knew all the police captains,
lieutenants and sergeants, he called them by name and classed them as his
friends. Whenever he returned from a spree in the southland, he would tell
about how he was received is their homes and how well they treated him.
While Pete was living I never wrote about him. It is against my policy to
give publicity to those who might use it in the wrong way. If I had written
about him it would have been uncomplimentary and he might have wanted to cause
trouble. I wasn't afraid of him physically; I was afraid of what he could do on
a dark night.
One night while he was at Wildrose Station, he became obnoxious to the
guests and we ordered him to leave, as he went down the canyon, the blankets
from the beds in our lower cabins went with him.
Cy Babcock, who founded Wildrose Station, and from whom we purchased the
place, had the same trouble with Pete. He had ordered him away from the place,
and later, when they met in the Trona pool hall, Pete jumped him. During the
ensuing fight,a large glass showcase was broken. Babcock had to pay for the
showcase, as usual, Pete was broke.
There was no water at Pete's place; he had to pack water from Wildrose
Station, a distance of eight miles roundtrip, half the distance uphill. After
their altercation in Trona, Babcock forbade Pete from getting water at
Wildrose. He backed it up with a Colt 45! Pete was forced to walk another mile
up the canyon to the original Wildrose Spring, which was not on Babcock's
property. Whenever Pete passed the station with three or four one-gallon
canteens hanging from his shoulders, he was careful to walk on the far side of
the road away from the station.
Pete was born in Wisconsin of Austrian emigrant parents, this we know for
sure, for the rest of his history, prior to his arrival in the Panamints, we
have only his word — and that can be divided by two. Apparently he had very
little education. He claimed that he could not read or write, but we noticed
that he had no trouble endorsing a check and he always knew the meaning of the
small print in a mining contract.
7
He said that he had followed the mining trail west, mining in Colorado and
Montana before coming to California. He was in on the tail end of the mining
boom in the Rand District. When he showed up in the Panamints in the twenties
he squatted on an ancient hole in the side of the mountain just above the floor
of the Panamint Valley near the mouth of Tuber Canyon. Pete called it his
Death Valley mine, and named it the "Sylvia". It is located in the heat-zone
and is one of the hottest spots in Panamint Valley. As I have said before,
there is no water.
The mine had once shown traces of lead. The big joker was one had to
mine forty tons of rock to recover a small kidney of lead about the size of
two fists. During Pete's stay in Randsburg Pete had acquired a few small gold
specimen from the Yellow Aster mine and a couple of Ruby-silver specimen from
the Kelly Mine in Red Mountain. They were good specimen, pure gold and
silver. Pete had carried them in his pocket for so many years they were as
smooth as marbles and almost as round. No matter how broke he was or down and
out — even with his craving for alcohol, he always hung on to the specimens.
They were his sucker bait, and this is how he used them. He would clean up,
put on a castoff suit that some one had given him, and go down to Hollywood or
Beverly Hills and play the swank cocktail lounges. He would lay his specimen on
the bar and accounce to the patrons that the gold and silver had come from his
mine in Death Valley, gold is magic, and so are the words "Death Valley".
Pretty soon Pete would have an interested audience, and then he would go into
his spiel. He would tell them that he was a graduate mining engineer of the
University of Heidelberg in Germany, and they could see for themselves that he
was the owner of a very rich mine. He would regale them with some of the
tallest tales ever heard, (in the meanwhile the awed audience kept him well
supplied with drinks). After he had his audience spellbound, he would make the
pitch by telling them that he was in town trying to promote money with which
to develope his mine, that at the moment he was temporarily embarrassed, and
that he could use a few dollars to tide him over until he could raise the
money. The gullible people would vie with each other to give him money. Some
of the people would want to come to see the mine and perhaps invest some real
money. They would offer to take Pete home if he would show them the mine.
At this point Pete would begin his fade out. With his stomach full of
liquor and his pockets full of money, regretfully, he would tell them that due
to pressing business engagements, he would have to remain in town for a few
more days, but if they wanted to make the trip he would be happy to meet them at
the mine at 9 O'clock in the morning on a given date. After giving them
directions on how to reach the mine, he would bid them goodnight and stagger out
of the bar. It's amazing how many people fell for Petes petty racket. While
they were up on the desert looking for Pete, he was probably doing a stretch in
jail for drunkenness.
This is how I got the story. People would drive into Wildrose Station
late in the afternoon and ask if we knew Pete Miller? Yes, we knew Pete Miller.
Have you seen him lately? No, we think he is out of the country at present.
"Well, that dirty so-and-so promised to meet us at his mine this morning at 9
O'clock, and we waited all day for him. It wasn't bad for the people in the
winter, but in the summer it was dangerous. It's no picnic for a city dweller
to spend a day in the terrific heat of Panamint Valley. When they would reach
the shade and water at the station, some of them would be sick and all of them
bushed.
It became a game of mine to have a little fun with people who drove into
the station late in the afternoon and inquire about Pete. I would grab the ball
and make a short run, by asking - "where did you meet Pete, in a cocktail
lounge?" Yeah, "Did you buy him some drinks? Yeah, Did you see his gold and
silver? Yeah, "did you give him a few dollars?" Yeah, "did he promise to meet
you at the mine this morning?" "Yeah", "Will it help to salve your disappoint
to know that you are not the first to fall for chiseling Pete's petty racket?"
8
Once Pete hooked four bonified mining engineers iron Arizona. They got
about half sore at me when I told then that it was a mystery to me why
intelligent people were so damned gullible.
In. the 25 years we knew Pete, about the closest he ever came to a job
was during world war II, when industry was scraping the bottom of the labor
barrel. Pete went down to Westend Chemical Company on Searles Lake and looked
for Henry Hellmers, the general manager. Pete always called Mr. Hellners,
"Heine". This was what Pete said- "Heine", you lend me $20, I build ore chute
in my mine". To which Mr. Hellmers replied, "you dutch so-and-so, I will give
you a job and you can earn the money to build a chute in your mine". The chute
was never built.
Years ago a former Trona executive tried to befriend Pete by giving him
his old suits and advancing a considerable amount of money to use in mining.
The executive was to receive a percentage from the sale of the ore that was
shipped. Pete squandered the money and did no mining, eventually the executive
tried to recover part of his losses by attaching a portable air compressor at
the mine. When the men with the court order came to take the compressor, a
wheel was missing. Pete had removed and hidden the wheel. This was just one of
the many little acts of appreciation that was used by Pete to harass his
benefactors.
During World War II a smooth promoter —well, not too smooth, as he is now
a 15 year guest at San Quentin — took a job in Trona in order to evade the
draft. During his short sojourn in Trona he met Pete in the "Snake Pit", (local
bar) Pete sold him on the "Sylvia" with the gold and silver specimen, even
though the Sylvia was suppose to be a lead mine. The promoter promoted $10,000
out of two of his shift-mates and got a lease from Pete on the Sylvia. Pete got
a small down payment and payments of $140 a month for a short time. The
promoter had to show some signs of mining, but first he had to provide housing
at the mine for his employees. He bought a couple of small, used quonset huts
and hired a crew of three men to erect them. The only building on the property
at the time was Pete's shack which had a dirt floor. The men boarded with Pete
while they were putting up the building.
One night one of the crew members showed up at Wildrose Station seeking
room and board, he said that he just couldn't stomach Pete's cooking, that the
night before, there was only a steak a piece for them and Pete dropped his
steak on the dirt floor. The crewman continued - "he didn't think I saw him,
but I did. Turning his back to me he picked the steak up, wiped it off with a
dish towel, and nonchalantly served it to me. I didn't like it but I hadn't
much choice it was either eat or go hungry, I ate it, grit and all That was bad
enough, but tonight when he blew his nose on the dish-rag, I moved out"!
Perhaps this story would have best been left untold. Unfortunately, the
story is true, in recording for posterity the history of the early day men of
the northern Mojave Desert area, it is only fair to take the bad with the good.
************************
THE BURRO LIKED FLAPJACKS
Years ago, when John Thorndike was operating the
Honolulu lead mine at the head of South Park
Canyon in the Panamint Mountains south of
Ballarat, he had camp cook who was fond of burros.
One morning, after breakfast, John caught the cook
feeding a burro flapjacks out the kitchen window.
9
John did not mind the cook feeding the burro a few left over flapjacks,
but when he saw what the cook was doing, he blew a gasket. The cook had the top
of the big stove covered with flapjacks about the size of a silver dollar. "You
blankety so-and-so". John exclaimed, "why don't you cook a big flapjack for the
burro and get it over with?" To which the cook replied; "the burro don't like
big flapjacks.
************************
DEATH VALLEY ATTRACTS INSANE
Crazy as it may seem, Death Valley attracts the insane. There are many
cases on file at the Park Service Office, some sad, some tragic and some are
amusing. Take the case of the itinerant preacherwho, in the late thirties,
started from Oakland, California - in the summer time - with the intention of
climbing Telescope Peak and then continuing straight down the eastern slope of
the Panamints to Bad Water.
Wearing a heavy, long tailed black coat, and without water, food or bedding, he was picked up in Panamint Valley by a C.C.C. truck, whose driver asked
him where he thought he was going. "I'm going to climb Telescope Peak and go
straight down to Bad Water", he said. The driver was so startled, that he exclaimed - "the hell you are!" Why you must be crazy to be afoot In this country
without water and food. Don't you know that it is dangerous? "Tut tut tut, my
boy" the preacher replied, I'm a minister of the gospel and please refrain from
using profanity in my presence, I know what I am doing. The Lord will take care
of me.
When camp was reached, the driver turned the preacher over to the
commanding officer without comment. The officer asked him where he was headed.
The preacher told him that he was going to climb Telescope Peak end go straight
down to Bad Water. The officer said- "the hell you are!" Again the preacher
said, "Don't use profane language in my presence. I know what I am about, the
Lord will take care of me". The officer thinking the man was mentally
unbalanced took him up to the service office and turned him over to the
superintendent. The superintendent while questioning him, asked him where he
thought he was going? "I'm going to climb Telescope Peak and go straight down
to Bad Water", Surprised, the superintendent said, "the hell you say". It was
then the preacher blew his top. After they quited him down, he got in the last
words by saying - "I know what I am doing, the Lord will take care of me".
In this case, the Lord did take care of him. However, he did not climb
Telescope Peak, but late that afternoon they drove him down to see Bad Water.
Returning to Furnace Creek Ranch, he immediately caught a ride into Barstow, no
sooner had he reached Barstow than he hitched a ride on a truck that was going
straight through Oakland. According to a letter received from him, he was back
in Oakland the following night. Yes, the Lord took care of him.
There was another case. A man was picked up in the heat on the road in a
dazed condition. He was taken to camp end when he was able to talk coherently
he said that he was on his way to the castle, that the Lord had given him a
message to deliver to Death Valley Scotty.
That evening while dinner was being prepared, one of the C.C.C. cooks
stood in the kitchen door-way sharpening a large knife on a hand steel, the man
took off hurriedly down the canyon. When found a few hours later hiding in the
brush, by one of the rangers, who asked, why he had run away, the fellow said"that man was sharpening a big knife to carve me up for dinner". This poor
fellow did not get to deliver the Lords message to Scotty, for he wound up in
the county Jail at Independence.
10
A tragic case was that of a crack-pot who came into this region in
August, by way of Trona, where he stopped in the food market and purchased
three cans of tomato juice. Engaging the clerk in conversation, he inquired
directions to Telescope Peak saying that he intended to climb the peak. The
clerk, after giving the desired information, never gave the matter anymore
thought, as he presumed the man was driving an automobile.
That afternoon after work, the clerk was driving out to Valley Wells for
a swim when he overtook the fellow walking and carrying the three cans of
tomato juice in his arms. Picking him up, the clerk asked if he intended to
hitch-hike to the Panamint Mountains? "Oh, no! the fellow replied. "I'm going
to walk and will leave the highway and take a short-cut over the slate range."
The clerk told him that the distance to Telescope was about forty miles. He
would need a canteen and some food. Without these he should stay on the
highway, with the chance that some motorist would pick him up. The fellow told
him that he knew what he was doing, that he did not need to carry water, for he
knew certain desert plants from which he could extract water.
A week later, a prospector, chugging along in his old car, heading for
Ballarat from the south end of the Panamint Valley, saw something move about
thirty yards from the road-side. Stopping to investigate, he found the man
that knew how to extract water from desert plants. The poor fellow was down and
in a serious condition, his tongue was black and swollen and he barely had
strenght enough left to raise an arm when he heard the car. The prospector
brought him to the Trona Hospital. Three days later he died.
Then there was the case of Jacobs and Hargraves. Before the Park Service
built the new road through Wildrose Canyon, there were two cabins situated near
the original Wildrose spring. The cabin stood on opposite sides of the road. In
one cabin lived Jacobs and in the other lived Hargraves. They seemed to be
friendly enough toward each other until one day Jack Duddy came along driving
up the canyon. Rounding a bend near the cabins, there stood Jacobs in the
middle of the road, nude and with a rifle in the crook of his arm. Duddy was
forced to stop, Jacobs walked around to the car window and said, "you better
get out of here in a hurry, there's going to be shooting!" Duddy took one look
into the maniacal eyes of Jacobs, and at the menacing rifle that he was waving
around, and drove away in a hurry. Moments later the sound of gun fire rolled,
vibrated and echoed up the canyon. Buddy wasted no time in reporting Jacobs to
the chief park ranger.
The chief ranger rounded up a few recruits and drove down the canyon to
investigate. He found that Jacobs had barricaded himself in his cabin and was
firing into Hargraves cabin across the road. When they appeared upon the scene,
Jacobs directed his fire toward them. Beating a hasty retreat, they drove back
to camp for reinforcements. On the way back they met Hargraves hiking up the
road. Hargraves said "that crazy Jacobs has been shooting into my cabin all
day. At first I did not mind it, but when a bullet from his gun broke my
eyeglasses which were laying on a window sill, I got mad and decided to report
the crazy fool. The ranger knew then that Hargraves too, was crazy. No sane
person would stand by and let someone shoot at him.
By the time the seige was in its second day, there were three park
rangers, three deputy sherrifs, six army officers and forty or fifty C.C.C.
boys---All hideing behind rocks around the bend and out of sight and range of
Jacobs rifle. At any movement Jacob saw he took a pot-shot. One deputy went
into Trona and brought out tear gas shells. This proved useless, as no one was
brave enough or foolish enough to get close enough to the cabin to fire the gas
through the window.
11
After several conferences, it was decided to starve Jacobs out. Along
about that time, Hank Jones, the camp blacksmith, came chugging up the canyon
in his old jallopy, being duly flagged, he wanted to know what all the
commotion was about. When he was told that Jacobs was crazy, that he was
barracaded in his cabin and was shooting at everything within sight, Hank
grunted and said, "I'll get him for you". "How Hank" he was asked. "Why I'll
just go in the cabin and drag him out". "Oh, no Hank, don't do that". They
cried in unison, "you might get shot and it isn't worth it". Old Hank just
snorted, walked up to the cabin, kicked the door open and walked in. Jacobs
rifle was out of reach, but he grabbed a big bastard file and made for Hank.
Hank pleaded, "why, Jacobs, you wouldn't hit an old friend would you?" I've
known you for twenty-five years. Jacobs hesitated, and Hank knocked him down
and spread-eagled him on the floor. It was then that the posse poured into the
cabin a and took over.
Hank came out, cranked up his old jollopy, drove nonchalantly up the
canyon. Hargraves had disappeared, but was later picked up in Owens Valley —
where he was posing as a game warden.
************************
NORVIL HILLS "PETE" AIGNER
With the passing of Norvil Hills "Pete" Aigner, another colorful old
timer has bit the dust. I remember Pete Aigner from Owens Valley days back in
the twenties. Pete came to Lone Pine in 19o2, and he was a driver on the first
automobile stage line from Mojave to Bishop. Later he established the Mt.
Whitney Garage in Lone Pine, which was this towns first and finest garage. For
many years the garage was a landmark and a showplace. The shop portion with
its high ceiling afforded ample wall space, for the beautiful scenes of the
high sierras which Pete had an artist paint.
Pete's garage had the largest stock of auto parts in Owens Valley. If
Pete didn't have a certain part it was because it wasn't made. He had such an
enormous stock that it was piled to the ceiling, and the only person who could
lay his hand on the part you might require was Pete. I remember an old timer
once telling me that Pete stocked everything required for every automobile made
in those days, even to screw-holes! I asked him what was a screw-hole? He said
it was a thing that would allow a screw to tighten in a hole that had become
too large for the screw. I hope you follow me. Due to the rough corduroy roads
a lot of screw-holes must have been sold in those days.
I can see Pete now, hustling around his garage helping people with their
motor ills. Believe me, we had a lot of them in those days. Pete always wore a
dress cap, riding breeches with leather leggins, and he always had a cigar
clamped in his mouth; half the time the cigar was "dead", for Pete was too busy
to stop for a light.
12
OLD
HOOTCH'S
SKULL
Among the writers collection of desert relics, The prize has to be the
skull of Joe "Hootch" Simpson. The only man, who, to our knowledge, was ever
lynched twice in California. After my talk which was garnished with old
Hootch's skull for some moral support before the NOTS Rockhounds at China Lake,
I was called a grave robber by a Searles Valleyite. .
To set this person straight and any-other who might have such absurd
thiughts, I hereby set forth the TRUE FACTS as to how I came about the skull.
It's a long and interesting story which began back in 1905. Indirectly, the
late Pete Aguereberry and Shorty Harris were responsible for me having the
skull. If Pete and Shorty had not discovered gold in the Panamint Mountains,
Harry Thompson and One Eye Ramsey would not have started their journey from
Bullfrog, Nevada to Harrisburg Flats, which was the site of Pete and Shorty's
discovery. When within seven miles of their destination, had they not lost
their way atop a cloud shrouded mountain, they would not have accidently made
the gold strike which brought forth the mining camp of Skido, which in turn,
brought forth Joe Simson, a saloon keeper.
On the night of July 2, 1905, Pete Aguereberry and Shorty Harris left the
Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek Ranch) in Death Valley by burro-train. They
were headed for Ballarat. Shorty, being more of a playboy than a prospector,
was going to celebrate the fourth of July in the towns seven saloons. Pete was
going to pick up some grubstake money that he had, had forwarded from Goldfield
to the Ballarat postoffice.
Following the old Indian trail up blackwater canyon, the two men broke
over the summit a few hundred yards south of the present day "Aguereberry
Point", which affords the finest view of Death Valley from its western
boundary. A few miles below the summit in what today is known as Harrisburg
Flats, Pete discovered gold. The code of the day was, that partners on the
trail shared equally in the strike. Harrisburg was not a large strike for in
its hey-day it only attracted 300 men. A year later when Ramsey and Thompson
made the strike at Skidoo they lost all interest in Harrisburg. Their strike
turned out to be much larger than Harrisburg, for at the peak of its boom, the
camp had a population of 700, There was a lumber yard a and feed store owned by
Ed and Charley Teagle; a branch of the Southern California Bank; a postoffice;
a telephone line to the outside through Rhyolite, Nevada; and a newspaper, The
Skidoo News, whose greatest story broke early in April 1908 with a murder and a
lynching. Joe "Hootch" Simpson (Hootch being his favorite beverage) committed
13
the murder and then had the honor, if one is a-mind to call it an honor, of
being lynched twice.
Hootch and his partner Fred Oaks ran a saloon across the street from the
Skidoo Trading Co., a general store which also housed the bank, Jimmy Arnold, a
good man, was the manager of the store. Hootch was suffering from an uncurable
disease which was slowly distroying the bone structure of his nose. In order
to endure the constant pain suffered, he either stayed under the influence of
narcotics administered by Dr. Mac Donald, the camp doctor, or else he stayed
drunk.
Pete Aguereberry, who witnessed the lynching of Hootch, told the writer
that in his opinion the solid citizens of Skidoo were to blame for Arnolds
murder. He said that they should have known that sooner or later Hootch's mind
would snap, but he guessed that they did not know that it would snap with
murder, and that Hootch should have been put away long before it happened. In
the raw early-day mining camps people were prone to mind their own business. If
a man did not commit a murder or steal a horse, they left him alone. The day
that Hootch's mind broke under the strain, created a wild and exciting time
even for a rip roaring mining camp like Skidoo.
Near high noon on a bright Sunday morning Hootch entered the Skidoo
Trading Co., walking up to the bank window he covered Ralph Dobbs, the cashier
with a revolver and demanded $20.00. No man in his right mind is going to take
the risk involved in robbing a bank for a measly Q20, but as we have said
before, Hootch's mind was gone. In a flash, pandemonium broke loose. After
quite a struggle Hootch was overpowered and disarmed by Dr. Mac Donald, Fred
Oaks and several others. Henry Sellers, the camp deputy Sherrif was called, but
in place of taking Hootch into custody, he let Arnold, the store manager, throw
Hootch bodily into the street. Fred Oaks on picking his partner up out of the
dust, promised deputy Sellers that he would take care-of Hootch, that he would
put him to bed in their living quarters in the back of the saloon and that he
would hide the gun. Apparently the gun had been in the stove before, for when
Hootch awoke and finding Oaks gone, fished the gun from the stove and went back
to the store. Approaching Arnold, he said; "what have you got against me, Jim?"
"I've nothing against you, Joe" Arnold replied, "Yes you have, prepare to
die", and with these words, he shot Arnold through the heart.
Gordon McBain, a drunken miner, attempted to make a citizens arrest of
Hootch only to succeed in blundering into the way of deputy Seller’s who was
trying to disarm Hootch. Grabbing McBain and using him as a shield, Hootch
started shooting at Sellers, one bullet cutting the front of the deputy’s
shirt. Getting in close, the deputy shoved his gun barrel against the side of
McBain’s head telling him that if he did not get out of the way he would blow
his brains out. McBain was rewarded for his efforts, by being run out of camp
under the threat that if he did not leave at once they would lynch him also. As
McBain ran down Mill Gulch toward Emigrant Wash, the pounding of his iron-shod
mining boots on the rocks made ghostly thunder in the narrow canyon. He was
later seen passing Stove Pipe Wells at a dog-trot and a little lame in the near
hind fetlock.
Hootch was locked in a stout tool shed, the nearest thing Skidoo had for
a jail. Pete Aguereberry said that three nights later when the mob dragged
Hootch forth; having been denied whiskey and narcotics for three days; he was
unconscious and probably near death when they strung him from a telephone pole,
anyway, Old Hootch never knew what happened.
Hootch's remains were buried in a canyon south of the camp, and the good
citizens went back to their work. Two days later the press arrived, they came
from Reno and Los Angeles. The reason for the delay was the slow mode of
transportation at their command; traveling by broad-gauge and narrow-gauge
railroad to Rhyolite, Nevada and then by team and wagon across Death Valley.
After such a hard trip they were sorely put out when they reached Skidoo and
found that all the excitement was over.
14
Never underestimate the power of the press. The bully reporters got their
gory story with pictures by bribeing the rough element of the camp to exhume
Old Hootch's body and string it up again, in consideration of the few women and
children in camp, the second hanging was conducted in a tent. After the second
hanging of Hootch, they did not afford him a decent burial, tossing his remains
in an abandonded mine shaft, they hurried back to the newsmen’s free drinks in
the saloon.
The mining boom in Skidoo was on the wane at that time and Dr MacDonald,
having time on his hands, decided to perform an autopsy on Hootch’s skull to
find out what inroad the disease had made on the bone structure, so, one dark
night, by using ropes, he lowered himself into the mine shaft and beheaded the
corpse. He said that it took three days to boil the flesh from Hootch's skull.
About a year later, Skidoo was abandoned and it became a ghost town
practically over night. Due to the terrific expense of moving one's
possessions, it was cheaper to leave them behind. Consequently the people just
moved cut, leaving everything that could not be handily carried.
Dr. Evans came to Trona in 1914- He was the Borax Works first company
doctor. He was also a friend of the old miners and prospectors who inhabited
the area. When they came to him for medical attention, he would not charge
them, but he would trade his services for their desert relics. In this manner
he acquired an outstanding collection. Years age the old Hollenbach Hotel in
Los Angeles was the mining fraternities favorite stopping place. Two Trona men
while drinking in the Hotel bar, struck up an acquaintance with a heavily
bearded man, who turned out to be Dr. Mac Donald, formerly of Skidoo and
Randsburg. Their conversation shifted around to Trona and Dr. Homer Evans relic
collection. Dr. Mac Donald told the men about Hootch's skull and. where it
could be found in Skidoo providing it was still there.. He told them to tell
Dr. Evans that he was welcome to add the skull to his collection, if he cared
to go after it. In those days it was a long and hard trip to Skidoo and back.
Dr. Mac Donald's office and living quarters at Skidoo had been in a two room
house. He had hidden the skull in an ore sample bag, suspended from beneath a
trap door in the living room. The trap door being concealed by a throw rug.
When the two men returned to Trona and told Dr. Evans about the skull.
The good doctor talked them into going after it for him and sure enough they
found it exactly where Dr.Mac Donald had hidden it. For years the skull adorned
a shelf in the waiting room of Dr. Evans clinic on Panamint street in Trona.
When a patient opened the door to enter the waiting room, the first thing that
greeted him was Old Hootch's skull grinning down from the shelf. I know for
sure that it did not boost an ill persons morale.
When Dr. Evans retired, he lived in San Bernardino. In march of 1948 when
he heard that I was collecting desert relics, which we had on display at
Wildrose Station in the Death Valley National Monument, he presented me with
several of his relics. Among the choice ones was an ox shoe and a bullet mold
found at the site where the Jayhawkers burned their wagons in 1849 in Death
Valley and old Hootch's skull.
It might interest you to know that the mine shaft was not the final
resting place of Hootch. Two "ladies of the night" in Beatty, Nevada, former
saloon friends of Hootch, upon hearing about his body reposing at the bottom of
a mine shaft, decided to give Hootch a decent burial in a legitimate Nevada
Boothill, hiring a wagon and team with an indian driver set out across Death
Valley for Skidoo. Arriving in Skidoo, the Indian went down in the mine shaft
and wrapped the corpse in canvas, securely lashed with rope it was hoisted to
the surface and loaded on the wagon. The funeral party departed for Beatty. It
was extremely hot at the time, and somewhere in Death Valley they were forced
to abandon the corpse.
15
Returning to Beatty empty handed, they were reluctant to talk about the
ordeal, except to say, that somewhere in the hot sand they had buried "Old
Hootch".
A few years ago a tourist in Death Valley found some human bones that had
been uncovered by the wind in the sand dunes. Who knows, it could have been
Hootch's bones?
************************
PARADISE
MARCH 1954
Singing waters, singing birds, singing breezes through cottonwood trees;
cooing pigeons, clucking hens, crowing roosters,b pot-tracking guineas, basso
profundo frogs braying burros, the fragrance of fireplace wood smoke. The
garden of the Gods, The solitude of the pines. A man made lake. A fish pond and
a boat. Table after table of mineral specimen. Table upon table of desert
relics. The above, plus the congenial owners, add up to paradise on earth.
The Singing Water Ranch, that's what I am writing about; but I am selfish and I
am not going to tell where the ranch is located for I want it all to myself. If
I had it, I would change the name to "The Blue Sky Ranch," for the sky over the
north rim of the mountain is forever indigo. I can't have it, so I'll have to
be content by telling you about it.
Those who like to hunt and kill, have their own-name for the ranch. To
them it is "The Sign Ranch", for there's a sign or two about the place warning
that no shooting is allowed since the ranch is a private game refuge. Many
hundred of dollars a year are spent for grain to feed the wildlife which seeks
safety within it's confine. Another thing not allowed on the ranch is alcoholic
beverages, not even beer. A large sign at the main gate tells you so in no
uncertain terms. For it is on this ranch that many a chronic alcoholic has been
helped back to a normal, healthy and useful life.
Built by the indians, the old adobe ranch house with thick walls and worn
floors is sealed with faded canvas that came across the country on covered
wagons. The old house is precious and priceless. We hope that someday it will
be converted into a museum Perhaps "George" will occupy the choicest spot in
the museum, for "George" will be the main attraction, "George" is now in a
glass case under the summer arbor. He has been dead for over two hundred years,
(note - any similarity between "George" and this writer is purely
coincidental)... How do we know that "George" has been dead for two-hundred
years? When a well was being dug on the ranch, "George" was found in a sitting
position. According to the old indians, their ancestors discontinued burying
their dead in a sitting position two hundred years ago.
"George" could have been murdered, or it would be more adventurous for us
to believe that he was slain in battle, anyway, his demise from this earth was
violent. The evidence is still in "George"; an arrowhead imbedded in a
shoulder bone. As you by now surmise, "George"is a skeleton and as you sit
under the arbor with "George" on a warm summer night, which is a custom, if not
a ritual, you face the east looking down the canyon into Indian Wells Valley,
where the man-made lights at China Lake and Ridgecrest feebly attempt to
compete with the brilliant canopy of stars above; you doze for a moment, but in
that moment you may live 200 years in a dream. Perhaps the whole history of the
old indian ranch will kinescope through your mind; how "George" was sent to the
Happy Hunting Ground. How the seven mexicans met their end a hundred years ago
when they rode into the canyon mounted on fine horses; never to ride out again
for the indians coveted the horses. How they were ambushed and where they were
buried. You may see "Old Joe Ward", the ragged but prosperous prospector from
the Isle of Man with his faithful burro, "Minnie Belle." camped among the wild
grape vines in the lower canyon, not daring to go deeper into the canyon. For
there above stands on guard with a rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, the
last indian on the ranch, "The olf Chief, Tom Spratt".
16
The commotion caused by a bobcat at the chicken pen, the howl of a
lonesome coyote or the braying of a burro in the lower orchard, may cause you
to awaken with a shudder. The chill between your shoulder blades will be where
"George" bony hand has lain.
SADNESS
IN
PARADISE
NOVEMBER
1959
My friend, the master of Singing Waters Ranch is dead. He lies at my
feet beneath the new grave mound in the old indian burial ground on a
promontory overlooking the canyon home he loved so well. He rests in peace
amidst God's given beauty in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. My friend is not
alone, for high above, on the south crest of Mt. Owen the perfect likeness of a
"sleeping Beauty" is profiled against the desert sky. My friend had a name for
the "beauty";--- "Brigett O'tool". Together they will sleep for eternity.
As I stood with Earl's wife by his grave on that brisk November day, my
sad thoughts were of the most tolerant and kindest man that I had ever known.
In the few short pleasurable years that I had known Earl Standard, I had grown
to love and respect him, as I had no other man. Earl had lived the last twelve
years of his life under the handicap of a heart condition. His doctors marveled
at the length he lived on "borrowed time". When his time came, he died suddenly
in a moving automobile while on an errand of mercy to assist his fellow man.
That was the life of Earl Standard. Helping those who were burdened with the
trials and tribulations of life. His dear wife,"Tiny", will carry on with the
consolation of forty-one years she shared with her beloved husband. The
following poem was written by "Tiny".
HOME TO STAY
Dedicated to "Earls' Knoll" and all it means to me, by Tiny Chiquita" Standard.
The good sun shone, and a perfect day,
Tho’ they said my Earlie'd gone away.
But now I know he's home to stay,
And I know he's in our hills so sweet,
Such a restful,peaceful, quiet retreat
With Joshuas 'mid the sand and stones,
The pines and the gorgeous autumn
tones, And the air so very crystal
clear
Made our mount Owen seem so near.
The gold of the cottonwoods so rich
shown o'r the hills and canyon pitch.
Wild grapevines crowned with red-gold
wealth,
Give it all a tone of vibrant health.
And a tiny, vagrant, wispy breeze
Brought greetings from thru' the
trees. A peace decended o'er the place
Straight from our Dear Gods home of
grace.
All pain and aches He does allay I
know our Earl's come home to stay.
And He sees o'er a horizon new
That for us not yet has come in view
And he smiles, so calm and sweet and fair
As tho' he'd like to tell us
It's so lovely there.
And gathered 'round him friends who care
Helped to make his day so fair.
With a happy smile and a wave of the hand
I think, too, he'll visit a foreign land.
His Africa he so wanted to see,
Then home to be with Tina and me!
And then we'll play as the days go by,
Perhaps you can teach me how to fly!
And little side trips, we'll take for joy—
You always were the adventurous boy !
And Earlie, with my hand in yours
You'll take me on many "conducted tours"
We'll explore the air and explore the land.
And always we'll go there hand in hand.
And Tina will ridE my shoulder,—gay—
She knows that we'll all cone home to
stay.
Still, as we'll go, that isn't far! and the very best of it-all, you'll see;
Is that home to stay in Our canyon we'll be.
17
UNIQUE DESERT HOME
In my thirty-five years on the desert I have
seen many strange things. On looking back, I
think that the most unusual thing that I have
seen, borders on the Rand District. To the
north, just off highway 395, in the Summit
Diggins, there lives a man and his wife, who
are 25 yrs. ahead of the times, when it comes
to a safe dwelling place. Inasmuch as they
have an atom bomb proof home, it could be a
safe refuge even from the blaat of an H bomb. For you see, their home is
constructed underground. You, of the Rand District, know of whom I am writing —
-Mr. and Mrs. George Niller. To those who do not know the Millers, and have
never visited them, it may be hard for you to visualize anyone living
underground in God's beautiful desert.
You may conjure a vision of these people living as moles in darkness.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, even though their home is an oddity of
the desert. It is spacious and comfortable, designed for good living with ample
light and ventilation and with most modern conveniences.
You may wonder why the Nillers choose to live underground. It wasn't a
matter of choice with them; it was a necessity. They were victims of the last
bad depression. When they lost their ranch in the southland, they did not give
up in despair, nor did they go on relief, they were made of sterner stuff, as
they came from a race of people who, in the past have been down but never out.
They are good German Americans. When they lost their worldly possessions, they
moved to Summit Biggins, dug a home under a hill and began life anew. Here they
made a living by the back-breaking task of mining gold with a dry washer.
I first met George Niller during World War II, while he was working for
the American Potash and Chemical Corp. of Trona. Mr. Niller was then past the
age of retirement but re-activated himself to do his bit for his country.
Mr. Niller invited big Jim Bennett, the Trona blacksmith, my family and I
up to his place for a squab dinner. There we met Mrs. Niller for the first
time, a gracious lady and a very fine cook. Ten years later we again visited
Mr. and Mrs. Niller. When we drove up to the Niller place in mid-afternoon, we
were soundly scoulded by a few desert quail, who, unbeknown to us, were the
early arrivals for dinner. In our party this trip was my wife, Hardrock Annie,
our son Ned, and our good friend Charley Nunn of Red Mountain. The quail sensed
that we were strangers — probably up to no good, and poaching upon their
privacy. As they scurried away through the sage, they kept calling a warning
to their friend and protector, George Niller, the man who protected his
feathered friends from the hunters with a 30-30 rifle. The little man did not
hear their warning cries as he was taking his afternoon siesta.
We knew that the Nillers raised pigeon, chicken and phesant, but we were
totally unprepared for what we saw at sundown when Mr. Niller said, "follow me
and watch as I feed the birds". We went through a tunnel that leads to the
garage. There he picked up a pail of grain and as he emerged from the garage he
began a chant, that went something like:
"tic tic tic tic, a la tic". This
was the dinner call for the quail and dove. They had been gathering by the
hundreds since mid-afternoon, and were waiting in the edge of the desert. When
Mr. Niller started to chant and strew the grain, there were so many quail and
dove It seemed that the whole earth moved toward him. Soon the yard was covered
with birds, eating peacefully at his feet along with pigeons, chickens and
phesant.
18
ABOUT SNAKE TIME
Snake time, brrr! Death Valley and it's country support
few rattlers. The reason? In this desolate country, it is the extreme heat and
the scarcity of the small rodents on which the rattlers feed. There are 17
species of rattlesnake,and to my knowledge, there are only two kinds in Searles
Basin - the desert rattler and the sidewinder, the sidewinder predominates. In
a way, this is bad, as he is the smallest of the rattlesnake family, yet his
venom is the most deadly. The sidewinder is known as a horned, sand or dune
rattler - and is no gentleman. Seldom does he buzz a warning. He is either
too lazy or too mean.
The sidewinder lives in a land where food is scarce and in order to
survive, mother nature made his venom deadly. When he strikes a rodent for
food, it has die, for if it did not, there wouldn't be any sidewinder. What
would you do if you ware out in the desert, forty miles from the nearest
doctor, without means of transportation, and were struck by a rattlesnake ?
Would you start walking the forty miles? Would you attempt to administer firstaid to yourself, or, would you just lie down and die?
Here is what a grizzled old-timer did when he was "Nailed" by a six foot
black diamond rattlesnake (18 rattles and a button) in the wilds of southern
Nevada on the first day of August in 1927. This old-timer is still around to
tell about his harrowing experience. One of his hands is twisted and knarled as
a "memento" of the memorable battle with the giant snake.
Before telling the story, let me introduce the man who is lucky to be
alive. His name is Bill Ryan and we call him "rattlesnake Bill." Bill is the
man who discovered the fabulous Sunshine Mine in the Coeurd’ Alenes of Idaho,
and sold out for $5,000. Before embarking on the snake story to end all snake
stories, I ask that women and children discontinue reading at this point. From
here on out, it's strictly a man's story!
There are some who think Death Valley a hot place in August, but those
who have been in El Dorado Canyon in southern Nevada near the Colorado River in
August, think that Death Valley is a fine place to cool-off. Besides being the
nearest thing to hell, El Dorado Canyon is rattlesnake country. How the
rattlers survive the furnace-like heat is another desert mystery. Yet they seem
to thrive in the heat, for they grow big, thick and mean.
Rattlesnake Bill and his partner, Lee Ford, had discovered gold in the
canyon. They also discovered the rattlesnake. It was ultimately proven that
there were more rattlers than gold in the canyon. For protection against
snakebite, each partner had suspended on a cord around his neck, a hypodermic
syringe loaded with permanganate of potash.
Working in the mine tunnel at three o'clock in the afternoon, they had
just finished drilling a round of holes and were preparing to load the holes
for a blast, when Bill reached into the powder box for a stick of powder, Only
one board had been removed from the top of the box. The box was about empty so
there was room for the big rattler to crawl in the shade under the cover of the
box. When Bill's hand touched the rattler, it nailed him in the palm of his
hand. When he jerked his hand out, the weight of the snake caused its fangs to
be so imbedded in his hand that he couldn't shake it loose. To make it worse,
while thrashing around, the snake became coiled tightly around his arm. With
his free hand, Bill grabbed the snake behind the jaws and pulled the fangs from
his hand, but he was helpless as he couldn't let go of the snakes head. He
called to his partner to come and uncoil the snake from his arm — but his
partner wasn't there! Looking around, Bill saw him running in the opposite
direction. Bill yelled to him, that if he didn't come back and take the snake
from his arm, he would chase him down and ram the snake down his
19
Throat!
Reluctantly, the partner returned, whits and trembling and gingerly
unwrapped the snake. When he had finished, Bill threw the snake on the ground,
set his boot on its head and jerked it off. Then and there, the battle for
Bills life began.
They had no transportation to a doctor as the axel on their car was
broken. Bills partner was too scared to be of much help. Applying a tourniquet
to the arm, Bill then injected the contents of both syringes in the wound.
Holding the hand rigid, he told his partner to cut into the wound. The partner
was so nervous that he cut too deeply, severing the finger muscles; which
caused the hand to be crippled.
In the ruins of an old store, in the nearby ghost mining camp of
Chicachitta, there was a pile of Arm & Hammer baking soda. Bill had his
partner bring over a case of the soda and prepare a thick paste solution, in
which he kept his hand immersed. The soda solution was potent enough to draw
the poison from his arm. At short intervals, the poison would turn the
solution green, and then he would change to a fresh solution.
Bill’s arm turned black and swelled until it was as large as a six-inch
stove pipe. He thought that he was doomed to die, but after midnight, when the
blackness began to fade, and the swelling to subside, he felt that he would
live. Bill was crippled for six months. During that time, the arm had to be
carried in a sling and it was nine months before he was able to work again.
************************
GEORGE
BENKO
Things had a way of happening to hardrock miner George Benko when he
lived alone in a Homewood Canyon Cabin. Like the time he dreamed he saw fish
spouting out of a stone mountain and he placed a powder charge that started a
10,000 gallon-per-day spring... At times, life got pretty dull in the canyon.
When it did, Benko would set out a few traps for coyotes, bobcats and other
predators which fattened on his chickens. Occasionally he would find a
roadrunner (bird), or a field mouse, or a gopher in one of his traps.
Sometimes there WAS a coyote, one of which he converted into a glossy pelt and
presented to Leonard Murnane, the editor of the Trona Argonaut at the time.
Another pelt, with the coyote still in it, went to Ben Roos of Westend to be
mounted and placed in a trophy case.
But once, when he found a very ruffled golden eagle with a talon locked
fast in the steel jaws, Benko was stymied. His mail-order catalogues said
nothing about trapped eagles, and he didn't quite know what to do with the
fiery bird. Finally, after having the eagle duly photographed to prove he had
trapped an eagle, he let it go.
************************
20
CHRIS WICHT OF BALLARAT
If ever a man deserved to be buried in the Ballarat "Boothill", Chris
Wicht deserve the honor, for in this writers book, Chris was "The Mister
Ballarat".
Besides being a pioneer, he owned the most popular saloon and he was the
towns greatest character. As long as the memory of the ghost town lingers, the
escapades of Chris Wicht will be told and retold.
Chris wanted to be buried in Ballarat. He had expressed the desire many
times to his friends. When his time came, he helped it along by drinking
himself to death, at the age of eighty. He died in the Trona Hospital and was
buried in the Argus Cemetary. Chris has only himself to blame for not being
planted in the Ballarat Boothill.
Long before Ballarat became a ghost town, Chris had moved up to the mouth
of the narrows in Surprise Canyon, on the road to Panamint City. Here, with
ample water from the canyon creek, he planted cottonwood trees and grape vines.
He also put in an electric light system using a pelton wheel powered by the
flow of the creek water. He built a swimming pool. It wasn't long until he
had an oasis which became a show place in the Panamint mountains, known as the
"Chris Wicht Place".
The irrigation system he used was unique, in as much as he had gone up
the canyon and diverted water from the creek into a flume, which in turn flowed
through a series of ditches on the property. Chris1 livelihood at the time came
from his mining interests. H owned the famous old "Horn Spoon Mine ", which was
a "Burro Mine", located near the summit of the mountains. The old-timers used
to say that the "Horn Spoon" was the hardest mine in the whole Panamints to
reach. It was only accessible by burro train. In his later years, Chris lived
off the old age pension.
Chris had several guest cottages on his place. He enjoyed having company
an so there was never a charge, consequently, his hospitality was known far and
wide. Many a bar-be-que and beer- bust, topped off with a moonlight swim was
enjoyed by his friends.
21
Chris drove a ford model "A" pick-up truck. He would come into Trona once
or twice a month for supplies and mail; but his drinking friends, anxious to
reciprocate for his hospitality, plyed him with much liquor. Normally this
would result in Chris spending a week in Trona on one continuous bing. He would
never let anyone drive him home. He would go it all alone, and how he ever made
it safely for so many years over the steep, rough, one-way road across the
Slate Mountains in his condition, is a mystery still talked about in Trona.
All things come to an end, even to Chris. Eventually, after a weeks bing
in Trona, Chris collapsed and was taken to the local hospital. A week later
when Chris was being released from the hospital, the doctor warned him in the
presence of Clarence Tilson, a local storekeeper, that if he drank any more
whiskey it would kill him. Tilson helped Chris load his supplies on the truck,
and saw him safely on his way home, so he thought! A few hours later, Tilson
entered the "snake pit" (local bar) and there, to his surprise, he found Chris
perched on a bar stool, drinking double-shots of straight whiskey. Shocked,
Tilson approached Chris and said -" my goodness, Chris! what are you trying to
do, kill yourself? The doctor told you that if you drank anymore whiskey, you
would die. This was Chris's reply-" I have been around long enough, It is time
for me to move on and make room for someone else". He died the following
morning, Tuesday, October 17th, 1944. And so it was, Chris had chosen a most
inopportune time to take his departure from this life. If he had waited until
the war was over, his wish would have been granted, he would have been buried
in the Ballarat Boothill among his old cronies. As it was, due to the war time
restrictions, no one had the time, the gasoline or the tires to return Chris's
remains to Ballarat. He had to be buried in the nearest cemetery, and that was
at Argus. To give you an idea of Chris's popularity, two-hundred people
attended his funeral. That was quite a turn-out for the war times. A famous
desert poet penned a poem in his memory, which was read at the funeral.
DESERT TRIBUTE TO CHRIS WICHT
Minutes before, the sun had slipped down behind the Argus Mountains; The
blue of the evening was setting on the Slate Range, majestic in dull purple,
the Panamints looked down on the flickering lights of many homes; a new moon
shone in the western sky; the stillness of departing day held all the valley.
That was the scene last Thursday as two hundred men, women and children
gathered in the Argus Cemetery to pay final tribute to Chris Wicht, beloved man
of the desert, to whom death had come two days before.
When the Rev. George H.Quayle had spoken the eternal words, "I am the
resurrection and the life", Ann Pipkin sang, "There is a land that is fairer
than day." Then Ralph Merritt of Manzanar read "Sunset", the verse that David
S. Bromley, poet of Owens Valley, had written in memory of Chris Wicht
Words of comfort and assurance were spoken by the Rev. Mr. Quayle, who
reminded, "Then shalt the dust return unto the earth from which it came, and
the spirit unto God. "Mrs. Pipkin sang, Rock of Ages." The Pallbearers drew
apart, and the men and women all came to say farewell to one who seemed to be
smiling in his sleep. ( one women was heard to remark; "my! Chris, you look
better dead than you did alive) at the end, night enfolded all in benediction.
The impressive rites, to which men and women came from great distances
and across tht desert, were arranged by The Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society,
under the guidance of President J.P.Lonsdale, who with Russell F. Clampitt, of
the American Potash & Chemical C enlisted the aid of Public Administrator and
Coroner R.E.Williams of San Bernardino. The flowers that blanketed the casket
came from the mineral society, and the A.P.&.C.C., and from gardens of many
homes in Owens Valley.
22
Pallberers were Oscar Johnson, Fred Gray, Charles Ferge (Seldom Seen Slim),
John Thorndike, George Pipkin, and Walter Sorensen. James McGinn, who was to
have served, remained at Mr. Wicht's home in Surprise Canyon until Public
Administrator Williams went there on Friday to take control of the property.
There are no known relatives of the desert veteran, and it has been
proposed that his home should be maintained by The Gem & Mineral Society as a
memorial to him. Mr. Wicht was 80 years old just a few days before he entered
the Trona hospital for treatment of a heart ailment. We are sorry that we
cannot reproduce the portrait of Chris in "DESERT SANDS", but we can give you
Kr. Bromley's poem.
"SUNSET," Memoriam To CHRIS WICHT
by David S. Bromley
The dust of ev'ning spreads its cloak above the desert hills,
and a single star rides low above the peaks;
The desert night brings down its peace and all the world is still,
then a voice in benediction seems to speak.
It's a wordless, silent message, but somehow it seems divine
and it brings surcease to aching, weary hearts,
And it seems to whisper, " I will share with you this Peace of Mine
who with this wide land of wastes are such a part."
Here came one who knew the spirit of the barren lonely wastes,
who had been one with my desert through the years;
Here the lure of teeming cities from his mind has been erased;
He has learned to shed in solitude his tears.
He has learned the kindly, peacefulness of silent, desert dunes,
He has freely helped his fellow on life's way;
He has felt the benediction of the low hung desert moon,
He has faced with cheer each brightly dawning day.
Now My angels claim his spirit, and My desert claims his dust,
and My stars shall guard his rest from high above
He has placed faith in My barrens, and all this land has known his trust
He shall sleep In peace within the land he loved.
Though the winding trail lies lonely in the canyon of " Surprise "
and the Pananints1 bright daisies miss his tread
Still shall he enjoy the visions that were beauty to his eyes;
and the desert stars shall shine above his bed.
Do not weep, he knows contentment in the place where he is gone
there is naught of pain and sorrow in that land;
He shall smile on friends and comrades with each rosy desert dawn
he shall whisper to them in the singing sands.
Here he lived a life that blossomed with a kindly cheering thought
for a friend who from life's pain would seek surcease
His fine heart appreciated this great quiet, God has wrought,
let him rest here in his desert in God's peace.
23
The Searles Lake Gem & Mineral Society did buy Chris’ place at public
auction. Cleaning the place up, white-washing the buildings and building a
giant barbeque pit, they opened the place to the public as the "Chris Wicht
Memorial Park." It was free, all the Society asked was that the place be kept
clean. Unfortunately, it was not to be a "place of beauty in memory of Chris."
After the war years, the vandals moved in and started destroying the buildings.
They were not satisfied with just breaking the windows and doors, they kicked
the frames in, too. The swimming pool was used as a dumping place for their
garbage and tin cans. The mineral society, not being financially able to employ
a custodian, was forced to sell the place.
Shotgun Mary and her clan were the purchasers, logically, they were the
proper ones to own the place. They had coveted Chris's place for years, and if
Chris had known that they finally got it, he would have turned over in his
Grave. For you see, in the early days, Chris had tangled with "Grandma Twoguns"
who was "Shotgun Mary's " mother. It happened like this - Chris and two men
were digging an irrigation ditch when "Grandma Twoguns" suddenly appeared above
them in the canyon, covering them with a six-gun in each hand, while snoko from
a hand-rolled cigarette curled lazily from her nostrils. She snarled, "I always
get my man. You skunks get off my property before I start throwing lead."
"Being surprised, startled and unarmed, the two man got, but not for long, as
Chris had "Grandma Twoguns" put under a peace bond.
************************
DESERT SHIPS
Throughout the ages, the great desert areas of our globe have held a
peculiar awesome fascination for man. In then he senses all the elemental
forces which were a direct menace to his own existence - heat, aridity,
scarcity of food and game. Above all, he was conscious of the stark desolation
which drove deep into the soul. Little wonder then, that in time the desert
became the dwelling piece of his demons, spirits of evil and death. Because he
could not understand, he wove legends of mystery about these places, cloaking
them in that aura of the unknown which at once both attracted and terrified
him.
Before the inexorable advance of our own smugly enlightened era, the
djinns and phantoms have retreated to the lair wherein they brood dismally upon
an age of unbelief. But for all that, the desert is still the place where
anything and all things may happen- Men yet hold in their hearts enough of the
old credulity to have childlike faith in wild and extravagant stories of lost
mines, hidden treasures and buried riches. Of all these fabulous tales, none
perhaps, is quite so intriguing as that of the Lost Pearl Ship of the Colorado
Desert.
The great barren expanse of the desert, that engulfs this legend, lies
like a huge valley or basin between the Santa Rosa and the Little San
Bernardino Ranges of mountains in Southern California, and at its lowest point,
the Salton Sea sparkles incongruously a turquoise jewel in the drab setting of
sage and wind swept sand. In a time past, the basin, called Coachella Valley,
was an extension of the old gulf of Cortes, or Vermillion Sea. Now known as the
Gulf of California. The waters of the gulf reached as far as the present town
of Banning in the San Pass.
24
This is a fact easily determined as the ancient water-line o’ the sea is
clearly visible in a number of places in the valley. The floor of the Desert
is covered by a multitude of tiny shells, from which the name "Coachella" was
derived. Originally it was "Conchella" or "Little Shell", a government map
makers error in substituting "A" for "N" changed the name for all tine to
Coachella.
The legends of the ship itself are many among white men. There are
grizzled prospectors who claim to have seen the ancient rotting hulk halfburied in the sand, and there are tales of thirst crazed desert travelers who
first thought the vision a hallucination. Expeditions have been sent out in
search of it, but all have failed in their purpose.
************************
"S T I N K E Y "
This is a true story about a little canine who, in its short span of life
on this earth, led a "Dogs Life". From the start, the cards of fate were
stacked against the little mongrel. Even the name "Stinkey", which Al Schmidt
had given the dog, was bad enough.
Al, a big burley hardrock miner, had just returned from the war. For a
while when Al first got back he was pretty bitter. What he had been through,
had soured him on life generally. Max Barginski and Al are partners in a mine
which they recently discovered east of Skidoo, in a canyon overlooking Death
Valley. They named their mine "Valley Overlook". When their cabin was
completed, Max decided they needed a dog to make the place more home-like, so,
on his next trip into town, he went to the city pound to get a dog.
There were plenty of dogs to pick from, all kind of breeds, shapes and
sizes. All the dogs appeared healthy except one little mite, a black and white
spotted puppy which looked forlorn and pitiful, like he had never had a friend
in the world. Max is a Pole, and he knows what it is to be an underdog, so he
paid the impounding fee, and departed with the pup. When he got home he found
the puppy had distemper, so he had to put him in a dog and cat hospital. When
the pup recovered, Max brought him out to the little green cabin in the
Panamint Mountains. When Al, who had stayed at the mine, saw the skinny little
pup, he called him STTNKEY, and the name stuck.
What a strange new life for Stinkey; the mountains were blanketed with
snow, and the cold wind whistled through the canyon. The rigors of the cold
winter nights were too much for his emaciated body, so Max fixed a box by his
bunk in the cabin for Stinkey.
Stinkey seemed so grateful for every scrap of food, pat on the head and
kind word that by the time spring arrived, he had won a place in Al's heart.
When Al got his new Jeep and let Stinkey ride with him everywhere he went,
Stinkey just knew that Al was the greatest guy on earth; even though he had
some painful spills from the Jeep when Al would take a curve too fast, but he
soon learned to brace himself and ride like a veteran.
Even after Al had broken him from chasing burros, he was still a great
guy. Stinkey liked to chase the wild burros which was a dangerous thing to do,
for the burros would run a short way and turn and strike at him with their
sharp hoofs. One day as Al was passing some burros, Stinkey jumped off and gave
chase. Al thought here is where I will break that dog from a bad habit; he
drove off and left him. Stinkey chased the Jeep for three miles before Al
stopped for him, a short distance further on they passed more burros. Al slowed
up purposely but Stinkey did not jump off. Oh, Ho! he had been taught a lesson.
25
Spring comes late in the high Panamints, out when it arrives, it is in
all its glory. The flowers coming out and the desert life beginning to crawl
and scoot across the sun warmed soil. Stinkey was having the me of his life,
chasing the lizards that moved like the speed of the wind; and digging for
little chipmunks that would dart into a hole when Stinkey gave chase.
One day, Bob Bowman, a new comer to the mine, was cooking dinner, Al was
working down at the mine, and Max the master was away in the city. Stinkey was
busily engaged digging for a chipmunk near the cabin, when he let out a yelp
and hopped up to Bob at the cabin, holding up a front paw. He looked at Bob as
if to say, something hurt me, Bob, can't you help me? But there was nothing Bob
could do. Stinkey had dug up a sidewinder, the most deadly specie of the
rattlesnakes, and had been bitten on the paw. Twelve hours later, Stinkey was
dead. If he he had been a large dog he probably would have gotten over the
bite, but he was such a little fellow, he wasn't physically able to combat the
sidewinder venom.
With eyes not so dry, Al and Bob laid Stinkey to rest by the little green
cabin high in the Panamint Mountains.
************************
WILDROSE CANYON
Historical and picturesque Wildrose Canyon, the Panamint
entrance to Death Valley on the road from Trona, lies
wholly within the Death Valley National Monument.
Back in the early sixties, it was known as Windy Canyon.
In the summer-time, the hot air rising in the Panamint Valley funnels up the
canyon, causing a constant, gentle breeze, that cools rapidly as it reaches the
higher altitudes. At night as the valley cools off, the breeze blows back down
the canyon.
On the early day stage and freight road between Ballarat and Skidoo,
Wildrose Station was the halfway mark. On the long drag, out of Panamint Valley
up the canyon, the station was a welcome oasis for the dust-covered teamsters
and their weary teams. For here the first liquids were encountered - water for
the stock and rye or bourbon for the thirsty drivers and their swampers.
Mother nature had also provided a natural shelter, a towering lime
formation that overhung the canyon. Under this giant boulder, hay and grain for
the stock was stored. From a shallow cave near the top of this big rock, the
indians, unseen, lay and watched the white man's activity at the station below.
Arrowheads have been found in the cave. In the "Great Understander" compiled by
William W.Walter, there is an account of an indian girl being burned at the
stake here in the canyon. Infidelity, in this tribe of indians, meant death by
burning at the stake.
The stage and freight line owners had corrals constructed out of adobe, a
blacksmith shop and an eating house. Some enterprising soul with an eye for
business operated the saloon. If need be, the drivers changed teams and added
extra stock as boosters to pull their heavily loaded wagons to Skidoo on the
top of the mountain.
In the fall of i860, Dr. S.A.George and Dr. Lilly, members of the Darwin
French party, while searching for the Gunsight Mine, named the spring "Rose
Spring". Later the name was changed to Wildrose Springs, because of the wild
roses blooming nearby. With the decline of the Skidoo Mines and the advent of
the automobile age, Wildrose Station was abandoned. No longer did the pugent
smell of harness and sweating mules, nor the fragrance of burning pipe tobacco,
wood smoke and the aroma of boiling coffee ride the air currents upward, to be
whiffed by the Indians who lay in the cave. No longer did the familiar sound of
the teamsters, swearing and bawling at the stock rend the air. For Wildrose
Station was dead, dead for eternity as far as the old teaming
26
days were concerned.
Gradually the buildings crumbled to dust, and slowly but surely the
desert vegetation moves in when man moves out, obliterating all traces of the
old stage station; all, except for one adobe wall.
It took thirty years, a depression, a CCC camp and Cyrus K. (Cy) Babcock
to revive Wildrose Station. Cy and his wife were hard hit victims of the bad
depression of the late 20's and early 30's. The indomitable desire of most
americans to help themselves carried them out of Los Angeles onto the desert,
where they diligently searched for a livelhood. Driving an ancient sedan and
with only 39 cents in their pockets, they arrived in Wildrose Canyon. This was
the end of the road for them financially. They couldn't go on, and they
couldn't go back, so they made camp and got acquainted with the old-timers.
The old-timers hearts are gold, there never was a friendlier breed. They
will share what they have with those in need, but in those days, they didn't
have much to share. They existed by working a few days each month on the
county roads. The meager pay received kept them in beans, and for meat, well,
there were burros.
Cy and his wife weren't asking for charity, they were looking for a job.
After they had been in the canyon for a few days and had gotten acquainted, the
old-timers told them that it was rumored that the government was going to build
a summer camp for the CCC boys in the canyon. When in a few days the rumor was
verified, Cy saw an opportunity, if he could only put in a little store, maybe
he could make a living. But how was he to raise the money to start the store?
That was the $64 question. He might be able to borrow the money from friends in
Los Angeles, but how was he to get back to Los Angeles, when he did not have
the price of gasoline?
The time was fall, so he and his wife went up among the pinons, where
they gathered pine nuts with the indians. These they sold for enough money to
finance their trip to Los Angeles, where they were successful in raising enough
money to start the store in a humble way at Wildrose Spring. Later they were
forced to seek a new location, so they moved down to the site of the old stage
station, where they put up their own buildings.
By hard work and long hours they built up a successful business, and in
so doing they revived historical WILDROSE STATION.
************************
TALES OF OLD BALLARAT
We are indebted to the late Fred Gray of Ballarat for the following story
about the strangest fight on record, which took place in Ballarat during the
boom days in 1900.
Billy Higley and his wife Daisy had moved into Ballarat from Coso. They
were living in a tent-house a block down the street from Chris Wicht’s saloon.
At first Billy, who was a husky young follow, seemed to be making some effort
to obtain a job, but as the days wore on he spent more and more of his time in
the saloons playing "freezeout" for the drinks. It soon became apparent to the
Ballarat natives that he didn't want a job. When Daisy started taking in
washings to keep the wolf away from the door, the residents of the town began
to hold Billy in a bad light. Their dislike for the loafer continued to grow,
so one night when about forty of the boys were whooping it up in Chris Wichts
saloon, someone came in with the news that Billy was murdering his wife. They
all ran out of the saloon with visions of staging a "necktie party" for Billy.
Before they reached the Higley home thay could hear Daisy screaming "don't kill me, Billyl Oh, please don't kill me "
They rushed up to the door, and then they lost their courage temporily,
as none of them wanted to be first to open the door. Finally someone got up
enough courage and when he opened the door, the flabbergasting sight that met
their gaze left them stunned.
27
For there on the floor lay Billy, Daisy was astraddle of him on her knees
and in her hand was one of his hobnail shoes with which she was punding him on
the head. Billy was trying to ward off the blows, with his arms and wasn't
saying a word, but everytime Daisy would hit him she would scream;
"don't
kill me Billy! Oh, please; don't kill me!"
The boys gently closed the door and silently returned to the saloon.
Fred said that the saloon was the quietest one in town for the next thirty
minutes as no one had anything to say.
************************
D A R W I N
FALLS
Darwin Falls, located some 55 miles north of Trona and a few miles west
of state highway 190 in Darwin Wash, attracts thousands of tourists a year.
Many people return from time to time bringing their friends and relatives to
prove to them that they were not lying about there being a real waterfall in
one of the Most dry and desolate spots in the Death Valley Country.
These people gloat in shoving their traveling companions the wild celery
and water cress that grows among the willows alongside the meandering stream
that soon disappears in the sand and the beautiful maiden hair fern that grows
from the rock wall forming a backdrop beneath the water fall.
Last spring we were in Darwin Wash looking for the spot where we dug
galena spuds 20 years ago. While having lunch along with boiled coffee made in
a tin can over an open fire at the camp ground just below the Falls, we met a
couple who had spent part of their honeymoon at Darwin Falls many years ago.
The Falls were discovered and named by the Darwin-French Expedition in
1860. The party was searching for the lost Gunsite lode of silver and lead
which was discovered by the emigrants who had escaped from Death Valley ten
years earlier.
The Falls are never dry and the Old-timers called them the "Old Man Of
The Mountains. Above the Falls a huge stone formation profiles the head of an
old man.
Long ago when Darwin was a booming mining camp a Chinaman raised
vegetables in the rich earth below the falls. He made a good living selling the
vegetables to the miners in Darwin. A gigantic cloudburst washed him out of
business but the celery and water cress linger on. For those of you who may,
in the future visit this desert oddity and historic spot, may we ask that you
please do not contaminate the stream as it is the source of water through a
pipeline which supplies the popular Panamint Springs Resort on State Highway
190 at the edge of Panamint Valley.
28
Panamint City 1877
PANAMINT CITY'S LAST BOOM
Have you seen this man? His name Nathan Elliott. He is 42 years old; six
feet and two inches tall; He has black hair and weighs between 160 and 170
pounds. When last seen, Thursday morning, he was wearing gray slacks, a khaki
shirt and sun glasses.
Elliott disappeared from American Silver Corporation workings in the
Panamint Mountains on Wednesday of last week. He was discovered at the Trona
Airport on Tbursday morning by Wesley E. Brown. When questioned, Elliott was
unable to tell how he got to the airport or where he came from. Elliott was
brought into town, fed a hearty breakfast and taken to the guest-house to await
the arrival of officers from Inyo county and his wife. He disappeared again
about 9:30 A.M. dear readers, you need not look for Mr. Elliott as he has been
found. Besides this happened 12 years ago.
We are merely using the account of Elliott’s disappearance as a lead in
bringing you the fantastic story of a fabulous character who was responsible
for Panamint City's second and last boom.
Mr. Elliott came along 70 years after Panamint City's original boom. In
the two short years his satellite flashed over the Death Valley Country, he
laid Death Valley Scotty in the shade. Scotty’s exploits were mere peanuts
compared to Elliott's. For where Scotty promoted a few thousand dollars here
and there, Elliott sold a million dollars worth of mining stock, mostly to
Hollywood movie people, some of whom were prominently known..... The American
Silver Corporation, incorporated in Nevada, of which Elliott was the president
was the medium through which the stock was sold. The story of Nate Elliott and
the American Silver Corporation reads like a Hollywood movie premier.
29
This is a story that will take a lot of telling, and we are afraid that
it will be much too long for our publication. Perhaps we can give it to you in
small doses over a period of time. For the benefit of our out of state
subscribers, perhaps we should give them a buildup, acquaint them with the old
Panamint City and some of its early-day history. The best way to do that is to
tell them that Panamint City is located 35 miles north of Trona, near the head
of Surprise Canyon in the rugged Panamint Mountains, which form the western
boundary of Death Valley.
In the four short years, 1873 - 1876, the mines in Panamint City lasted,
roughly from one to four million dollars in silver was mined. No historian or
early day writer knew the exact amount. However one thing that most of them did
agree on was that whatever the amount of wealth totaled, it was mined at a
loss. This was caused by the terrific transportation cost due to the great
distance from a railhead and the inacessibility of the mines; also to the
robberies of bullion shipments by desperados who hijacked their own bullion
shipments. Some of the desperados owned a few of the richest mines.
Bakersfield, California was the nearest railhead. All supplies and material
were hauled for a distance of 200 miles by wagon and team over the roughest
terrain imaginable; over the high Sierra Nevada Mountains across three hot and
dry valleys, Indian Wells, Searles and Panamint; then up a terrific grade for
the last five miles of the grueling journey to the mines.
If you would care to read the colorful history of early-day Panamint
City, we highly recommend the book "Silver Stampede" written by Neill C. Wilson
and published by MacMillan Co. in 1937. The book is now out of print but it is
so good that it has now become a collectors item. However, it may still be
found in some of the larger public 1ibraries.
The writer is not an autograph hound. Although we never had the pleasure
of meeting Mr, Wilson, the author, he sent us an autographed picture which we
treasure highly, MacMillan’s brochure on this lusty book will give you an
insight on what to expect if you are fortunate enough to find and read the
book.
We quote;
"Here is the truth that beats fiction! Old Panamint’s silver hoard was
first found by stage-robbers who had fled to the heights above death valley to
escape sheriffs and marshals. It was rediscovered by prospectors searching for
a lost mine. On the heels of the rumor of a new bonanza, the miner, the
merchant, the courtesan, the gambler, the gunman all rushed to Panamint. Uncle
"Billy Bedammed" Holseburger, aged peddler, limped 417 miles over the deserts
whacking his little burro. John Schober crossed 166 miles with a big whipsaw on
his back. Clem Ogg, who could cut the seat out of a mans trousers with the lash
of his long bull whip, hitched fourteen freight wagons behind a half-mile long
parade of bullocks and set out. Into the gulch town that sprang up, strode
George Hearst, Lucky Baldwin, Senators J.P.Jones and "Fifteen Amendment" Bill
Stewart, and many other famous characters of the rough old west who later
brushed elbows at Bodie, Tombstone and the Black Hills.
Wells Fargo, bullion carrier for every mining settlement between the
Sierra Nevada and the Missouri River, refused to have anything to do with this
"doorstep to hell." How Senator Bi11 Stewart got his treasure down the narrow
corridor and out across the desert with the highway men dumbfoundly watching it
go, is one of the humorous climaxes of this chronicle. How stage-driver Jack
Lloyd found life one vast joke after another, and finally how it finally
treated him; how Fred Yager imported the biggest bar mirror in the "seven
deserts"; and what became of it. The imposing entrance of Martha Camp and her
Impious damsels— yes, these and the adventures of innumerable sagebrushers,
diehards and rawhided old-timers of the Silver Seventies are told by Mr. Wilson
with full appreciation of the picturesque, the zestful, the humorous, and the
violent."
30
The Panamint Mountains were highly mineralized. Gold, silver and lead
predominating. The country is known as a shallow district. The rich deposits
lay near the surface. It did not take the early-day miners long to take the
cream off the top, consequently none of the mines lasted for any length of
time.
We do not know how or when Mr. Elliott found out about the old mines at
Panamint City. He being as one newspaper stated, a New York City broker, while
others said that he was a high-powered publicity man and agent in the movie
world of Hollywood. The latter we are inclined to believe, as he used a lot of
movie people in publicity stunts to sell stock. Ben Blue, Nationally known
comedian was listed in the fancy and expensive brochure as the vice-president
of the American Silver Corporation. We have in our collection a copy of the
brochure which was published on June 7, 1947. The brochure is really a work of
art.
We were not around for Panamint City's first boom, when the bulk of its
wealth was removed, but we were living in the Panamint Mountains when the
American Silver Corp. created the second boom. We had the pleasure of meeting
Mr. Elliott and some of his officials including Ben Blue. It was indeed
unfortunate for American Silver Corp., for after investing a million dollars in
a fruitless effort to rejuvenate the old Panamint City mines, they went broke.
The reason; no silver ore. However, they tried and during the time they were
active they brought prosperity to the Panamints. Among some of the famous old
mines they bought or leased were, The Hemlock, Marvel, Wyoming, Challenge and
Stewarts Wonder Mines. They even drove a tunnel for 40 or 50 feet under the old
mines in search of the silver vein that wasn't there. As we have said before,
the old mines were shallow.
To give you the magnitude of the operations of the American Silver Corp.,
as set forth on page two of the brochure before me, we quote –
"TO THE STOCKHOLDERS:"
Herewith is submitted the Twenty-sixth Annual Report of this company,
showing balance sheet, engineers reports, assay maps and photographs of mines,
roads, camp and equipment. $513,819.82 of the assets of this corporation was
expended during the past year to purchase equipment, construct roads, build
camps, acquire properties, and mine development.
Your Corporation holds all of the important Panamint City properties
which were operating before the turn of the century, operations having ceased
at the time because of the reduced price of silver caused by demonetization of
silver. From 1900 to 1947 historic Panamint City was unable to get into
substantial production again for one or more of the following reasons; 1. Low
price of silver, 2. Litigation, 3. Incessibility.
1. The problem of too low a price for silver was overcome in 1937 when
Congress passed an act providing that the United States Mint would buy silver
at the satisfactory price of $.7111 per ounce. In 1946 Congress increased the
price to $.905 per ounce. 2. All litigation pertaining to the properties was
settled by 1934.
3. To overcome inaccessibility your corporation during last year,expended
$61,972.29 to construct roads over very difficult terrain to the portals of the
mines being developed, using the heaviest type of modern construction
equipment. For transportation over the steep Panamint City grades and for
mining purposes, your corporation has purchased $96,054.55 of highly
specialized trucks and equipment. $291,530.00 of the assets of this corporation
has been applied on the purchase of mining properties from July 1946 to date.
$14,599.53 was expended for additional camp facilities from June 1946 to date.
$49,763.45 has been invested in mine development work from August 1946 to March
1947.
31
April 7, 1947, a contract was made with the Bell Construction Corp. to
construct the first fifty ton section of a projected three-hundred-ton mill at
Panamint City tp mill the ore to be mined from your corporations properties.
The contract also provides that the Bell Construction Corp. shall perform the
drilling and digging of 4,000 feet of tunnels at Panamint City to further
develop the mines. Under the terms of the above described contract the
consideration is $150,000.00. The Bell Construction Corp. has agreed to accept
500,000 shares of American Silver Corp. stock in payment thereof, and stated
that it is acquiring said stock as an investment with no present intention of
offering it for resale. The total number of shares of common stock issued and
outstanding is 2,418,300, there being no preferred stock.
A silver strike of major importance in the American Silver Corp.
properties at Panamint City was reported by mining engineer A.S.Geldman on the
27th day of April. His report, as to quality and grade of the ore developed,
appears on page 16.
The management of your corporation plans as follows; 1. To be in production by fall of this year.
2. We will, as our engineers recommend to management, increase production
as rapidly as additional sections of our projected 300 ton mill can be
constructed.
3. To continue the development of ore to establish additional substantial
ore reserves in advance of actual production.
4. To maintain a mining, milling and marketing operation cost of $6.00
per ton, as estimated by our engineering staff.
For the directors, June 7, 1947
N. James Elliott, President
You will notice in the first line of the report to the stockholders that
it was the "26th annual report". This would seem to be a "slight discrepancy,
in-as-much as the corporation was only active for a couple of years. The 50 ton
section of the projected 300 ton mill mentioned in the report, led to a
Hollywood type premier ground breaking ceremony, the likes of which will never
be seen again in the Panamints, at least in our time.
On page two of the "Brochure", the total assets of the corporation were
listed-at $1,604,000.99.
The writer did not attend the ground breaking ceremony at Panamint City,
but he did have a friend who did. Leonard Murnane, who in our opinion, was the
best editor the now defunct Trona Argonaut Newspaper ever had. Mr. Humane in
his weekly column, "The Crock of Tears", rather sarcastically described the
ground breaking shindig in a masterful fashion. Said editor Murnane, and again
we quote:
"Having been told in advance to keep the Panamint City blowout on the QT,
we never let out a peep in last week's Argonaut about the Big Event, but some
other sheets let it out, and scads of natives' were on deck bright and early
Sunday ayem, before noon even, to see the Hollywood Stahs (beats us, but that's
what they call 'em) land at Trona Airport in four big planes. The Stahs, about
a hundred of them, boarded three buses, two of them our own Los Angeles - Trona
stages, and set out over the Slate Range Crossing, as bookie odds slipped from
8 to 5, to even, that they'd never make it to the Late Chris Wicht's place in
Surprise Canyon. The buses got within a quarter mile of the joint before they
had to unload their passengers, so that they could make the rest of the hill.
The drivers, including our own Hank Hull, disagreed rather sharply with a guy
who told them there were no rocks on the road.
At Chris Wicht's place the Stahs were herded into a fleet of big sixwheel-drive trucks that took off at a business like 2 miles per hour, on the
last 5 miles for Panamint City, and the trip through all that there sand and
rocks and stuff was made without loss of a single life, although there was at
least one that was in jepardy the first hour or so until he finally ran out of
cute things to say.
32
Arriving at Panamint City, we met two very intelligent and interesting
ladies who were dishing out chicken in the kitchen; we had an enjoyable chat
while the chicken lasted. We hated to leave those two ladies, they were good
company, but we left, and boarded that blasted truck once again. This time it
ran up the side of a mountain, came to a dead-end, turned around and ran down
again. Back where we started from there was a flock of Stahs leaning on a
shovel and everybody was taking pictures and smiling and flashing leg and
somebody yelled bingo and the blowout was over.
We had been eyeing a couple truckloads of H'wood electric lighting
doodads, and were told that a big mine was to be brilliantly lighted inside for
our inspection. So we asked when we were going to the mine, and were told that
a couple of H'wood lens snappers had looked at the mine and refused to go in,
so there would be no pics. We ventured the suggestion that maybe we had been in
mines before, and would still like to go down into the mine for some photos. No
Go.
By this time we had been in Panamint City a little over an hour, andas
the Hollywood visitors were getting antsy, it was decided to lam down the hill.
Then along comes a guy carrying a case of White Horse and he is handing out
crocks to boys and girls and we reach out a gam hopefully and the guy says Nah!
these is for the people what came up here. We ask him where in the lousy soand-so he thinks we came from, and the guy says the crocks are 0NLY for the
Stahs..Phitt!!!! just like that. Shoulda borrowed a cowboy suit, I reckon.
We made it back down in the dark in about an hour and a half, and made a
few discreet inquiries about a possible bottle of beer that some Stah might
have overlooked. No go. Then back to Patash town over Slate Range Crossing. We
blew a brand new tire to wherever it is that tires go when they blow, on a rock
that wasn't even there. It couldn't have been, the man said there wern't any.
The chicken was swell. The two ladies in the kitchen were a little
overwhelmed by having so many Stahs around, but we surely enjoyed talking to
them while knawing the chicken. Then to, we had a nice ride up the mountain
with our old friend Lucky Baldwin, even if he was all work and no play."
And so it goes. Panamint City's first boom was caused by silver taken
from the ground. The last boom was caused by money being put back into the
ground. In mining circles, there’s an old axiom - "more money has been put into
the ground than has ever been taken out."
Nathan Elliott bowed out of the picture in a dramatic Hollywoodian final.
His mysterious disappearance set off quite a manhunt locally.
************************
THE TALL JOSHUA OF
SHOSHOKE
On October 29th, five hundred people gathered on the Shoshone Golf Course
to pay their tribute to State Senator and Mrs Charles Brovn and to help the two
grand people celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
When asked how they managed to live together happily for fifty years, and
what advice they might give young couples, Mrs. Brown replied, "it takes a heap
of tolerance to live with a person for fifty years. It doesn't take a big
wedding to make a marriage last." Said Senator Brown, "never avoid a
disagreement, because you always have a lot fun making up." And on the
importance of compromising, - "for instance, if I want to go to Sacramento and
my wife wants to go to Los Angeles, we compromise, and go to Los Angeles.
33
Stella Francis Fairbanks was born October 10, 1892 in Annabella, Utah. In
1905 mother and dad R.J.Fairbanks with their family of five boys and two girls
moved to Ash Meadows, about thirty miles north of Shoshone, where Dad ran a
tent store. Later the Fairbanks moved to the booming mining camp of Greenwater,
where Dad ran a saloon and a freight line. Here Stella met and was courted by a
tall southerner, Charley Brown.
Charley Brown was born December 11, 1883 at Talbottom, Georgia. His
family came to California in 1905. When Greenwater folded, the Fairbanks moved
to Shoshone, a whistle stop on the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, where they
established an "eating house". Charley, to be near took a job at the Noonday
Mine and continued to court Stella. He rode a mule to see her, and even walked
the ten miles when he couldn't borrow the mule. The courtship ended when the
young couple took the T & T from Shoshone to Goldfield, Nevada, where justice
of the peace Barnes married them on October 29, 1910.
After honeymooning at the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, the young couple moved
to the Lila C. Mine, where Charley worked in the Borax Mill. In 1911 they moved
to Dale where Charley became foreman of the mill. Their first child, Bernice,
was born in 1913, and their son Charles Jr., the following year. When the Dale
mill closed, the Browns moved to Tonopah, where Charley worked as hoist
foreman. Son George was born in Tonopah. In 1920 the Browns moved back to
Shoshone, their home ever since.
Entering a partnership with Fairbanks, Charley put in a gas pump, built a
swimming pool a warehouse for railroad freight, and the first house in
Shoshone. They rented rooms ran the store, and served T & T passengers with all
they could eat for fifty cents. Their daughter Celecta was born in 1921. To
provide schooling for their children, the Browns built a school house and paid
the first teachers salary themselves.
In 1924. Charley was elected a supervisor of Inyo County, a position he
held until 1938. During this tune it is said that he traveled 57,000 miles just
to attend supervisor meetings in Independence. Perhaps it was all this
traveling that fostered his abiding interest in good roads for his eastern
Sierra counties. In 1939 Charley was elected Senator of the 28th District,
serving Inyo, Mono, and Alpine Counties. In the state senate he was sometimes
called the "Tall Joshua From Shoshone". He is now senior Senator having served
twenty-one years under four governors — Olsen, Warren, Knight, and Brown. He
served on many committees, among them the Fish and Game, and the Rules
Committees. Two auditoriums are named in his honor.
It always gladdens the cockles of this writers heart when we think about
the small part we played in helping Charley Brown launch his political career.
In 1924, when Charley first ran for supervisor of the 5th district of Inyo
County, I was a young storekeeper for the Inyo Chemical Co., at Cartago on the
shore of Owens Lake. I was just a year out of the south, hardly dry behind the
ears, and a little homesick. One day a tall man walked into the general store,
presented me with his card, and in a southern drawl, announced that he was
running for supervisor. Charley Brown was the man, and from the first words he
spoke I knew that I had found a friend. A fellow southerner who spoke my
language, and I also knew that I was going to help him in his campaign. It is
generally known that southerners stick together where ever they bump into each
other on the four corners of the globe. As I remember, Cartago had a 140
registered voters, and that was probably the largest block of votes in the 5th
district.
The incumbent, a Mr. Butler, who was serving a second term, lived at
Olancha, three miles south of Cartago. Mr. Butler was friendly toward Inyo
Chemical Co., and especially to Bill Lowery the superintendent. Mr. Butler kept
the roads (all dirt) in and around Cartago, Olancha and Darwin in fine shape by
continually scraping them with the county road grader, while sadly neglecting
the Shoshone and Death Valley roads. Charley Brown had requested and reminded
Mr. Butler many times that he was the supervisor for the whole 5th district,
and not just the western portion where he lived, and that he should scrape all
the roads. But Mr. Butler was reluctant, it was a long way to Shoshone and
Death
34
Valley. He figured there wasn't enough votes in the "Badlands" to hurt him come
election time. But Mr. Butler failed to reckon with the ability and the
stubbornness of Charley Brown, and the block of Cartago votes. It cost him the
election. Charley Brown knew that the only way to improve the roads in his end
of the district, was to unseat Mr. Butler.
Here is how it happened.
In those days companys were not so strict in keeping politicians and
peddlers off of their property. Mr. Butler had free run of the company1s plant.
But not Charley Brown, for when he asked Mr.Lowery for permission to go into
the plant and introduce himself to the men, Mr. Lowery denied him the
priviledge with these words, "all my men are for Butler, you would be wasting
your time." When Charley came back into the store from Mr. Lowerys office and
with a long face told me what had happened. I knew that I had a job to do for
Charley Brown. Most of the employees lived in company bunkhouses, traded at the
company store and received their mail at the post-office in the store. I knew
them all, and when I spread the word around that Charley Brown wasn't given a
fair-shake, they did something about it. Come election day, the company
furnished transportation to the Olancha polls and gave each man a big cigar,
all in Mr. Butlers interest.
Whenever Charley Brown, Senator Charley Brown; the Tall Joshua of
Shoahone and yours truly get together, which isn't too often anymore, we always
reminisce about Mr. Butlers amazement when he failed to carry his own precinct.
What do you think became of the county's road grader when Charley Brown was
elected? Why! it was moved to Shoshone of course.
************************
THE DEATH OF A MOLE DRIVER
VITAL RECORD ****DEATH
FRANK TILTON, JUNE 7, 1948
AT BIG PINE, CALIF. .AGE 86
SERVICES, MONDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 14th
BLAKE CHAPEL - INTERMENT BISHOP CEMETERY
To the casual reader who did not know the deceased, Frank Tilton, the
above obituary would be that of just another old man, who had passed away at
the ripe old age of four score and six. To the reader he might have been a
derelict for he died in the county hospital at Big Pine. At that they would
have been near right as only two friends attended his funeral, old timers Cy
Johnson and W.H. (Brownie) Brown, residents of Beatty, Nevada, The single
wreath of flowers, the only tribute that Frank Tilton received was placed on
his casket by Cy and Brownie. These two men had to draft two Inyo County police
officers to assist them, along with the undertaker and his assistant, as
pallbearers. These six who laid Frank Tilton to rest were the only attendants
at the funeral. So in death, Tilton was almost a forgotten man.
But he shouldn't have been for he served one company and its subsidiary
faithfully for about 40 years. He was one of Death Valleys most colorful
characters. Tilton was the last known of the 20 mule-team-skinners who braved
the consuming heat of Death Valley in the days before paved highways and
automobiles, hauling borax out of the valley over Wingate Pass and down to the
rail-head at Mojave.
35
Tilton was born in Kansas on March 17, 1862, but came west as a young
man, to work for the borax company. He drove the colorful, stubborn "20 mule
teams" for the Pacific Coast Borax Company as far back as 1890. A big man,
standing 6 feet 3 inches, he was known as the best 20 mule skinner that the
borax company ever had. He made friends easily as he was always willing to help
his fellow man, especially the underdog.
On the 20 mule team route between Death Valley and Mojave, the stopping
places or stations were 20 to 30 miles apart. It was usually a good days
journey from station to station for the cumbersome wagons. Each driver worked
on one division, as the train crews do today, Tilton might have had the first
division in Death Valley, a distance of 20 miles. At the end of the day he
would arrive with a load of borax, spend the night, and the next morning take
the wagon from Mojave back to the mine.
Some of the way-stations were dry and water had to be hauled in tank
wagons which were coupled to the back of the borax wagons. It was a monotonous
life for the skinners and their swampers who drove the teams between way
stations. The only way they could get out, was to take a team and drive
straight through to Mojave, spend the night there and start back the next
morning, that is, if they were sober enough. A round trip from Death Valley
took 21 days.
The layman has no conception of the hardship endured by the 20 mule
skinners and swampers. The all consuming heat, the everpresent dust and the
sand storms, and the hot water they had to drink, was all in a days work for
them as they dragged along at a pace of three or four miles per hour, at times
the metal buttons on their overalls became too hot to touch. For this, the top
skinners received $150.00 a month. The only solace they had was the bottle.
Tilton’s popularity was garnered from his stamina and strength. He could
do the work of two men. Hail, hardy, and well-met, he was an inspiration to his
fellow workers. If after reaching a station the cook was ailing or out of
sorts, he would cook the evening meal, and if whiskey was available, he would
drink those present, under the table. Come morning and time for departure, if
his swamper was still "out", Tilton, with a song on his lips, though somewhat
out of key, would toss him in the wagon, and be on his way.
Tilton was the Robin Hood of Death Valley, as he would take from those
that had and give what he had taken to those who were in need. His adventures
did not go unrecorded as he was featured in several stories broadcast over the
"Death Valley" Days" program several years ago.
Probably the one adventure that Tilton had that gave him more space in
most of the Death Valley books than the run-of-the-mill characters had, was the
time back in 1899 when he and Dolph Navares set out from Dagget in mid-summer
in search of Jimmie Dayton. Dayton, who managed the Greenland Ranch, which is
now known as Furnace Creek Ranch, hauled his supplies out of Dagget. He always
sent a letter ahead to the general store to have his supplies ready when he
arrived. In this instance, the store keeper complying with the instructions put
the order up, and when almost three weeks had elapsed and Dayton had failed to
arrive, he spread the alarm.
When the news reached Tilton, who happened to be in Dagget at the time,he
said-"hell" I'll go look for Dayton. He's using a set of my harnesses,"
Choosing as a partner Dolph Navares, who was an experienced desert man,
they set out for Death Valley's blazing inferno. Past Coyote Wells, Garlic
Springs, Saratoga Springs and Bradbury Well they traveled. In three blistering
days they were within twenty-two miles of the Greenland Ranch before they found
Dayton's wagon and his four horses dead in their traces. The two lead-horses,
their dead heads held up by the short halter, were still tied to the end gate
of the wagon.
36
Jimmie Dayton wasn't in sight. The weak bark of his starved dog, who was
faithfully guarding his masters body, led them to a near-by clump of mesquite
where Jimmie had crawled to die.
Tilton said that it took two gallons of wine and a gallon of whiskey to
bury Dayton. After the grisley ordeal was over, he wiped his face with a red
bandana, fed his hat and said, "well Jim, you lived in the heat and you died in
the heat, now you have gone to hell."
************************
DEATH VALLEY SCOTTY
Once I was a guest speaker before the Sonora Lions Club, my subject was "
Death Valley." At the beginning of my talk I mentioned Death Valley Scotty.
Immediately, same of the Lions roared; "to heck with Death Valley, tell us
about Scotty."
The Sonora Lions had a rule, limiting their guest speakers to thirty
minutes, but when I got going on Scotty, they allowed me to speak for an hour
and a half. Walter Scott, nee, Death Valley Scotty was not a Scotchman. The
Scotty came from the name Scott. Scotty’s Castle is not in Death Valley, it is
barely in the Monument.
The name Death Valley Scotty goes with Death Valley like pie goes with
coffee;like the early-day prospector went with his burro. Scotty did more to
publicize Death Valley than any other single person. Before the valley became a
National Monument on February 11, 1933, people the world over knew far more
about Scotty than they did about Death Valley. Scotty was many things to many
people, a showman, the P.T.Barnum of the west, a promoter, a publicity hound,
and at times he was out-side the law, as he saw the inside of more than one
jail. His public loved him, especially the newspaper editors, for while Scotty
was in his prime and going strong he was the hottest copy the papers had.
Scotty was not popular with the early day prospectors and miners of the
Death Valley country. To them he was just a braying fourflusher, who had fasttalked some of them out of their gold specimens and rich ores, with the promise
that he would make them rich by using their gold for sucker bait, but Scotty
had a way of forgetting his promises, for they never saw their gold again and
seldom did they see Scotty. To them, he was also the "mysterious Scott". The
mystery was, how he got away with the things he did.
The late Harry Porter once told the writer that one time Scott rode a
mule up to Harry's "Mountain Girl Mine" at the head of Happy Canyon, high in
the Panamint mountains. Scotty came seeking some of the beautiful wire gold
specimens which were produced by the mine, {the writer has always believed that
Harry Porters Mountain Girl Mine was the lost Jacob Breyfogle lode). Scotty
gave Harry the old song and dance routine about making them both rich if Harry
would furnish the specimens. But Harry was already as rich as he wanted to be.
He had the gold in hand, and he had been warned about Scotty’s chicanery, so
Scotty rode back down the mountain empty handed.
Most of Death Valleys early-day men finished out their lives living off
the old-age pension, while Scotty if he wished, lived in a two million dollar,
castle. Whenever Scotty showed up in Barstow leading a gold ladened pack mule,
you could bet your bottom dollar that the gold was garnered by the sweat of
another man's brow...not Scotty’s For he and hard work were not on friendly
terms.
Walter Scott died at the age of 81, on January 5, 1954. He is buried in
Grapevine Canyon, on a knoll over looking the fabulous castle which bears his
name in peoples minds, and on maps. Actually the true name of the place is
"Death Valley Ranch". Scotty at no time ever owned a nickles worth of the
castle. He was born in Kentucky in 1373, the youngest son of a well-to-do horse
breeder. Ironically, Scotty became a mule" man.
37
In his early days in Death Valley he used mules exclusively as a mode of
transportation. He always said that a mule was twice as smart as a horse, and
three times more durable. Even in the evening of his life he kept a couple of
old mules at the castle for sentimental reasons.
When he was 12 or 13 years, old, he ran away from his Kentucky home and
came west, following an older brother, Warner, to Sparks, Nevada, where Warner
was working as a cowboy on a big cattle ranch. It was while on a cattle drive
to the south with his brother that he got his first glimpse of Death Valley.
The valley must have fascinated him as he quit the cattle drive and got a job
as water-boy with a government surveying party that was working in the valley
at the time. It is hard to visualize a boy giving up the life of a cowboy to
pack water in a desolate place like Death Valley,
In the year 1886, at the tender age of 13, Scotty began his long and
illustrious career in the valley of death. It is true that for short intervals
of time he was away from the valley, but he always returned. Before the turn of
the century he was a "2o mule team driver", hauling borax from Columbus Marsh
and the Harmony Borax Works. It was also said that he did a little prospecting
and mining in and around the valley. In 1900 he joined Bill Cody's "Buffalo
Bill 101 Wild West Show" as a sharp shooter, bronco buster and trick rider. He
was with the show a couple of years, touring the United States and Europe, it
was while with the show that he met and married a young woman who was clerking
in a candy store on Broadway in New York City. It was also while with the show
that he met a lot of well-to-do people whom he fascinated with his tall-tale of
the gold in Death Valley. Especially with the tale about the gold in his secret
mine which he intended to work when he returned to Death Valley. It takes money
to develop a mine, if one had a mine, and Scotty needed a grubstake,
At this point it might be well to tell you the meaning of a "grubstake"
and how it worked. Back in those days the grubstake was a perfectly legitimate
business proposition for both the prospector and his backer. It was usually an
oral agreement under which a person advanced money to a prospector for expenses
while he hunted for an ore body. If the prospector found ore before the
grubstake was exhausted his financial backer took half interest and the
prospector took the other half. If no ore was found before the grubstake was
exhausted, it was just too bad for the grubstaker who had gambled and lost.
There were no further obligations on either side.
Scotty found a grubstake in New York, a man by the name of Julian Gerard
who was a vice president of the Knickerboker Trust Co. Gerard’s brother had
married into the wealthy Marcus Daly family, who were mining tycoons in Butte,
Montana. Gerard must have had visions of becoming a mining tycoon in his own
right, as he advanced Scotty a $1,500 grubstake. This was a lot of money in
those days and it became a lot more as the grubstake eventually grew to $4,000
while Scotty chased his elusive mine from one side of Death Valley to the
other. Julian Gerard must have been a patient man and probably never would have
put the squeeze on Scotty for half of the gold that Scotty claimed he had, if
Scotty hadn't kept showing up with gold, gold coin and $100 bills, which he
spent freely, especially if newspaper reporters were present. The oldtimers
snickered up their sleeves when they heard about a death valley mine producing
minted coins and $100 bills.
If this money was coming from Scotty’s secret mine, then, he, Gerard was
entitle to his just half. So he sent a couple of mining experts west to
investigate. This led to the "Battle of Wingate Pass", In which Scotty's
brother Warner was shot through the groin. It wasn't in the script for brother
Warner to get shot, that was an accident, Scotty. had rigged in advance for a
mock attack to be made upon the party which contained Gerard's two men that he
was guiding toward Death Valley. The attack was designed to discourage the two
mining experts from entering the valley. In one respect, the attack worked real
well, as the two men hastily returned to Barstow and caught the next train
east. In another respect, the attack backfired on Scotty,
38
as brother Warners life hung in the balance for several days. Scotty was
jugged, but was soon released when his brother declined to press charges.
Scotty claimed for the benefit of the law, that the attack was made by
his enemies. He never was able to clearify just who these enemies were. He
said that people were a ways following him in hopes that he would lead them to
his secret mine. The records show that along about that time, Scotty had
another grubstaker. A wealthy Mr. Gaylord, who had pumped several thousand
dollars into the elusive mine. In other words, Scotty. was two-timing his
original grubstaker, Julian Gerard. To dispel all thoughts in one's mind that
Scotty ever owned a producing gold mine, in 1912 he was hauled before a Los
Angeles grand jury and according to the testimony he gave before the jury, the
mine in Death Valley was just a myth which he had used for years to promote
grubstakes.
1905 was probably Scotty’s greatest year, the zenith of his mad career.
This was the year that lady luck smiled doubly upon him. This was the year that
Ihe Santa Fe Railroad starred Scotty in its greatest publicity feature. The
title could have been --"The fastest train to Chicago, 44hours and 44minutes",
or "the Coyote Special Howls East." This was also the year that Scotty found
his first and only gold mine in the form of Albert Johnson. A wealthy insurance
man from Chicago. Johnson took Scotty off the hot seat, for no longer did
Scotty have to lie about where he got his money, as everybody knew that it came
from Johnson. Scotty mined gold out of Johnson for 43 years, from 1905 to 1948,
the year Albert Johnson passed away.
The Coyote Special could have been the brain child of the Santa Fe's
publicity department. At that time there was great rivalry between the Santa Fe
and the Southern Pacific. They were both competing for the lions share of the
freight and passenger business to the west coast. Flambouyant Scotty, with his
trademark attire, a high crown western hat, dark blue shirt and flaming red
necktie, was hotter than a four dollar cookstove at the time, publicity wise.
The Santa Fe, wanting to focus the eyes of the nation upon their road,
turned to Scotty and a fast train. An official denied that the railroad had any
part in the publicity stunt, except to charter the special train for Scotty.
Someone gave Scotty ten thousand dollars with instructions as to how it should
be spent.
Scotty rode his mule into Barstow, went over to the depot and chartered a
special train to Los Angeles. News traveled faster than the special train, for
when the train pulled into the Los Angeles station, crowds had already begun to
gather. Walking into the office of general passenger agent, John J. Byrne, and
after sailing his sombrero across the room, Scotty offered to buy any part of
the Santa Fe's rolling stock that would take him to Chicago in 46 hours. Mr.
Byrne must have had the figure at his finger tips, for it did not take him long
to say that the train would cost $5,500. Pulling out a roll of money that would
choke a horse, Scotty peeled off 55 one hundred dollar bills and paid for the
train.
The train consisted of one of the roads fastest passenger engines,
No.442, a baggage car, pullman and a dining car, amid much fanfare departed the
next day, Sunday July 9, at 1:00 P.M. The passengers aboard besides Scotty,
were his wife, his yellow hound dog and several newspaper men. The run to San
Bernardino was made in one hour and five minutes, this was ten minutes under
the roads scheduled time. Here a helper engine was coupled on to assist the
train up the steep Cajon Pass. A mile before the summit was reached, the helper
engine was uncoupled-on-the-fly, and while the speed of the train never
slackened for an instant, the helper engine sped ahead into a siding as the oncoming special whirled over the crest of the mountain. Some of the passengers
aboard wished that they had stayed at home, when the train on the decent of the
mountain grade began hitting the curves at a speed of 96 miles per hour. Across
the plains of the midwest, speed up to 105 miles per hour was attained.
39
Just as the eyes of the world were upon Charles Lindbergh's flight across
the Atlantic ocean in 1927, the eyes of the nation were upon the "Cayote
Special" as it roared across the country. When the coal smoke blackened train
pulled into Chicago station, having set a record by bettering the regular
passenger schedule by some 14 hours and 20 minutes, a tremendous roar went up
from the waiting crowd.
After basking in the glory of a hero's role for a couple of days in
Chicago, Scotty went on to New York. That was a mistake on his part, as Julian
Gerard and his lawyer were among the reception committee. They had a little
something extra in the way of a greeting, a lawsuit for a half million dollars.
The strange partnership of Albert M. Johnson and Walter Scott was
something to behold. "The roughneck and the Christian", their personalities
were poles apart. Johnson was a well educated Christian gentlemen with a
shyness that kept him in the background, yet he found something in Scotty that
satisfied his inner being. Perhaps the swashbuckler life Scotty lived was the
life that he would liked to have lived. Due to his background and natural
timidity it was beyond his reach. He lived the life through Scotty. In a way
Scotty was good for Johnson and Johnson was good for Scotty. Johnson had the
money end Scotty had the ideas as to how the money should be spent. The castle
was built on Scotty’s idea and with Johnson's money. Scotty told Johnson that
he owned some land with plenty of water in Grapevine Canyon. He suggested that
they should build a castle. After having spent a million dollars on the
project, Johnson asked Scotty where he kept the deed to the property. "What
deed" was Scotty1s rejoinder. The land that Scotty held as a homestead was
located six miles east of the castle site. The castle was being built on
Government land, which at the time had been withdrawn from public use,
preparatory to the establishment of the Death Valley National Monument. It took
an act of congress for Johnson to acquire ownership of the property, for which
he paid the government $1.25 an acre for 1,529 acres.
The writer knew Johnson and Scotty, but not intimately. Once they stopped
at Wildrose Station on their way back to the castle after a prospecting trip
into lower Panamint country. They were traveling in their specially built
automobile, constructed to their specification for desert travel - high wheels,
a fifty gallon gas tank, over sized radiator, extra tire carriers, and extra
large tool box. One would have thought that after having lived on canned food
for several days, they would have sat down at the table or lunch counter and
ordered a hot meal, but no, they bought two cans of sardines, two cans of pork
and beans, a box of crackers and borrowed a couple of spoons. They ate out of
the cans while standing at the grocery counter. That was the life of Scotty and
Johnson, doing the unexpected.
************************
40
STAN JONES, SINGING RANGER
Wearily, Dr. Jones entered the Lucky Cuss saloon In rugged Tombstone,
Arizona. He needed a drink and a few hours sleep, as he had been up all night
working on a case of lead poisoning. He had extracted five lead bullets from
the victim's body. Weighing the patients chances to survive as he stepped up to
the bar, he unconsciously bumped into a young fellow at the bar. The young
fellow bumped back and the doctor gave him a shove. Instantly, things began to
happen. The bartender ducked down behind the bar and the bar patrons weaved
away like a field of wheat before a sudden gust of wind. The young fellow
squared around with both hands resting on the guns swinging from his hips. He
glared at the doctor for a moment, then turned and strode out of the saloon.
The bartender arose, white and trembling, and said, "My God! Doc. do you
know who that was?" "no", replied the Doc. "That", said the barkeep," was Billy
The Kid."
Later Doc Jones was standing in the same saloon, the year was 1881, when
the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday shot it out with the Clantons and the
McLowerys, down the street.
On the afternoon of the 23rd of December 1947, Dr. Jones son, Park Ranger
Stanley Jones was in the Park Service Headquarters on Cow Creek in Death
Valley, conversing with Chief Ranger Ted Ogston when a heavy car came to a
screeching stop in front of the building. Breathlessly, a man rushed in and
said there had been a terrible accident. His son had fallen off the end of a
natural bridge and was lodged in a precarious position in a crevice 150 feet
above the canyon floor.
As Chief Ranger Ogston's car roared down the valley toward Natural Bridge
Canyon above Bad Hater, Ranger Jones was busily preparing the ropes that he
would work with by tying sheep-shank-loops. When they reached the scene of the
accident, Ranger Jones kicked off his boots and began to look for a way to
start the climb up the shear wall.
41
There wasn't any. Turning to the victim's companions who were helplessly
standing around, he asked "how did he get started up there?" "OH! we boosted
him up" was the reply. "Well, boost me up then" said Jones. It was impossible
for him to climb directly up to the 17 year old youth, he had to work his way
around to gain the top of the hog-back above him, then work down toward the
youth. The going was tough. Working down the razor sharp ridge he came to a
crevice. Only to get over it was to jump. If he made it, he would have to land
on his knees and maintain a balance. If he didn't make it he would be a goner.
As he sat weighing the chances, he could hear the injured youth moaning and he
could see one of his hands grasping the side of the crevice. Time was running
out. Any moment the boy might lose his grip and plunge 150 feet to instant
death on the rocks below. Jones jumped, landing on his knees, he felt himself
going off balance; there was nothing to hold on to, just the pressure of his
knees on the hog-back. The moment that it took for him to regain his balance
seemed like an eternity. Working down-ward to the youth, he could only get
within twenty feet of him. Resting a moment, he asked the youth if he could use
his arms. He was more scared than injured. Jonesy tossed him the rope and
instructed him to slip his arms into the loops, like putting on a vest
backwards, and to put his belt through a loop, also a foot into another loop.
When this was done, he began in a confident voice to talk the youth up the
slope. "Relax, take it easy and start climbing as I pull; whatever you do
don't look down. If you slip you'll only fall far enough to think that the rope
has cut you in two. Steady, boy, now come on."
Chief Ranger Ogston was down in the bottom of the canyon shouting up
directions for them to take in descending. When they reached the canyon floor,
the youth collapsed from strain and Jonesy was pretty well shaken himself. When
the boy’s father asked him what his name was and how much he owed him, that was
an insult to a ranger - so Jonesy snapped..."My name doesn't matter." The
youths mother noticed that Jonesy’s feet were bruised and bleeding and what
once had been a pair of fancy hand knit sox were now just a muffler for his
ankles. She offered to buy him a new pair of sox. He told her that she couldn't
replace them as it had taken his wife two weeks to knit them from a special
yarn, for him for Christmas. As he and Ogston walked away her voice trailed
after him saying she would send some yarn.
You might be interested in knowing what became of Stan Jones and what
life held in store for him after the daring rescue. The Inyo Register newspaper
printed a story about his success as a song writer. The Trona Argonaut
reprinted the story in its issue February 24, 1949, from which we quote — "Stan
Jones, one of the Death Valley National Park Rangers, seems to have struck paydirt, but with his music rather than uncovering any of the hidden wealth of the
valley, Jones who plays the guitar and sings, frequently entertains at Stove
Pipe Wells Hotel on his evenings off. He also enjoyed joining Ann and George
Pipkin in their evenings of music at Wildrose Station.
Contracts have been signed for performances by the famous "Sons of the
Pioneers" of three new songs - "GHOST RIDERS", "BEYOND THE PURPLE HILLS", and
NO ONE HERE EUT ME". These are in the cowboy vein, and will appear on Victorr
record. The Plainsmen have accepted "A ROSE IN THE GARDEN" another of Stan
Jones' new songs. The American music company will publish, says Jones, two
other new songs, "YOU and ME and The Old Houn’ Dog". "Snowbells and Echoes is a
Holiday season number recently completed which is scheduled for Christmas,
1949," end of quote.
42
Stan Jones’ royalties on the song lifted him out of Death Valley and his
job as a park ranger and carried him to the glittering world of Hollywood where
he continued to write songs and musical scores for motion pictures. He also
became an actor, playing the part of the deputy, the second lead in the TV
series "The Sheriff of Cochise County," which starred John Bromfield.
Stan Jones and the writer had some wonderful times together. He enjoyed
his singing and guitar playing before he hit the the big time. We never heard
him play or sing a song that he had not composed himself except the "Cattle
Call" which he did to perfection. Stan was born on a cattle ranch in Arizona.
Dr. Jones, his father, was 67 years old when Stan was born. Stan was strumming
on a guitar before he was as big as a guitar. The Mexican ranch hands and
cowboys taught him to play and sing.
Being a lover of the great outdoors, he become a park ranger, he was
known far and wide as the Singing"Ranger". Park rangers are shuffled from park
to park like chessmen. When Stan transferred to Death Valley national Monument,
the park personnel were living at their summer headquarters a mile above
Wildrose Station in Wildrose Canyon. One night Stan and his beautiful wife,
Olive, who had been a school-marm walked down to Wildrose Station, enroute they
encountered three rattlesnakes, on the road, us we recall, the beautiful wife
was somewhat shaken up.
Stan was later stationed at the Emigrant Ranger Station. At the time the
writer was a deputy sheriff of Inyo County, we caught a local miner robbing the
old Skidoo gold mill of its machinery for a junk dealer. We chased the miner
down the mountain through Emigrant wash. The miner was heading for Death
Valley, his truck was faster than the jeep, he got away from us. Stan, took up
the chase in his pick-up truck and caught the miner at Furnace Creek Ranch. The
judge in Independence sentenced the miner to six months in the county jail. The
old Jail was small and overcrowed. In order to make room for the influx of new
prisoners, some of the older prisoners had to be paroled. Sheriff Cline, had
our miner brought into his office, telling him , inasmuch as he had served half
his time and had been a model prisoner, he was going to let him out on parol.
The miner looked out the window at the foot of snow on the ground and said to
the Sheriff, "I don't want to be paroled, I like it here. I have a bed, the
place is warm, the grub is good and I don't have a job. If you don't mind I'll
spend the rest of the winter with you. The miner served the rest of his term.
Stan Jones got his break when he was transfered to the Death Valley Nat'l
Monument as a lot of movie companies work in the valley. The sand dunes near
Stove Pipe Wells have doubled for many Saraha Desert scenes. Randolph Scott was
on location in the valley, his company was staying at the Stove Pipe Wells
Hotel. Stan was assigned to the movie company as a security ranger. At night he
would entertain the guest in the cocktail lounge. Randolph Scott liked his
style, so he invited Stan to visit him in his home in Hollywood, and he would
tape some of Stan's songs. Stan paid Scott a visit and true to his word, he
threw a big party for him, a recording party. After Stan had recorded "Ghost
Riders In The Sky", a little man tapped him on the shoulder. Stan asked, "Who
are you?" The little man replied, I am "Nature Boy" and I have a friend who I
am sure would like "Ghost Riders". "Who is your friend?" asked Stan. "Burl
Ives", end if you wish I'll make an appointment for you. Burl Ives recorded the
song and so did Vaughn Monroe, Stan was in, the break he had been waiting for
had arrived.
Stan was reluctant to give up his ranger job, he asked the park service
for a years leave of absence. The Superintendent would not grant the request,
so Stan went over his head to higher authority to get the leave. The night
before Stan was to go to Hollywood, the park personnel gave farewell party for
lie and his wife.
43
Stan rendered several of his favorite songs including "Ghost Riders In
The Sky". Cookies and red punch were served. The party was one of the
chilliest we ever attended. The Superintendent was peeved because Stan had
gone over his head to obtain the leave of absence, so he sat out on the front
porch and made small talk with some of the employees. We kept waiting for some
representative of the park service to make a farewell speech for Stan. The
later it got, the more embarrassing the party became. It seemed that none of
the park people wanted to risk the disfavor of the Superintendent by wishing
Stan a fond farewell. Finally old Pipkin could stand the suspense no longer,
taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, he made the speech. We told Stan how
much we had enjoyed knowing him and his wife Olive, and how happy we were for
his success. We wished him the best of luck and hoped he made a million dollars
with his song. The party broke up, Stan and Olive drove away to Hollywood in
their new Oldsmobil 98. Pipkins drove down the canyon in their surplus jeep.
REFLECTIONS
ON
By H.P. "Nix" Knight
DEATH
VALLEY
INTRODUCTION
Nix Knight, a graduate chemist of Stanford University, who is a good
friend of the writer, served the Pacific Coast Borax Co., now the United States
Borax & Chemical Corp.,for 41 years. Two years, 1915-16 was spent as the
company's first chemist at Death Valley Junction. He retired from the borax
company in 1954. His wife, Mrs. Midge Knight, one of the finest women that ever
lived, passed away in 1957. Nix now makes his home with his son Bill and his
family in Covina. Son Bill, heads the "Liquid Propellent Division" at Aerojet
General's Azusa Plant. Nix's father was postmaster of Padadena for 30 years.
************************
Death Valley Junction first appeared on the map in 1907, when the borax
company pushed the Tonopah & Tidewater H.R. north from Ludlow to furnish needed
transportation for colemanite from the Lila C Mine, which opened that year. A
seven mile branch track between the mine and Junction connected with the main
line there, whence the ore was hauled and transferred to the Santa Fe at
Ludlow, some 160 miles south. For seven years the Junction existed mainly as a
switching point. Then, with the Lila C ores nearing exhaustion, and opening of
the extensive deposits at Ryan under way, the Junction took on a new and
important role that was to continue into 1928 when the developments at Boron
eliminated the Death Valley area as a major source of borates.
Casual visitors of recent years noting some of the more substantial
buildings still in use at Death Valley Junction - the Amargosa Hotel, Corkill
Hall, the Arcades and other structures - may reasonably conclude it was quite
some camp in its day. And so it was, from around 1920 to the end of operations
there in 1928. The few years preceding construction of the "New Junction" on
the present site, however presented a different picture.
44
The camp then was confined to a narrow strip east of the Tonopah &
Tidewater right of way, and conditions in many respects bordered on the
primitive. Living quarters for the most part provided little but the bare
essentials; no running water in cabins or bunkhouse. There was no power for
fans or other electrical appliances during the day; no ice, no fresh milk, and
very few fresh fruit or vegetables. No bread or bakery goods were available
except those made for the exclusive use of the mess house boarders. But seven
full work days per week helped keep everyone's mind off some of these
shortcomings, and occasional references to what earlier pioneers endured in
that country were useful as tranquilizers; in most instances, if not all.
The Death Valley narrow gauge railroad, some 20 miles in length, was put
through to connect Ryan with the Junction, and an entirely new concentrating
plant and village were set up at the latter place. Bath railroad and plant were
completed in December 1914 and operations commenced immediately.
When a routine had been established, the camp decided to celebrate with a
housewarming of sorts—the "First Death Valley Annual Ball," That posed a
question of dance partners; there were only four ladies gracing the community
at that time. The distaff contigent included Mrs. F.W.Corkill, wife of Supt.
Fred Corkill, father of J.F.Corkill who also was a resident then; Mrs. Sam
Merwin, wife of the master mechanic; Mrs. Charlie Steande, wife of the station
agent; and Mrs. "Fergie" Ferguson, wife of the D.V.R.R.engineer. A few others
existed at homesteads and ranches along the Nevada border to the east. To meet
the situation, invitations were sent up and down the line of the T & T.
(Furnace Creek Ranch, then called "Greenland Ranch" was not yet in a position
to furnish any dates.) With the acceptances in hand, arrangements were made for
special pullman to pick up the guests. Spotted on the Junction siding, the car
also provided overnight accommodations. Turquoise blue programs embossed with a
gilt skull-and-bones, added a formal touch. A pianist was imported from Los
Angeles, and Mrs. Corkill's piano was moved to the mess hall which was cleared
for the party. The refreshments were such as could be provided by the cook
house pantry, the punch being a concoction of artificial lemon extract and the
juice from canned rasberries. No fortification.
With no tonsorial services available, getting in proper trim for the
occasion necessitated mutual exchanges of scissoring jobs between friends. Any
resemblances to contour plowing were mere coincidence. Despite such drawbacks,
it is appropriate to quote: "There were sounds of revelry by night...and
bright the lamps shone o'er fair ladies and brave men." A following line -"Let
joy be unconfined" ...does NOT apply. For following the festivities, the
visiting ladies were escorted back to the pullman, the doors were locked, and a
guard posted on each side for the duration. Thus was joy confined.
When the Los Angeles papers learned of this affair, they made the most of
it, one of them referring to the Junction as Eve-less Eden. This resulted in a
number of applications for jobs from adventurous females. They should have seen
what they were asking for; to wit:
A row of nine structures, most of them unpainted, lined a single street
facing the mill. At the north end stood a modern bungalow, newly built for the
superintendent; then a frame cottage occupied by the master mechanic. Next in
line was a store, with living quarters in the rear for the storekeeper, Bert
Sheehan, who also was accountant and book-keeper. Then a bunkhouse for some 30
men, a cookhouse and mess hall, the superintendent's office, and three singleroom cabins accommodating up to three men each. Following the arrival of the
first
45
chemist In January 1915, a second frame cottage, moved down from the Lila C,
was set up next to the superintendents house, and a laboratory was built at the
south end of the line. To the west of the railroad, known as "across the
tracks," company interests were confined to the depot and freight shed, a
roundhouse and "Y" for the railroad, and a cottage for the engine crew. While
this was the extent of company interests across the tracks, it did not exclude
further "interest," for north of this area and toward the present site of the
Junction Village was "Tubb's general store & saloon," flanked by a number of
nondescript tent houses and shacks, all of which, with their tenants, were a
source of considerable annoyance to the management. Back across the tracks
again - it has been mentioned that there was no running water in cabins or
bunkhouse. Tin basins, filled from an outside faucet, were the only means of
"washing up" for the crew. If hot water was wanted, it could be obtained from
the cookhouse boiler which was connected to a waterback, in the coak-fired
cooking range. Laundering was done with plungers worked in a bucket. A few who
desired their shirts "finished" patronized Old Minnie an Indian squaw who came
into camp about once a week. Her visits, however, were mainly to retrieve
tidbits from the garbage barrels behind the cook house. Watching her plunge her
arm to the shoulder in the receptables led many to forego what might otherwise
have been a contribution to better living.
There were no showers for the crew at the time, but a reasonable
facsimile was improvised by the workers themselves when the first warm weather
arrived. The mill was powered by a distillate engine and the cooling water from
the jackets was discharged at considerable height through a wall in the engine
room. Beneath the discharge pipe some sheets of perforated iron were set up,
creating a suitable spray beneath as the falling water impinged on the
platform. The rear of the superintendent's office contained a bedroom and a
bathtub for official visitors, and this tub was available to the "staff". The
Superintendent and the chemist had bathrooms in their homes, but no sewer connections for run-off. The waste water ran out through open ditches, which kept
a variety of insects happy.
Because of no sewer system, there was not an inside toilet in the camp.
Sanitary facilities were provided by Chic Sale pagodas. Regarding these, tales
were told of a famous one at the Lila C which had a standard chain-pull
suspended from the ceiling. Unwary visitors would automatically pull the chain,
thereby setting off a gong from a San Francisco cable car, mounted on the roof.
They would then be greeted by all within earshot when they emerged. Aside from
occasional diversions such as that, there was little in the way of recreation
and amusement but cards and reading. There were no special facilities for
either of these and as for sightseeing or joyriding, there was not one
privately owned automobile in the place. In fact, there were only two Company
cars. A Cadillac for the superintendent and the Model "T" touring car for
general purposes. All hauling was done by teams. No one but the superintendent
and the official chauffeur, "Barney Oldfield," was permitted to drive these
cars. It was a wise ruling, since roads were little more than tracks, in all
directions, with hazardous rocks, high centers end sand traps. There was one
form of joyriding, however, that appealed to some. That was to pump a handcar
up the railroad as far as energy and ambition dictated, then rig a sail and
come home with the wind for free. Clearance had to be obtained from the station
agent to avoid any interference with trains or, possibly more hazardous,
gasoline speeders from Shoshone and Tecopa taking parties for an evening
airing.
46
The same trade wind that powered the handcar and seemed always to be
blowing, obstructed construction of a tennis court for which the management was
once petitioned. The petitioners were asked "how many days a month could you
play?" A committee was appointed to keep a weather record for four weeks and
had to report only one or two days calm enough for tennis, the court was not
built. This may have been part of the balance in nature, as there would have
been no cold drinks available after the game. Because of limited power in the
engine room of themill, no ice plant was installed. There was an occasional
exception, for a while, to this state of affairs, when a refrigerator car would
come through on the T & T. While the crew was busy spotting empties on the
siding, the ice compartments of the reefer would be raided. When this
eventually was discovered, padlocks were snapped on the trapdoors and again the
camp had the choice of hot or warm tea.
Without ice, the only means of preserving for a few days, the perishables
that could be kept, was in screen cupboards covered with wet burlap. They were
fairly effective, at that, and it has seemed strange that this principle was
not adapted to air conditioning long before evaporative coolers first appeared.
But if coolers had been available, they would not have benefitted the
Junctionites at that time. Because of the power shortage, electricity was cut
off in the village during the day, and not even an electric fan could be run.
Current dwellers in the wide-open, or even open-pit country, should count their
blessings.
Fortunately, the water supply via more than ample...in volume, that is.
The water came from a depth of 20 feet at a well near the mill. The stratum,
lying between two layers of hardpan, was effectually sealed off from surface
contamination. The source obviously was the Amargosa river which claims most of
that plain as its bed. The mineral content was so high that its use in drinking
fountains on the T & T cars was prohibited by government railroad regulations
which set standards for saliva. It was satisfactory, however, for the T & T and
D.V. locomotives and the mi11 boiler although the carbon dioxide content of the
steam was so high that it converted the lead lining of a steam plate in the
laboratory to carbonate and washed it away in short order. Hoping to improve
this, a new well was put down later, and another water stratum was struck at
about 70 feet. Sampled by the entire citizenry, it was declared a great
improvement, and moral was boosted accordingly. But this presently had to be
ascribed to the fact that the new flow was some ten degrees colder than the
tepid liquid that came from the 20 foot level, end therefore "tasted" better.
The chemist found that the mineral content of the new supply was worse than the
other well. On seeing the analysis, Supt. Corkill swore the chemist to secrecy
and another triumph of mind over matter was scored, so far a3 the rest of the
camp was concerned.
When the young chemist arrived at Death Valley Junction, he found neither
laboratory nor equipment there. He was told that an exploration party that had
prospected Death Valley for potash in 1913-14 had left their chemical equipment
at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek), and he could go after it. So the next
day, chauffered by Barney Oldfield, the company driver, he got an early look at
the famous valley, which was more than some Junctionites accomplished during
their entire stay there. It is recalled that the first thing done on arrival
at the ranch was to have new transmission bands put on the ford. A team from
the ranch had been to Ryan and trampled down the ruts, and the flivver had to
be pushed by low gear most of the way down Furnace Creek Wash. Fortunately, the
tracks thus made by the ford were still there for the return trip. The
laboratory equipment, a rather sorry collection, was picked up and returned to
the Junction by
47
nightfall. Then came the question of where to set it up. The answer was a table
right in the superintendent's office, with a couple of extra shelves tacked on
the wall. Later the laboratory was moved into a small building close to the
plant. Even during the hottest summer days the door and windows had to be kept
closed to keep out the swirling dust. When the heat became unbearable, the
chemist accidently discovered one day that he could obtain some relief by
taking a stroll over the catwalks above the roasters in the mill. The
temperature up there was in the 150's, and on returning to the laboratory the
place felt comparatively cool. Needless to state there were no white coats or
uniforms in service those days. The only white jacket in the country was worn
by the porter on the T & T pullman. It may be added that there were no coats of
tan either. Everyone was advised to "avoid the sun," and even sleeves were kept
rolled down when one was out of doors in the summer months. During the
chemist's stay at the Junction, on the side, it was permitted to be known that
the laboratory would check, for free, any mineral specimens brought in that
might develop more tonnage for the T & T. It was not long before the chemist
became acquainted with most of the prospectors in the area. He also became
known as bum for reporting countless specimen of "colemanite" as calcite,
"tungsten" ores as barium sulphate, and so on. But chemists become accustomed
to being put on the defensive.
There came a slight interruption in the chemist's introduction to the
Death Valley daze. A workman, one Johnny Bartel, fell from a high point in the
mill and was fatally injured. He was muttering in German, some of which the
chemist caught and understood. Whereupon the chemist was assigned to stand by
in hope of getting a clue to Bartel's home or other connections, none of which
was on record. There was no doctor within a couple of hundred miles and not
the essentials of any first aid equipment in the canp. Bartel died the
following day, and after obtaining clearance from county authorities,it was
arranged to bury him near the camp. Whereupon Fred Corkill spoke up, "I've seen
too many men just dumped in a grave and covered, end I think it is time we
started holding some services." The chemist, wishing to be an agreeable person,
agreed; and he was then and there appointed to conduct the service. It so
happened that in the box in which he had brought his technical books there was
an Episcopal prayer book. With this assistance, services were held. There was
a small after shock, at that, when the coffin caught on a projecting rock in
the grave and stuck, two men jumped down on it and knocked it free. The chemist
heard that "clump" for a long time. Also another echo; some started calling him
"deacon". This ended abruptly when the extent of his vocabulary was disclosed,
when he had to start working nights on the cottage brought down from Lila C
camp, in order to get his family out there before hot weather arrived.
In July, 1916, the chemist had a brief, though not perilous, experience
with the hazards of motoring in Death Valley, when he was assigned to accompany
C.M.Bazor as a witness to the posting of a patent notice on a potash claim in
the South Sink of the valley. It being "that time" of the year, arrangements
were made to stay at the ranch that night and be down at the sink by dawn and
then get out as pronto as possible.
Mr. Razor went to Ryan on the train that morning and was to be picked up
on the road at the base of the mines, to save the ford the rocky climb from
Furnace Creek Wash. The time was set for 7 p.m. About the time the chemist was
to leave the Junction, with the company driver at the wheel, of course, it was
decided that the inevitable replacement of transmission bands on the ford was
advisable.
48
It was dark when the car got under way. The road to Ryan and the Valley
then due west from the Junction to Greenwater, whence it ran north and down the
wash. It was a pitch dark night, the old tracks had been washed out by a
cloudburst just the day previous, and suddenly instead of the weaving trail
through the brush, the car was confronted by a high rock wall. For all the
times Barney Oldfield had been over the road, he had side-tracked into a box
canyon. He backed out and made a new start toward Greenwater. Presently they
were in another box, end another run in reverse was made. This time Barney ran
the car up on a slight elevation near what seemed where the road ought to be,
and announced that he and his passenger would take off in opposite directions
looking for the road. Each took a sheaf of newspapers, which had been wedged
between the five-gallon cans of water packed in the tonneau, the idea being
that whoever found the road would light a pile of papers and Barney would then
drive the car there. In order to find the car again, the motor was left
running. The headlights of a ford those days operated only from the magnato,
and if the engine had died, they would have had the answer to where-was-Moseswhen-the-lights-went-out. The motor kept running, Barney's newspapers
eventually flared, and the journey was on its proper way at last, but well past
the time they were to pick up CM.Razor. The road from Greenwater to the mines
was fairly hard gravel, plus rocks, and Barney was rambling at a good rate when
suddenly a dark object in the middle of the road brought the car to a sliding
stop, only a few yards from it. The object arose and the headlights disclosed
it was Mr. Razor. He had become tired of waiting at the foot of the mines and
strolled up the road toward Greenwater some distance. There he decided to take
a nap, but fearing he would be passed if he lay down at the side of the road,
he bedded down in the middle of it.
The chemist who literally and figuratively "went through the mill" at the
Junction, 45 years ago, and who has endeavored to give a picture of sorts as to
what it was like, was returned to Alameda in September, 1916, for a refresher
course in refinery practice and then sent to the Bayonne, N.J. refinery. He was
succeeded at the Junction by Walter F. Dingley who ended his working days as
secretary of the U.S.Potash Co.
************************
PERK UP YOUR EARS, ROCKHOUNDS
the following article was taken from the Inyo Independent
"HOW OLD IS THIS STRANGE GEODE?"
Three southern Inyo rockhounds are indeed intrigued by the possible age
of a strange geode found in the Coso Range on Valentines day. The stone appears
to be a form of porcelain. Inside the porcelain is a solid metal core, about
three millimeters in diameter. Part of what could have been a solid copper
casing appears on one side of the porcelain...but the copper has decomposed
without leaving any green coloration. The center portion is surrounded by a
petrified wood housing,and on the outside of the geode is a small metal portion
which is non-magnetic, while the small metal core inside the porcelain is
magnetic. Mike Mikesell, 75 yrs. old who has been in California since 1908
found the geode in company with Wally Lane and Virginia Maxey, who operate the
L.M & V. Rockhouud and Gift Shop at Jack Casters Texaco Station_in Olancha.
This find caused quite a stir in the geological field, colored pictures
have been taken of idle geode. One geologist estimated it could be 2 million
years old.
49
A BOY WAS LOST ON THE MOUNTAIN
The elements of the Death Valley country has claimed another victim; a 17
year old boy who was caught in a severe blizzard on the down trail from the
summit of Telescope Peak. This rugged country has claimed many victims in the
past by sunstroke, heat-prostration, and dehydration. To our knowledge the
death of the youth was the first caused by the extreme opposite, a blizzard.
The boy, Richard Hill, was camped in Death Valley with his parents last
November. On the morning of November 27, he drove or was driven to Mahogany
Flats where the public road ends and the foot trail begins at an elevation of
8133 ft.
For an experienced mountain climber the 6 1/2 mile hike from Mahogany
Flats to the summit of Telescope Peak over a good trail in which one only
climbs 2912 ft. would be mere childs play. Young Hill was supposed to have had
considerable experience as a mountain climber in the state of Washington. Even
so, he should never attempt this comparatively easy hike alone, especially that
late in the year.
The hazards faced by a lone hiker are many. To name a few, there is
always the possibility of one becoming violently ill, being effected by the
high altitude, injuries caused by falling, straying from the trail and getting
lost, being bitten by a rattlesnake (true, as the writer once encountered a
rattlesnake on the trail above 9000 ft), and being caught in a heavy snowstorm
which would obliterate the trail while cutting the visibility to near zero.
(The writer is well acquainted with Telescope Peak trail, having spent
part of two summers doing maintenance work on the trail for the National Park
Service, having acted as a guide for many parties on the trail, and once having
guided a party of 79 people on the hike of which 39 reached the summit and
signed the register, while 40 fell by the wayside.)
Young Hill was the victim of an unexpected storm. He reached the summit
and signed the Sierra Club's register. It is possible that the storm was upon
him even then, and as he started the decent the trail could have soon been
blanked out with snow. The freezing wind which was said to have reached a
velocity of 40 to 50 miles an hour could have blown him off the ridge. There is
also the possibility that he reasoned if he went directly down the side of the
mountain he would get out of the storm as he lost altitude.
50
Only God will ever know exactly what happened. We can only surmise that
he was blown or fell into a rock chute. Mercifully he died instantly of a
crushed skull and did not freeze to death. The raging storm which caused his
death also shrouded his body under a blanket of snow and ice in the mountain
fastness for a period of six months. Not until the warm sun of spring came and
melted the ice and snow was the body found by tireless groups of people who had
searched valiantly off and on over the long span of time.
A couple of news items that we picked up will give you an idea of the
magnitude of the search for the boy. SEARCH RESUMED FOR MISSING BOX AT DEATH
VALLEY -Death Valley. - May 5, 1961- Search for Richard Hill 17 of Alameda,
lost, since Nov. 27, I960 on a hike from Mahogany Flats to Telescope Peak
overlooking Death Valley, will be resumed Saturday, Granville Liles,
Superintendent of Death Valley National Monument announced this week. The
Alameda youth was reported missing about 5 p.m. November 27 when he failed to
return to camp of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Roland Hill, who were vacationing
in Death Valley at the time.
Snow, ice, freezing weather and winds from 4.0 to 50 miles per hour hit
Telescope Peak area the afternoon the boy was reported missing. Extensive air
and ground searches were conducted for weeks by numerous volunteer groups The
search was later abandoned until snow melted from the 11,045 ft. Telescope
Peak.
BODY OF MISSING HIKER FOUND - Death Valley - May 13, 1961. Body of
Richard Hill, 17, of Alameda, lost since November 27, 1960 on a hike from
Mahogany Flats to Telescope Peak was located about 5:30 p.m. last Saturday
afternoon by rescue teams. The body was found about 900 ft. down from the top
of Telescope Peak. He had fallen into a rock chute on the northwest face of the
mountain.
Rescuers removed the body Sunday morning and it was flown to Bishop later
in the day, pending funeral arrangements. Participating in the search were—
Serra Madre Search and Rescue Team, Altadena Mountain Rescue Squad, The
Mountain Search and Rescue Group, of NOTS, China Lake, Inyo County Sheriff's
Posse and the National Park Rangers from Death Valley. Inyo County Sheriff's
Office had six men, including Sheriff Cub Culbertson, who reported that all his
men were doing the search on their days off and therefore donating their
efforts to the cause. The body was removed to Rogers Peak road and from there
to Stove Pipe Wells, Don Talmage flew the body to Bishop.
It is much too late to say that this tragedy should never have happened.
Nevertheless a youth on the threshold of adult-hood with a whole lifetime ahead
was lost because somebody failed to think. We only hope that it will serve as a
warning to other strangers, to seek advice before attempting the hike.
***********************
Thirty years ago another young man, Johnny Risk, was lost on Telescope.
Fortunately after spending two cold miserable nights on the mountain Johnny was
found. The story had such a happy ending, we are retelling it just as it was
written on October 31, 1931. "Trona was all agog with excitement last week when
word was passed around, of one lost, strayed or stolen Johnny Risk, a former
employee of the Coffee Shop. It seems that Johnny after leaving the employ of
the Corporation Monday, October 19th, decided to explore the canonical
formations surrounding Telescope Peak, before departing for Los Angeles and
home—-just to take along something to remember us by---a mental picture and
thrilling memory of a lonesome hike along a seldom traveled trail toward
mysterious mountain landmarks of the days of yesterday. Full of the three V’s
of a 26-year old youth, Johnny equipped himself with a half dozen apples, a
couple of sweet rolls and a jug of water, a camera and a Chevrolet. Putting
everything but the car into a knapsack, the lone crusader started the long
51
drive on Monday afternoon, and after deciding to stop in the vicinity of
Ballarat for the night's rest, resumed his journey at six the next morning and
arrived at Thorndike's about eleven A.M. Tuesday, fifty miles from Trona.
Thinking no more of his adventure than just another hike, he confidently set
out on the trail towards Telescope, taking along his knap sack of food, and
leaving the jug of water locked in his car at Thorndike’s, with self assurance
that he would return by nightfall.
Johnny had no trouble in reaching the top of Telescope, 11,045 feet
elevation, about four Tuesday afternoon. All he saw was the Johnson claim and
six inches of snow, for the sudden mist and thick fog enveloped him so
completely that he could not see more than twenty feet ahead. After five
minutes rest, he started back down the trail, which was fairly visible for
about an hour, after which he must have strayed off on an animal track, leading
down toward the Indian camp in lower Tuber canyon.
When darkness settled and no Johnny came back, Thorndike started to
wonder about the boy, and his wonder turned to worry on the next day,
Wednesday, when he awoke and saw the car standing there, still waiting for its
master. After waiting several hours for Johnny’s return, he decided to drive 50
miles over mountain and desert to Trona, where he found the boy’s friends also
worrying about the stray lamb, and making plans for a searching party to leave
for the hills that night. Thorndike returned to his camp and arranged to meet
Johnny’s friends there the next morning. On Wednesday at midnight, Harper,
Hanson and Whalen left for Thorndike’s and returned Thursday noon with the
discouraging news that the boy could not be found.
Word was telephoned to the sheriff at Independence to send out a posse of
men that could climb the highest mountain, and Jim Boyles (who knows the
country better than a geographical text book) was sent out with Erick Madison
of culinary fame, with Jim's car loaded down with the proper paraphernalia
suitable for a man hunt, most important of which was food.
There were now on the hunt, a posse from the sheriff's office, a car from
Trona, and Thorndike himself, accompanied by prospector Bob Warneck and Deputy
Sheriff "Silent George" Griest (with his badge, handcuffs, and six-shooter.) In
addition, Art Cheney and Lee Taylor, two intrepid flyers, winged their way in
search of the lost one. They were all set with paper and weights and were ready
for a thrilling rescue.
In the meantime, Thorndike and Deputy Griest had set out on the trail
along the ridge (this was about six O'clock Thursday morning.) and after
plodding along for three or four hours, lo and behold, who comes down there
toward them but Johnny himself. "Where have you been, my boy?" Where did you
sleep the last two nights? And without blankets? We thought, but wait...here,
take a bite of this...now a little drink...steady, boy...steady...take your
time; now there my lad... Now don't say anything until that tummy of yours
fells a bit better...WAIT, WHAT'S THAT?... By Heaven,it's an airplane. Look at
that thing come over the top of Telescope..." The rescues and rescuers take off
their shirts and wave - madly, frantically, enthusiastically - happy at the
thought that Trona boys were doing everything in their power to save a man, and
to think they would even resort to such a modern method of hunting down a
strayed soul.
Well, Art and Lee were in at the finish of the hunt, even if they did
come a little late. And who comes along the trail a little later, but good old
Jim and Warneck. That a happy reunionl
So while the eagle majestically wends its way homeward, the ground crew
and the lost sheep start down the two-mile trek for Thorndike's. There Erick
prepared a choice steer beef roast such as is never served in a restaurant,
with succulent gravy such as is never wasted on a politician's vest; and with a
combination like that, there is nothing left to do but to eat and listen to the
prodigal1s perils and his method of overcoming them.
52
The papers said there were 90,000 cases of Spanish Influenza (American
Variety) in our national capitol this last week. I say there were 1000 cases in
the Mojave Capitol of Trona, and I should know as I was one of them. After
tramping around in the snow up at Wildrose over the weekend, I came back to
Trona on Monday ready for the hospital. After getting a chilly reception in a
warm waiting room, Dr. Bill Denton ran a blood test which decided that I was
wearing too many clothes or else I was just trying to get in the hospital
because SEAELES LAKE ANNIE was there. Finally I talked the good doctor into
putting me to bed. The next morning when he made his rounds, he said that I was
sick. He wasn't telling me anything new for by then, I had had so many shots in
the arm and legs that I was sore and sick all over.
Fortunately they put me in the ward with the Grand Old Man of Trona,
Oscar Johnson. Some say that Oscar was discovered before Searles Lake. Anyway,
he's our oldest old-timer and he was in the hospital convalescing from too many
years on the desert. When Oscar would tire of singing, he would unfold a tale
from out of the past, when he was a gay young blade and didn't know any better.
One day when we were feeling pretty good we got to talking about the
automobiles we had seen. Then Oscar got going. He said, "you know, fellows, I
have the distinction of being the first man to drive an automobile through
Cajon Pass out of San Bernardino. You could hardly call it an automobile and
you could hardly say I drove through the pass, as I was pulled over the summit
by a four horse team. It was early fall in 1909, I was working for a Los
Angeles Mining Outfit with modern ideas, miming companies usually have modern
ideas with other people's money. My company pioneered the new fangled gas buggy
on the Mojave Desert, so to speak. They purchased a two cylinder "Tourist."
This automobile was in mass production, two a year, at the corner of Tenth and
Main Street in Los Angeles.
My job was to blaze a trail with this "horse frightener," to the
company's property at Crystal Lake near Needles. It took me a week to reach
Barstow, as thirty miles out of Los Angeles, a gear broke and I had to return
to the city for new parts. The car had only two speeds, high and low, and was
chain driven. The differential was open on two sides and I spent a great deal
of time digging sage brush and mesquite sticks out of the gears.
When I came put! put! putting! down the hill, into Victorville, all the
natives turned out to gawk at what must have been the first automobile they had
ever seen. They got in my way and asked me a thousand questions.
In those days oil and gasoline came in sealed containers and was sold in
grocery stores. I went to the leading store and asked for motor oil. The
proprietor didn't have any, but said there was a new fangled gasoline engine at
a mine thirty miles back in the desert and that I might obtain some there. I
looked over the stock and in the patent medicine section, on the top shelf I
spied two one gallon cans of castor oil. Knowing that castor oil could be used
as motor oil, I purchased the two cans and filled up the crankcase. When I
started the motor the exhaust pipe gave off a heavy blue smoke that had a
terrible odor. It smelled like castor oil tastes. For years I was almost afraid
to go through Victorville, for fear the people would recognize me as the fellow
who stunk up the town with the horseless carriage. When I drove away, fording
the Mojave River at the edge of town, and upon reaching higher ground on the
opposite bank I couldn't see the town when I looked back as_it was completely
blanketed with castor oil smoke.
Ash Hill lies many miles east of Dagget along the Santa Fe Railroad. The
composition of the hill was lava ashes and sand. Nature never intended for a
1909 model Tourist Automobile to climb that hill. It took three days to get
over the hill. I made it by the use of four long strips of canvas which came
with the car as standard equipment for just such emergencies. The canvas was
used under the wheels
53
for traction.
I was on the hill so long that every train crew on the division knew me
as the young fellow who was stuck in the middle of the Mojave Desert with a
horseless carriage. They all whistled and waved in passing. On the third
day, I was sitting on the running board of the car with my elbows on my knees
and my chin cupped in my hands. I was feeling pretty low and was about to give
up when a long freight came blowing. When the engine cab came opposite me the
fireman kicked off a fifty pound chunk of ice which rolled across the sand and
came to rest at my feet.
That chunk of ice helped me over Ash Hill. I had a few bottles of beer
left so I cooled them and drank a couple. The extra lift in energy saved the
day for me and I finally completed the journey to Crystal Lake.
The return trip is another story, Oscar said as he yawned, lay back on
the pillow and fell asleep. Oscar Johnson, the lovable Swedish-American who
always murdered the English language, died in 1954. He is buried in the Argus
Cemetery alongside his inseparable pal, Edward Alfred Donohoe, a native of
Massachusetts, who was Trona's first judge.
*********************
TALES OF OLD BALLARAT
Jim Sherlock, an old-timer of the Panamint Mountains, spent his last days in
the town of Ballarat. He is buried in the Ballarat boothill and his grave
sports the best tombstone in the garden of death. If my memory serves me
correctly, the inscription on the stone reads, "Jim Sherlock 1860 – 1937. "
According to the old-timers who knew Jim, he was a man of mystery with a past.
It was said, but not in Jim's presence, that he was an ex-gunslinger from the
Montana-Wyoming country. Jim was never caught doing a day’s work, yet, he
always had money. It was also said, but not until after his death, that he had
lived under an assumed name. Desert Sands knew Jim as a peaceful fun-loving old
man. The story we started out to tell about Jim was how he won a few bets from
the boys about town.
Jim Sherlock was famed throughout the Panamint region for breaking the
speed record between Ballarat and Los Angeles sixty years ago. He made the trip
in eight days flat. The way the old-timers told it, Jim out-slickered the boys.
The record at the time was held by a mining promoter who drove a fast team of
horses. Jim drove a team of burros when he announced he was out to break the
record and he was covering as many bets as possible, the boys fell over each
other to take what they thought would be a cinch bet. Jim had something up his
sleeve, he had a trick buggy that folded up like an accordian, and he took all
the short cuts. When he came to a mountain that the road went around, he folded
up the buggy and packed it on the burro and went straight over the mountain. He
beat the record by one day. When Jim returned to Ballarat and the boys found
out how he did it, they paid off with a smile. There was a wild celebration in
Ballarat that night.
54
MOUNTAIN BIGHORN VISITS BOROSOLVAY
The old adage that truth Is stranger than fiction fits this story to a tee. A
story that could be appropriately titled, "The Case of the Accommodating Ram,"
or"If You Can't Find Me, I Can Find You."
This may seem unbelievable to many, but that's exactly what happened.
After spending a day high in the Panamint Mountains on the rim of Death Valley,
in hopes that we might catch a glimpse of the mountain sheep in their natural
haunts, we returned home, sixty miles away, and found one in our back yard the
following morning.
To go back to the beginning of the story, we had some guests up from Los
Angeles over a Labor Day Weekend twenty years ago. One, an able photographer,
who brought along an expensive camera with a telescopic lens attachment, was
anxious to obtain some shots of Death Valley, from Panamint Mountains. So
early Labor Day morning we took off In a two car caravan our party's
destination was to be Aguereberry Point from where a wonderful view of the
valley can be obtained.
We stopped at Harrisburg Flats to pay our respects to Pete Aguereberry
and he accompanied our party to the view that bears his name. After our
photographer had snapped pictures to his heart's content, the conversation
drifted around to the big red mountain towering loftily to the north of us.
"Old Tucki." As is the custom for us who inhabit the bad lands, we began to
exploit the virtues of our surroundings. I casually mentioned that "Old Tucki"
was a well known retreat for the wild mountain sheep and at once the
photographer was anxious to try a picture of the sheep. Realizing then that I
had said too much, I tried to explain to him that finding sheep on Tucki would
be as hopeless a task as looking for a needle in a haystack, due to the fact
that they were one of the wildest creatures on earth and that we might search
for weeks, yes, even months and not catch a glimpse of them. He was not to be
deterred; so to oblige our guests, we drove northward to Skidoo. Leaving the
cars here, we hiked far out on the ridge, getting as close to Tucki as
possible. From an advantageious point we scanned the mountain slope with
glasses for more than an hour, but to no avail. There just wasn't any sheep to
be seen. Finally giving up the vigil we wearily drove home. After resting for a
couple of hours, our guests departed for Los Angeles. Early next morning we
were awakened by a great commotion among the chickens in a pen back of the
garage. They were squawking to the high heavens. Searles Lake Annie (that's my
wife) got tip to see what was causing the disturbance, It was 5:30, yawning, I
turned over for another nap. Immediately dozing off I lies suddenly awakened by
Ann's screaming, "George, come quick, here's a mountain sheep in the back
yard." "No." I couldn't believe it, nevertheless, I jumped out of bed, grabbing
my pants on the run and bolted out the back door.
55
I came face to face with a big ram which was exactly the color of the
surrounding sage brush.
The ram had the largest spread of horns that I have
ever seen, even larger than any I have seen mounted in a trophy room.
He didn't seem to be a bit wild as he stood looking at us with mild
curiosity. We could have taken a good picture of him at this spot due to his
closeness to us but in all our excitment the camera was completely forgotten.
Then out came Ned (our sixteen year old son) with a rope.
He was going to
attempt to lasso the sheep.
Ned approached within ten feet of the ram and
still he didn't move, but when he twirled the rope and let fly with a loop which missed, the ram put his head down and made a pass at him. That was the
last of Ned, as he dropped the rope and tore out through the sage brush.
The ram didn't follow him, however, but turned away and trotted southward,
traveling against the morning breeze, down the back alley. Mrs. Bessie Tyler,
who was up at the time, stood in the back yard at her home and watched him trot
by.
By this time Searles Lake Annie had fetched her camera from the house and
I can truthfully swear that she chased the ram for two miles in her bare feet
trying to take a picture of him.
The ram was traveling toward Westend.
Knowing that Ben Roos of Westend, who has seen a lot of mountain sheep in his
time could identify this one as a wild sheep. I got the car and drove down to
Westend and got Ben out of bed, then drove to Trona and awakened Clark Mills so
that he could come down and see the sheep.
The reason for all this activity
on my part was that I wanted a few witnesses who could vouch for the truth of
the story, for when I started spinning the yarn to people, I didn't want then
to say that I'd better change my brand, but some of them did anyway.
Neverless the story is true and it's still stranger than fiction.
************************
SAND SPIKES
Mr. and Mrs. H.W.Pierce, who owned and operated the Cresent Bay Lodge at Laguna
Beach, spent a day in Trona early in April of 1940. Mr. Pierce was one of the
first discoverers of the Sand-Spikes, found just inside the United States line,
near Mt. Signal, Mexico.
These spikes are freakish geological growths, that are shaped like an
ancient mace, a ball from the base of which projects a tapering stem. Specimen
dug from the age old beds of fine "hour glass" sand, the spikes range from a
half inch to nearly a yard in length. What caused these oddities to grow in
such uniform shapes? Why they are found in this one locality, and no other
place in the world? Did they grow from scratch, where they are found in the
sand or were they washed into position by waves or tides? Scientists would like
to know the answer to these questions but the origin of sand spikes remain a
mystery. Theories have been advanced and as quickly discarded. Some claim they
are petrified gopher holes, but Mr Pierce, who has been collecting odd
geological freaks for half a century, is credited with the best theory...
"that only the Lord knows for sure how the sand-spikes origenated and he hasn't
told." Mr. Pierce donated three sand-spikes to the Searles Lake Gem and Mineral
Society.
56
LIQUID GOLD
If you have water on the desert you have everything. If you do not have water
you have nothing but beautiful country and dry air. Many early day homesteaders
learned to their sorrow that they could not live on dry air and scenery.
The great city of Los Angeles would still be a sleepy pueblo with the highest
water cost in the land had it not been for the far-sighted city fathers desire
to see their pueblo grow into a large and prosperous city.
They knew, they had the horses with which to do the job, the semitropical but arid climate, the fertile soil of the southern California plain,
the mighty Pacific Ocean and the towering mountains that rimmed the plains to
the north. But one horse was missing, a very vital one, WATER. Of course they
had some water which came from the Los Angeles river and from subterranean
wells. But during the dry years this water decreased at an alarming rate. If
they were to some day, have the largest city in the world, then they would have
to go out for water. Perhaps way out. So in the year 1905 when the population
was a mere 200,000, the board of water commissioners in co-operation with
William Mulholland, who was the boards chief engineer (Mr. Mulholland , later
became known as the father of the Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct) began a
thorough and systematic search for an adequate water supply. Among some of the
sources which a study was made, were the San Gabriel River, Piru Creek, a
tributary of the Santa Clara River in Ventura County, and South Fork of the
Kern River Country. At this point Fred Eaton, a former mayor and engineer of
Loa Angeles entered the picture. Mr. Eaton had vast interests in Inyo County,
during his many trips through Owens Valley he sav in the beautiful mountain
creeks an abundance of water, fed by snow fields of the Sierra-Nevadas, dashing
head-long into Owens River and going to waste in the dead sea of Owen Lake. Mr
Eaton had visions of this sparkling mountain water being the answer to Los
Angeles water and hydro-electric needs and through the eyes of an engineer, he
saw the feasibility of a gravity flow aqueduct that would convey the water to
the city.
57
So confident was he, that the city would go for the project, that he set about
acquiring options and leases on land and water rights along the Owens River,
When Mr. Eaton presented his plan to the city, engineer Mulholland was sent out
to investigate the possibilities, and after some study, he advised the city to
buy Mr. Eaton's options and leases. This they did. The citizens of Los Angeles
voted 01,500,000 in bonds for the purchase of private owned land and water
rights in Owens Valley.
In November 1906, the city hired three of the United States most eminent hydraulic engineers to examine and report on the project. They reported that the
project was feasible, that it would furnish all the water and power the city
would ever need, that it would cost $25,000,000 and could be built in five
years. How little did they know what the future held for Los Angeles and
Vicinity.
President Teddy Roosevelt gave the city a helping hand in June, 1906, when he
signed a bill passed by congress, granting free right to the use of all the
public lends along the route of the aqueduct. The city voted the bonds and
William Mulholland built the aqueduct in five years at a cost of $23,000,000
which included the cost of the land and water rights. The aqueduct stands
today as a monument to Mr. Mulholland1s engineering ability.
Engineers had estimated the population of Los Angeles would be a half million
in 1936. This mark was reached by 1923. By 1923 the city fathers knew that the
water from Owens River Aqueduct would soon be insufficient at the rate the city
was growing, so they turned to the Colorado River for more water. This being a
State Political Project & Metropolitan Water District was formed, which supplied water to Los Angeles end 23 other outland cities at the time. The
Colorado River Aqueduct was completed in 1939. It is the largest domestic
water supply system in the world. 392 miles in length and built at a cost of
$200,000,000. Compare this cost with Owens River aqueduct, 250 miles in length,
built 26 years earlier at a cost of $23,000,000 and now in the year 1961 more
water is needed for the future growth and development of Southern California.
Already the preliminary work has begun on the great Feather River project,
which will bring water from far away Northern California. We shudder to think
what the cost of the project will be by the time it is completed. A figure of 1
3/4 billion dollars has been set. We might mention that besides the water
flowing into Southern California from Owens and Colorado river aqueduct,
another 200,000,000 gallon is pumped from underground reserves, a day.
Los Angeles is known as the city of tomorrow. Embracing 455 square miles. This
metropolitan complex with a population of close to seven million, that
is,counting the population of the 85 surrounding town and cities dependent on
the Metropolitan Water District. Los Angeles will soon be the largest city in
the world, providing a way is found to control the smog, but where would it be
with out the liquid gold of water? After giving you the history of the city’s
water supply, let us go back and review the first aqueduct. The Owens River
aqueduct was an engineering feat, equal by none in its day. Built back in the
horse and buggy days. The days of hand drilling end black blasting powder, the
days when material was hauled by train and transfered to wagons for short hauls
to the construction sites. No other public works at all comparable in magnitude
to this has been accomplished within the limit of cost and time fixed by
engineers in their estimates. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the
builders set a worlds record for efficiency and economy.
58
Perhaps you would be interested in some of the aqueduct's statistics.
Actual construction began on October 1, 1908, however before the work could
start the following things had to be built. 215 miles of road, 230 miles of
pipe line, 218 miles of power line, 377 miles of telegraph and telephone lines,
and a hundred miles of railroad from Mojave to Lone Pine. The road was built
by the Southern Pacific for the city of Los Angeles, and wasn't completed until
1910. Its sole purpose was to haul materials to the aqueduct as the
construction crawled northward. It was known as the Nevada and California
Hallway. After the aqueduct was completed the city sold the road back to
Southern Pacific. It is now their Jawbone Division.
124,929 acres of land was purchased from private owners in Owens Valleys
for which they were paid a good price. More land was later purchased, in fact
96% of the land in Owens Valley is today owned by public agencies. A million
barrels of cement was used in the aqueduct. The cement came from a plant the
city built in the Tehachapi Mountains. The plant is today the Monolith Cement
Company. More than five million pounds of blasting powder was used and only
five men were killed, by explosives. The over all safety record was very good.
The total number of accidents resulting in death were 43. The total number of
accidents were 1326, of which most were minor. 142 tunnels were driven for a
total distance of 43 miles. Many records were set in driving the tunnels, the
records were made by use of a bonus system. Twenty to forty cents a foot was
paid for footage driven beyond a fixed distance per eight hour shift. A base
wage of $3.00 per day for miners and timbermen were paid, and $2.50 per day for
muckers. In wet tunnels, 50 cents a day additional was paid. At the peak of
construction 3900 men were employed along with 1355 mules and horses.
The huge pipes one sees crossing the canyons, is from 7 1/2 feet to 11
1/2 feet in diameter with a thickness of 1/4 inch to 1 1/8 inch. It is put
together with giant rivets, today it would have been welded together. The pipe
syphons the water over the high points in the mountains.
Enough of the dry statistics. Let us brush lightly over the troubled
times in Owens Valley when people fought desperately against the City of Los
Angeles over the liquid gold of water. It was a futile battle of frustration
waged principally to focus national attention upon the plight of a desert area
being drained of its water so that another area could prosper and grow. We will
only record some of the insidents as we remember them. It could be said that
we, as impartial bystanders saw history in the making as we were living in
Owens Valley back in the roaring Twenties when the bitter feud was raging.
We remember the screaming headlines in the metropolitan newspapers:
"AQUEDUCT DYNAMITED" "ALABAMA GATES SEIZED" ARMED GUARDS PATROL AQUEDUCT".
The sad part about the scare headlines, they were all true, these things
actually happened. The happy side, if there was one, was the fact that no blood
was shed in the battle of the aqueduct.
As we have said before the city of Los Angeles paid dearly for the land
they bought in Owens Valley. There was one thing they could not buy, and that
was the deep ingrained love the people had for the land. Many of the people
were pioneers and many were sons of pioneers, and when they saw their Garden of
Eden withering and dying, returning to barren desert from which they had hewn
their ranches, farms and orchards, they went on the warpath. We believe the
spark that ignited the trouble came when the chain of five privately owned
banks in the valley went broke. Most of the people who had sold their land to
the city, had deposited the money in these banks. The tragedy was, their land
was gone and so was their money. Many of the people were too old to move out
and make a living.
When the Alabama Gates on the aqueduct north of Lone Pine was seized by
some thirty unarmed men and opened,allowing the water to flow into the
practically dry Owens River, the City officials insisted that Charley Collins,
the sheriff of Inyo County, take some
59
action against the men, like arresting them, to which, Sheritf Collins made his
famous reply: "Arrest them hell, they are all my friends." Strange as it may
seem, Sheriff Collins was defeated at the next election.
The night the syphon pipe in No Name Canyon, east of Brown was dynamited
created a time of excitement for the residents of Indian Wells Valley. The
water flowed clear across the valley as far as China Lake. When the giant pipe
was broken the sudden loss of pressure created a vacuum causing the pipe to
flatten and whip around like a snake in mortal agony of death. The entire
length of pipe in the canyon had to be replaced. Vernon Carr, an old-timer
still living near Inyokern worked with the crew that replaced the pipe. The
city sent in guards, some armed with machine-guns to prevent further
distruction of their property.
Once I was driving a chevy coupe with a Utah license plate from Cartago
to Lone Pine, at a point where the dirt road closely paralled the aqueduct, I
had to go, in order to get out of sight of the road I crawled through a barbwire fence and over a dirt bank alongside the aqueduct. When I returned, five
armed guards who had driven up, were out inspecting my car. Believe me, I did
some tall explaining.
For many years there was a sign in a Bishop restroom, "Pull The Chain Los
Angeles Needs The Water."
Dorothy Cragen, president of the Eastern California Museum Association,
in her thumbnail history of Inyo County appearing in the current issue of the
Association's Guide Book aptly tells how the people of Owens Valley climbed out
of the morass of despair.
We take the liberty of quoting from the fine article: "For years as
atmosphere of desolation hung over the valley. Many people moved away. The land
was dotted with desolate farm houses and fields. Some of the houses were burned
and others unkempt were moved away. There remained only the little towns with
few if any houses in between. Even some of the town property was sold to the
city of Los Angeles, and people had the feeling that eventually they would all
have to leave the valley.
During this time, however, the road to Los Angeles was improved; hard
surfaced all the way. With this improvement, and new methods of transportation,
Owens Valley became an attraction for tourist. The Sierra Nevada on the west of
the valley, with the rushing streams, its high meadowlands, and scenic views,
called to the people of the southland as a great fishing, hunting and camping
area.
The people of Owens Valley adjusted their lives to the change, turning to
the work of building and planning recreation to meet the demands.
As the City of Los Angeles extended its water system, more and more
people were employed, thus providing one of the biggest pay rolls in the
County. Thus, gradually once again the people of Inyo County faced a changing
world, and pulled themselves up "by their bootstraps." With the help of the
"Fish and Game," the streams and lakes were planted with fish, and rules on
hunting were established. Organized pack outfits began to take tourists into
the back country where the beauties of the mountains were unsurpassed.
Inyo County, the last of the great expanses of California to be settled,
had had its boom times, its dreams, and its failures, but today it is
considered one of the great, if not the greatest, recreation area in the state.
Its sheer mountains, its dashing streams and mountain lakes; its deserts of
rainbow colors with hidden valleys of archeological mystery; make an attraction
not only for those who are seeking recreation, but for those who hope to piece
together the history of long forgotten cultures.
Inyo, the 'dwelling place of a great spirit," it is truly that. In it
still live many of the decendents of the early pioneers; and to this group has
been added rugged personalities who have come to the country because they love
it and want to make it home. Inyo County, often spoken of as "a man's country,"
rugged,lonely, often harsh, awesome in its vastness, but beautiful withal, is
the dwelling place of a great spirit of the people.
60
GEORGE SAVAGE
My heart has many corners. In one very special corner we have tucked away
the cherished memory of George Savage, a departed friend who has gone to his
rewards with the Great Understander.
George Savage was constantly on the go serving his fellowman. In the
span of fifty-eight years spent on this earth, he crammed more endeavor into
his life than any man we have ever known. In the prime of life he crammed
himself out of this world by overworking the machine that was his body. On
September 15, while attending a Boy Scout executive meeting in Pasadena, he
suffered a heart attack.
Several years ago Mr. Savage was in Trona attending a staff meeting of
the Death Valley 49ers Inc. We met him in an alcove of the historical old
Austin Hall. After a firm handsclasp of greeting he turned to his friend and
said: "Here is a man I like." That to me was the best compliment I ever
received.
Mr. Savage was born in Dennison, Iowa. He attended high school at Pomona,
and was a graduate of Pomona College at Claremont. In 1925 he became assistant
to the president of the Pomona staff. In 1928 he was named managing editor of
the Claremont Courier, and in 1933 he and Robert Sanders assumed publication of
the Inyo Independent and the Owens Valley Progress - Citizen. In 1946 he sold
his interest in the Chalfant Press Publications and Published the South
Pasadena Foothill Review, leaving that position to accept the post of Secretary
of the California Highway Commission. It was while working for the commission
that he was persuaded by James A. Guthrie, commission member and editor of the
San Bernardino Sun and Telegram to join Guthrie1s staff.
He served in the Navy in World War II, and was honorably discharged with
the rank of Leutenant Commander. At the time of entering the Navy he was
serving as first vice-president of the California Newspaper Publishers
Association. He had served several times in the Association's Board of
Directors and Executive Committee. He was past president of the Kiwanis Club
and Death Valley 49ers Inc., and this years Production Co-chairman. He was past
president of the San Bernardino Chamber of Commerce, past president of the Road
to Romance Tourist Group. A member of Post 14, American Legion, and a member of
E, Clampus Vitus.
He was a former officer and member of both the Masonic and the Eastern
Star Order in Independence, and was active in the origanization of Inyo
Associates. He was a former member and officer of the California Housing
Commission.
Mr. Savage was president of the Arrowhead Area Boy Scout Council in 195657 and Chairman of the region's state governors organisation on togetherness.
He had served as Publicity Chairman for both the National Orange Show and the
American Legion Post.
He joined the Sun-Telegram staff in 1949 as manager of the Sun Printing
and Publishing Co,, later named Inland Printing and Engraving Company. He was
elevated to the post of assistant to the publisher of the Sun-Telegram in 1953.
His column "OFF THE BEATEN PATH" appeared in Chalfant Press and the SunTelegram papers through the years.
Mr. Savage was survived by his widow, Mrs. Mary Savage, he was buried in
Corona. George Savage loved the desert and the people of the desert loved
George Savage.
The entire 1961 Death Valley 49ers. encampment was dedicated in tribute
to the memory of Mr. Savage.
61
HARRY PORTER BURRO MAN
We got it from the old-timers, most of whom have now passed
on, that Harry Porter, the son of a Pennsylvania Undertaker who
became one of Panamint's most successful prospector and miner was
tops among the burro men. They said that he had a way with burros
that was uncanny, that at times it was hard to tell weather the
burro belonged to Harry or if Harry belonged to the burros. It
was a well known fact that most prospectors spend a lot of time
hunting their burros, but not Harry, his burros hunted him. Why?
Because Harry treated them with kindness. He fed them grain which
was something most prospectors and miners were unable to do, and
for dessert he fed them raisins, burros are as fond of sweets as
are children.
Harry’s contemporaries said that when he came down out of the Panamint
Mountains to Ballarat for supplies, he would usually stay for a few days
renewing acquaintances, while enjoying a snifter or two in the saloons. His
burros, which were relieved of their gear when he first arrived and turned
aloose to renew acquaintances with the town burros would, when feeding time
came, look for Harry. Led by "Jocko" a favorite whom Harry later pensioned off
when he grew too old to bear a pack, the string of seven burros would amble
down the main stem in search of Harry, Jocko would walk into a saloon, while
his companions remained outside and looked the crowd over. If Harry wasn't
among those present, Jocko would sadly shake his head and lead his little band
to the next saloon. The old-timers swore this was true. One saloon with newfangled ideas, afforded screen doors, those were no obstacle to Jocko for he
knew how to open them. If you think we are exaggerating the intelligence of a
burro, we will give you a couple of stories which were favorites of the late
Shorty Harris. Now everyone knows that Shorty was short in statue and tall in
tales.
The smartest boorow I ever had, Shorty said, was Maria. Maybe next to the
smartest. Maria always led my string. The other boorows would do whatever she
told them. Once I got too heavy a pack on her, it was highgrade from my claims
down by the old Confidence. When I unloaded her that night she just give me a
dirty look and walked away. Next morning I couldn't find her. Then when I give
up and come back to camp ahead of time, I seen another boorow carrying a pail
of water with the bail in his teeth. Another was carrying a block of hay with
the wire around it. I followed careful where they couldn't see me, and I seen
'em go into a narrow cave behind a greasewood bush, off a barranca. There was
Maria, livin’ fat and easy. I apolized to her, I had to. I told her I wouldn't
never overload her again. After that Maria worked for me long and faithful.
Another boorow I had was even smarter. I noticed one night he seemed kind
of sick. When I gave him a bucket of water, nice and cold out of the spring he
just took a sip and let out a moan like a squaw with the bellyache, and gave me
a mean look. I tried to make it up to him by giving him a hot flapjack off my
stack and I noticed he held it in his mouth for two-three minutes before he
swallowed it. Later on I noticed him drinking from some warm water I'd set
aside to wash up with, and all of a sudden I ree-lized that boorow had a
toothache, I held out another hot flapjack and when he opened his mouth for it
I saw the hole in the tooth. Well, next morning he was gone. He didn't come
into camp for water like the others, but I was prospecting around there some,
so I didn't bother. It must of been about four days later when he showed up
again jest all full of ginger as a boorow can get. No toothache no more. He
walked right up to me, and opened his mouth and let out a terrific bray and do
you know what? There was a solid gold fillin' in that holler tooth. I spent
months looking for that ledge he'd got it off of. I never did find it. It must
of been the "Breyfogle".
62
DESERT MONO RAIL
The interest created by the mono rail that will whisk people from down-town
Seattle to the World's Fair Ground(fair opens April 21, ends Oct. 21) in 95
seconds has spurred us to tell you about the Mono Rail that once graced our
part of the desert. The mono rail of which we write is now but a memory in the
minds of men as it has disappeared from the face of the earth, except for a
short stretch on Wingate Pass, which is not accessible to the public due to
military restrictions. The area being encompassed in the Navy's rocket target
range.
Like a giant thousand legged centipede, the Mono Rail was built from a
point known as Magnesium on the Trona Railway a mile south of Westend across
the south end of Searles Lake through Layton Pass in the Slate Range and down
a-cross the bottle-neck which leads into the southern end of Panamint Valley,
and then up across the Panamint Mountains following the old route of the 20
mule team borax wagons through Wingate Pass, from there it crawled down the
western slope of Death Valley. Here it ended at a deposit of Magnesium
Sulphate, Epsom Salts. The deposit was first found by wild burros, which used
it as a wallowing place. Joe Ward, a famous prospector of the day, was credited
with being the first man to discover the deposit, when his burros turned white
over night from wallowing in the chalk like substance. Joe passed it up as
being practically worthless, which it was. Down through the years other
prospectors visited the "Epsom-salts mine" but nothing was done about it as
there were no roads and no means of transportation. Until, so the story goes,
Thomas H. Wright, a Los Angeles florist whose hobby was prospecting during his
vacation, was working the area when he ran out of water, turning his burro
loose to find water, he followed the burro to Hidden Springs. On the return
trip with the burro he noticed the white deposit and turned off the trail to
take samples. In Los Angeles he had them assayed, they proved to be magnesium
sulphate. He returned and staked a claim on the deposit. Wright took some
business associates into his confidence.
63
They formed the American Magnesium Company. It included engineers, chemists,
mineralogists, bankers and lawyers. Wright, the promoter, was chosen president.
R.V.Leeson was consulting engineer with A.Avakian as chemical engineer. Capt.
Hollenbeck was given the construction contract. L. Des Granges was construction
engineer on the job.
Stock was sold and plans made for the development of the property. Some
mode of transportation was the first necessity. A railroad would have to be
built from the Trona Railway out to the mine a distance of 28 miles.
After many meetings and discussions with their engineers, the corporation
decided, because of the steep grades encountered in the Slate Range, to
experiment with a mono rail. The president and some of the directors were
interested in the mono rail. The president visualized it as a means of
interurban transportation around Los Angeles and as applicable to difficult
hauling jobs. Wright applied for a patent on the mono rail equipment which he
and the engineer, R.V. Leeson, had designed. A patent was issued June 23,
1923. The corporation asked the American Trona Corporation to build a spur from
its railroad across the difficult Searles Lake bed to connect with the mono
rail on its eastern shore. The American Trona Corporation, after consulting
with their maintenance engineer, M . C . Crockshot, agreed to build a spur from
Magnesium east across the lake bed. The spur was never built.
Construction must have begun as soon as the patent was issued, for
Engineer News, September 27, 1923, had this item: "A magnesium sulphate
deposit, owned by the American Magnesium Company and located near Death Valley
Desert in Southern California, is to be tapped by a mono rail twenty-eight
miles long, extending over the Slate Range to the Panamint Range. Of this line
about sixteen miles has been completed and is carrying construction trains
which are delivering materials for continuing the road, Although detailed costs
are not available, the type of construction selected, which was chosen because
of the fact that it would require very little grading and would permit of sharp
curved, is estimated to cost about $7,000 per mile in rough mountainous country
and about $5,000 in the desert with no rock work or sharp curves involved. The
construction consists of standard 6" x 8" ties, 8ft. long placed on 8ft.
centers and braced on either side. The plum posts carry a 6"x 8" stringer,
which in turn supports the single 50 lb. steel rail. There are also two side
rails of timber, carried by braces, which act ad guide rails, their vertical
faces making contact with rollers on either side. The engine and cars are
designed like pack saddles and are suspended on two wheels from the single
rail,motorcycle fashion. Equilibrium is maintained by the rollers on either
side which contact with the timber guide rails.
The first propelling power which was used during part of the construction
period, was a battery driven motor. This failed to deliver enough power and was
replaced by a Fordson motored locomotive built on the same general plan. At
first the power was transmitted by rigid rods but these were twisted on the
sharp curves and were soon replaced by chain drives on both front and rear
wheels. This Fordson engine was used during the latter part of the
construction and for some time afterwards but many locomotive difficulties were
encountered. The braking system was another headache on the steep grades. An
engineer said, "I had one ride on the mono rail as far as Wingate Pass and was
rather relieved to get back with a safe skin, keeping a watchful eye on the
braking arrangement all the time." As the elevated road bed crept out across
the desert from Searles Lake, timbers cut to the proper length to conform to
the contour of the land were carried on the cars end lashed to the side of the
engine. There were 10 per cent grades and 40 per cent curves so only five tons
of timber could be carried at a time. A cottage for the superintendent and a
laboratory were built at the mine site and the corporation began operations.
64
The company had hoped to haul long strings of cars on the mono rail, to keep
their Wilmington refinery working at full capacity, but the engines developed
only enough power to pull three loaded cars. This difficulty led to a contract
with A.W.Harrison, of Los Angeles, an automotive engineer, who planned a gaselectric train, consisting of an engine and a generator to supply power for
both the engine and the cars. Green lumber had been used in building the
mononrail elevated road bed, and by the time the gas-electric train was completed the heat had warped the mono rail all out of shape. It was as crooked as
a dogs hind leg. The timbers had splintered, loosening the bolts along with all
this trouble the wheels on the wooden guide rails had worn them to shreds. The
structure would not carry the weight of the newly assembled train. The old
locomotive would not furnish enough power to haul paying loads. Down at the
Wilmington plant they found that the deposit was nearly 50 per cent sand,
debris and other salts. As the product was refined and made into bath salts the
waste material piled up around the plant. The city authorities stepped in and
objected to the accumulation of waste inside the city limits.
There were legal troubles as well. The mineral claims in the Panamints
had been extended to cover 1440 acres. These claims were a source of disputes,
suits and counter suits. Slick promoters had obtained control of much of the
stock. Although more than a million dollars had been invested, it became
evident that the mine could not be operated at a profit. The promoters and
directors who had heavily invested themselves, made every effort to salvage
something for the stockholders, but there were too many factors against them.
Operations were suspended early in 1928. The property was offered for bids
April 28, 1928. There were no buyers. Mr. Wright turned his interest over to
the company.
The mono rail was abandoned and the timbers began to feed the campfires
of prospectors and the stoves of Searles Valley residents. Junk men carried off
the steel rails and part of the stretch through Layton Canyon was washed away
by a cloudburst. The buildings at the mine and at Magnesium became headquarters
for wild burro hunters and bootleggers.
The writer came to Searles Valley in the spring of 1928, shortly after
the mono rail had folded. There was at the time at Magnesium, a locomotive
shed, a loading ramp, a building that doubled as an office and residence, a
cookhouse and several panel milk truck bodies which had been purchased from Los
Angeles dairy companies. These had been used as sleeping quarters for the
workmen. We took the privilege of sitting in the seats of the two locomotive
housed in the engine shed, and imagined that we were roaring over the rough
mountain ranges at a speed of 15 miles an hour to the very brink of Death
Valley. We also took the privilege, along with many other Searles Valley
residents of hauling some of the timber home for firewood. Remember this was
back in the days when wood and coal was the only fuel available for cooking and
heating in our valley. During the great depression of the early 30’s a man by
the name of Jess Berry had bought or contracted to salvage the steel rails of
the mono rail, which were sold to Japan as scrap metal. The Japanese at the
time were buying scrap metal like mad in our country and stockpiling it in
their country. Preparing for the war, they knew was coming. This scrap metal
was later thrown back at us in the form of bullets, bombs and sharapnel. We
remember reading during the war about a piece of shrapnel being dug from the
body of an American soldier, bearing the imprint, "SINGER SEWING MACHINE
U.S.A."
65
We were living in Borosolvay at the time. One of our neighbors, Ray
Kearn, was the valley's agent for a large oil company. When in need of wood,
Ray would use the company truck to haul a load from the mono rail, always on
Sunday as we worked six days a week. Occasionally we would go out with Ray and
for our help he would haulus a load of wood. On a bright Sunday morning we were
at the mono rail busily loading the truck, when unbeknown to us, Mr. Berry
appeared on the scene. We will never forget his first words, "What do you
think you are doing?" To which we sheepishly replied. "Getting a load of wood."
Mr. Berry ordered us to unload the truck, which web did. Later we learned that
he wasn't Interested in the wood, all that he owned was the steel rails. Mr.
Berry, lived in the Rand District, where Ray, the oilman had to deliver a load
of gasoline once a week. When Mr. Berry, would see Ray in the Rand District, he
would threaten to expose him to the oli company, for using their truck in
hauling wood from the mono rail. Unless Ray, crossed his palm with $10.00, This
petty form of blackmail continued for sometime, making the cost of the wood
rather expensive.
************************
TRUCKEE RIVER
There were two things we never expected in Searles Valley. Television
and Natural Gas. As our big black ravens fly, the distance from Searles Valley
to Death Valley is only thirty miles. We would say, that places us a bit off
the beaten path in a sparsely populated part of the desert. Thanks to
H.S.Anderson Company's cable, we now have four channels of TV, originating in
Los Angeles, and thanks to the American Potash & Chemical Corp., The Westend
Chemical Co. and the Pacific Electric and Gas Co., we now enjoy the blessing of
natural gas, which is piped all the way from Texas.
P.G.& E. as it is known throughout the State, softens the blow to its
customers when billing them by enclosing a copy of "P.G. and E. Progress." This
highly documented Company Organ is good reading. For the past two years it has
contained a series of thumbnail histories of California Rivers. The series
ended in October issue with the story of the Truckee River, which is one of our
favorites.
This is the river that flows through Reno Nevada, and from a bridge in
the city it is said that some newly divorcees toss their wedding rings into its
waters. Now that Las Vegas is cutting deeply into Reno's divorce trade, we
wonder if the Gals who are divorced in Vegas, will drive out to Boulder Dam and
toss their ring into Lake Mead. Anyway its an interesting thought.
We started out to bring you the "P.G, and E. Progress" story of the
Truckee River, and we quote: "A party of pioneers bound from Iowa to
California in 1844 were escorted from Battle Mountain, Nevada, to Sutter's Fort
by a gentle Piaute Indian guide named Truckee. In gratitude for his help the
white men named one of the rivers they passed in his honor. In the succeeding
years the 96 mile-long Truckee River has filled many roles. Before the advent
of modern refrigeration thousands of tons of ice were harvested from connecting
ponds. During the latter half of the 19th Century it was used to float logs to
railroads and lumber mills. It now provides the force to spin turbines in five
small electric plants and its waters provide domestic and irrigation needs for
much of Western Nevada.
Born on steep Sierra slopes north o£ Carson Pass, it is cradled in Lake
Tahoe and buries itself finally in Pyramid Lake, 50 miles northeast of Reno.
The Upper Truckee is one of many sources of water that form the 123,500 - acre
Lake Tahoe.
66
It flows into the lake at the south end and Truckee River proper flows out of
the northwest side of the lake near Tahoe City. It flows north and then northeast for thirty-two miles before it crosses the California-Nevada border and 14
miles beyond that it passes picturesquely through Reno.
In order of importance, the principal tributaries are Little Truckee
River, Prosser, Donner, dog and Squaw Creeks. The average annual runoff of the
river at the California-Nevada state line is about 567,000 acre-feet, of which
173,000 is drawn from Tahoe and 394,000 acre-feet supplied by tributaries below
the lake.
The California-Nevada line runs north and south through the river!a
basin, leaving the greater part of the higher elevations in California and most
of the urban and farm area in Nevada. Elevations of the basin range from almost
10,000 feet to 5,000 feet above sea level.
Because of the high elevation of the river1s basin most of the
precipitation is in the form of snowfall, with the bulk of the runoff occuring
during April, May and June. During the late summer the runoff from the lower
half of the watershed is scant, but through the control afforded at a dam at
Lake Tahoe, the runoff from the upper basin is conserved until dry periods,
thereby maintaining a good flow in the river the year round. The first
artificial control of the water of Lake Tahoe was by means of a log dam built
on the Truckee River Just below the mouth of the lake by the Donner Boom &
Lumber Company in 1870. The river's flow has been controlled by Federal
regulation since 1915. This calls for a maximum water level of the lake at
6,229 feet above sea level.
The Truckee has been called Reno's most feared, frustrating, erratic and
loved landmark. Frequently its waters have rampaged through the city with the
most devastating floods occuring in 1937, 1950 and 1955. This last was the most
violent with the river pouring 20,000 cubic feet of water a second along its
swollen, 300-yard-wide course. Damage totaled almost $4 million. Considerable
flood control work has been carried out since and more has been proposed.
************************
INYOKERN MINERAL SHOW - LONG AGO
"Desert Sands" had the pleasure of attending the two day mineral exhibit
at Inyokern November 13, 1941.
The Indian Wells Valley Chamber of Commerce is to be highly commended on
the splendid exhibits they managed to corral for their first show. V.L.Carr,
president and H.A.Coppock, secretary, of the Chamber of Commerce, worked like
Trojans in putting the show on, and the successful manner in which the show
went over was indeed a credit to the efforts of these two gentlemen.
The Searles Lake Gem and Mineral Soc. was only too glad to have had a
chance to contribute in a small way to the success of the show. When I walked
into the show building Saturday morning, the first thing that caught my eye was
a large sign on the back wall which read: "EXTRA, EXTRA, BIG SHOW TONIGHT. THE
GREAT MOE LEONARDI WILL LECTURE ON "WHY ROCKS ARE HARD" ACCOMPANIED BY HARVEY
EASTMAN WITH COLORED MOVIES. 7:00 O'CLOCK."
That was indeed a surprise, and I must say that the boys put on a swell
show for the good citizens of Indian Wells Valley. The church in which the show
was held was crowded, there was standing room only.
67
ED HERKELRATH OF RANDSBURG.
Ed Herkelrath had the honor of being the first person to sign the
register. Ed had brought over some tungsten samples from his claims in the Rand
District. The school children of Inyokern had gathered pion nuts up in Nine
Mile Canyon and were selling them at the show. Ed bought a pound of nuts and we
sat down in the shade and went to work on them. "You know," he said, "These
pion nuts remind me of the time I was in Tonopah, Nevada, during the first
world war. An old Indian, known as Panamint Tom gathered pion nuts in the
Panamint Mountains and packed them into Tonopahon his burros. His regular price
was a quarter for a # 21/2 size can. After the war had been going on for some
time, I met Tom on the street one day and asked him for a quarters worth of
nuts, this time he gave me a small #1 size can for my quarter. I said, "what's
the matter, Tom, why so few?" Tom shrugged his shoulders and grunted. "Huh - me
hear big war going on some place, everything go up."
TRADE RAT BLOWS UP MINING CAMP
Mr. and Mrs. Gae Chenard of Bakersfield had one of the most out-standing
exhibits at the show. Mr. Chenard and I were talking about Charley Williams,
who was one of the first settlers at Barstow. Charley was a rockhound in a big
way and had one of the finest collections in the state. He went in for massive
specimen, while any fair-sized specimen will satisfy the average rockhound
Charley always had one about four times as large.
Mr. Chenard said that One time Charley and a fellow by the name of Greer
ware partners in a mine. It seems that Greer was a penny pincher and a very
conservative man, so to speak.
They had just laid in a fresh supply of grub, including a box of prunes,
A few days later when Greer reached upon the shelf for the prunes, the box was
extremely light. Investigation showed that the prunes had vanished and in their
place was a bunch of small sticks. "The work of a trade rat," Greer knew as he
showed the box to Charley one vowed to get the rat. But how? That was the
question, as they did not have a trap.
Near the cabin was a pile of rocks, and early one morning Greer spied Mr.
Trade Rat's tall disappearing under the rocks. Here at last was his chance to
kill the rat, so he got a stick of dynamite, put a fuse in it, tied it on the
end of a stick and shoved it under the rock pile. Lighting the fuse, he called
to Charley, "Fire in hole!"and they both ran a saft distance
The dynamite went off with a terrific roar. The explosion not only got
rid of the rat, it blew the roof off the cabin and wrecked the entire camp.
After the two men had dodged the falling rocks, Charley, who talked through the
side of his mouth, turned to Greer and said, "Shay, how much dynamite did you
use to blow up that rat?"
"Only one stick, replied Greer. "One stick, my eye, at least half a box
of dynamite went off in that blast," Charley said. They both got the idea at
the same time: so they walked over to an old tunnel where they had a half box
of dynamite cached. The dynamite was gone. In its place was a pile of sticks
like those that Greer had found in the prune box.
68
MURDER WILL OUT
As a wanderer of the desert have you ever stumbled onto a solitary
unmarked grave? If so, did you pause to wonder about the person who lay at your
feet? How they lived, how they died, and who buried them? Were they buried in a
fancy coffin, a home-made box or merely wrapped in a blanket? Was the deceased
a prospector, a miner or perhaps a tender-foot who came to a foolish end in a
strong land.
There is such an unmarked grave alongside the highway at the junction in
Wildrose Canyon where the Death Valley road turns north up Rattlesnake Canyon
and reaches into Nemo Canyon,
If you are a motorist you will whiz by the grave without seeing it, as it
is hidden by desert growth. If by chance you should ever stop to see the grave,
you won't have to wonder about who is buried there. Let us tell you a story of
a kind old man.
Some folks may think that Ed McSperrin was killed in a gun battle on
Sunday, July 17, 1932. That's what the headlines in the newspapers said,but it
wasn't true. Ed McSperrin was murdered by a man whom he had befriended during
the depression. The man, Jimmy Madden, alias Jimmy Cleboume, was down and out,
he was actually hungry when Ed took him in his home and kept him for several
months. Eventually, Madden's welcome wore thin, and when Ed asked him to move
on, he showed his gratitude by killing Ed. How does the writer know this? By
having been a friend of Ed's and knowing the circumstances that led to the
killing, also by another foul crime committed by Madden after he he been
acquitted by a jury in Independence.
69
To acquaint you with the story of the killing and trial, we quote from
the newspapers of that period.
ED McSPERRIN KILLED IN
GUN BALLET SUNDAY
Ed McSperrin, old time prospector living at Wildrose, was fatally wounded
in a gun battle with Jimmy Madden, last Sunday night, according to a report
which reached Trona Wednesday. Madden, after shooting McSperrin in the abdomen
with a high-powered rifle, walked fifteen miles up to Wood Canyon where
"Silent" George Greist, Inyo County deputy sheriff lives, and gave himself up.
Madden is now in jail at Independence awaiting a hearing on the case and is
claiming self-defense. The body of McSperrin was found laying on his rifle and
the weapon has been taken as evidence, finger prints being made to see if
Madden placed the gun in that position after he shot McSperrin. The two men
were alone at the time of the shooting late Sunday night.
McSperren has been buried on a ledge up from his cabin in Wildroae Canyon
which is the result of a wish he is known to have made some time ago.
Madden and McSperrin are well known characters in this section of the
country and the result of Madden’s trial is watched with keen interest by other
prospectors in the Panamints. The cause of the trouble leading to the shooting
is not known to the writer at this time.
James Clebourne Bound Over
To Superior Court
According to an article published in the Inyo Independent dated August
20, James Clebourne, known locally as Jimmy Madden, was arraigned before Judge
Max M.Skinner at Lone Pine on August 20th for preliminary hearing and was bound
over to the superior court for trial. He is charged with the shooting to death
of Ed McSperrin on the evening of July 17th at Wildrose Canyon.
Madden or Clebourne is being held in the Inyo County Jail pending outcome
of investigations which have been conducted by the Inyo authorities. Attorney
Jess Sutliff of Independence has been retained by the defense.
This case is of interest to a great many local people who know and knew
Ed McSperrin. The two men are widely known as colorful characters of this
section of the desert and Madden’s trial will be closely watched. The feeling
amongst the old timers in the Panamints seems to be equally divided: some
contend that McSperrin wasn't the type that would want to fight with guns and
was probably trying to bluff Madden to keep him away from his cabin and this
story has logic since Mac's rifle was found to be unloaded. Others think the
shooting followed a drunken quarrle as both men was known to have been drinking
the day of the shooting.
Clebourne Freed-Desert Shooting
Wildrose Springs
The following article was taken from the November 26th issue of the Inyo
Independent, and will be of interest to local people who have been following
the trial of James Clebourne, known to Tronans as Jimmy Madden, who shot and
killed Ed McSperrin at Wildrose Springs on July 17th.
70
After waiting seventy-seven hours for a jury to decide his fate, Jimmy
Clebourne, charged with killing Ed McSparren in Wildrose Canyon July 17th.
squared his shoulders and walked out of the county jail a free man Tuesday
afternoon. The case went to the jury of ten men and two women Saturday at noon
and the verdict was returned late Tuesday afternoon. It is reported that during
the entire deliberation of the jury the vote stood eleven for acquittal and one
for conviction. During his long hours of suspense Clebourne, in appearance,
aged many years. There were no witnesses to the killing of McSperrin. Evidence
was introduced that a quarrel took place. McSperrin, a powerful man, said to
have an ungovernable temper, was reported to have made threats against
Clebourne. Following an altercation in the lonely desert cabin, Clebourne ran
outside, picking up his gun as he ran. McSparren appeared at the door with a
cocked rifle, whereupon Clebourne shot without raising his gun to his shoulder.
McSperrin exclaimed, "you got me that time!" and vent back into the cabin.
Clebourne, doubtful that he had hit him waited awhile before looking through a
window. He saw McSperrin kneeling beside the bed with his head in his arms,
apparently dead and went immediately to notify Deputy Sheriff George Griest.
Clebourne maintained that he shot in self-defense.
End of quote.
All the writer can say, is that Jess Sutliff was a darn good lawyer. Poor
Ed was dead and he couldn't tell his side of the story. There were no
witnesses. It was a dark night and the nearest place of residence was twelve
miles away. Madden did not reach George Greist's place until noon the next day.
The late John Thorndike and Pete Aguereberry dug the grave, made a coffin out
of rough plank and burried Ed, while "Silent" George the deputy was busy
working on the biggest crime he ever had to handle. Digging up evidence for the
D.A. was quite a chore. His prize, exhibit "A" was the bullet that killed poor
Ed, he found it in some excrement. Ed had three dogs and they had started to
chew on his body before deputy Griest arrived on the scene.
When Madden was acquitted he returned to Wildrose Canyon to make his
home, but the old-timers ordered him to get out of the Wildrose Mining
District, and stay out. He went to the little town of Keeler to live. That
winter he was stealing coal from his neighbor's coal bin. The neighbor put a
lock on the bin. This apparently angered Madden, as one night(another dark
night) he knocked at the door, and when the neighbor opened the door, Madden,
without a word of warning, plunged the blade of an eight inch butcher knife to
its hilt in the neighbor’s abdomen.
For this crime, Madden was sentenced to San Quentin. The neighbor died
two years later from the aftermath of Madden’s cowardly attack. Madden died in
San Quentin.
The writer with his family made his first trip into the Panamints in the
spring of 1930. Leaving Trona early one morning driving a four cylinder Dodge
touring car, as we topped the Slate Range and started the decent on the north
side, we encountered a little man with faded blue eyes and worn jeans loaning
on a shovel handle. We stopped and made his acquaintance. He was Shorty Harris
and he living alone in a tent pitched in a cove alongside the road. Here, near
the end of a long and illustrious career was Shorty Harris earning his living
picking rocks out of the road for Inyo County.
71
When we reached Wildrose Canyon several hours and a million jolts later,
we encountered another short man leaning on a shovel. This man was also picking
rocks out of the road for the county. He was Ed McSperrin, and we became well
acquainted. He invited us up to his three room cabin which was as neat and
clean as a pin, and it contained a shower bath. Nothing would do but that we
stop and rest awhile and have a bite to eat with him. Mind you, this was during
the depression and Ed was earning his beans by getting a few days work out of
each month repairing the road for the county, yet he was perfectly willing to
share his humble fare with total strangers. From this meeting we became the
best of friends, and we spent many happy times with him. Once while on vacation
we visited with him for a week. One Christmas he invited us to dinner. He had
baked a turkey in a wood stove, and had all the trimmings to go with the meal.
I will always remember the dinner as one of the best I ever ate. Ed was very
fond of our children. His Neighbors were few and far between, and now as I look
back, I know that he was lonesome for companionship.
To us he was a gentleman and a perfect host. This is the type of man who
lies at rest in the lonely grave in Wildrose Canyon.
Shortly after Ed’s death, his cabin burned. A tall stately cottonwood
tree that he planted stands just below his grave.
Monument to a man.
***********************
DEEP PURPLE
Years ago, say about 1938, when the collecting of sun-colored glass was
all the rage, Searles Lake Annie and I scoured the desert far and wide seeking
the perfect specimen of unbroken bottles.
As I recall, the thing that started us on this fascinating hobby was the
time when we stopped at the Stove Pipe Hells Hotel in Death Valley and saw a
pair of royal purple beer bottles that bore a $50.00 price tag. We were
handling the bottles, but you can bet, that we sat them down in a hurry when we
saw the attached price tag.
After talking it over, Annie and I figured that we had passed up a small
fortune, for in all our desert wandering, we had over-looked a lot of sun
colored glass. Fortunately, we remembered where some of it was, so later we
started out with high hopes of cornering the sun-purple glass market in our
part of the desert. Someone had told us that the reason this glass was so
expensive (must have bean a dealer) was that it required from thirty-five to
fifty years of exposure to the desert sun to develope a guine deep purple.
After collecting a couple of bushels of purple bottles, of all shapes, and
styles (whiskey bottles predominating) from ghost towns that are hard to reach
and from tin-can piles outside the cook shack window at old mines, we brought
our loot home, washed it up, put some fancy prices on it and started crying our
wares, but lo,and behold, something happened-- when the first would-be
customers breezed in, they breezed right out again. Our prices, they said were
too high. We were downright insulted when the highest offer received for our
best bottle was only fifty cents.
72
Well, to make a long story short, we went out of the purple glass
business in a hurry, for about that time an interesting article on sun-purple
glass appeared in the Desert Magazine. The author had made a thorough study and
had done some experimenting on the subject. He found that glass containing a
small amount of maganese would, if exposed to the Sun’s rays on alkaline soil
turn a rich purple color within eighteen months.
The next time Annie and I were in Death Valley, we stopped at Stove Pipe
Wells to have another look at those beer bottles, ( they were still there and
as far as we know they are still there, unless the price was reduced). We told
the clerk they sure had a lot of nerve in asking $50.00 for a pair of common
old beer bottles but oh, the clerk answered, "these are not common beer
bottles— they are rare, for they came from the now defunct Goldfield Brewery of
Goldfield, Nevada. Did you not notice, the clerk continued, the name on the
bottom." No, we hadn't.
The craze of collecting sun colored glass on the desert lasted for twenty
years. The California deserts have now been picked clean. There are a few
bottles still to be found in Nevada but one has to get way off the beaten paths
far from paved highways to find any appreciable number, and they have to be dug
for. The best places to dig are in the old tin can dumps and in washes near
old mining camps.
***********************
BUZZARD ROOST
A few years ago we found the roost of some
forty odd buzzards that form the scavenger patrol
in the Death Valley country. According to the old
Indians who lived on the ranch where the buzzards
roost in a tall cottonwood tree alongside a
mountain streem, they have been roosting there for
the past two hundred years.
The buzzards always return in March. First a
single pilot or scout comes, two days later two
more arrive, and by the end of a week the tall
stately tree is black with buzzards. They leave in
October when the first chill of autumn is in the
air.
The old Indian ranch now belongs to a very
dear friend of ours. Tiny Standard, whom we visit
quite often. It was while on our visits with Tiny
that we became mildly interested in the habits of
the buzzards, from watching them put on an aerial
show above their canyon roost, starting at four O'clock in the afternoon when
theoy began to return from the patrol. They gracefully soar and glide on the
air currents in and above the canyon. The show goes on until the last straggler
has arrived, and then they settle for the night in the cottonwood.
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Tiny kept telling me that I should get up early some morning and watch
the buzzards perform what she called the "Sun Dance" a ritual they went through
before soaring away on their daily forage for food. So one morning I was up at
the crack of dawn to watch the show. Tiny’s ranch is a game preserve, and the
buzzards seem to know that they are protected, as they showed no fear what-soever of me. When the sun broke over the Argus Mountains to the East, the
buzzards began to stir, leaving the cottonwood, they alighted on indivudal
fence post. I walked along the fence within thirty feet of the buzzards and
counted forty of them. They paid no attention to me as they performed the sun
dance. Actually, what they were doing, was stretching their wings to the
fullest extent allowing the warm sun rays to dispel the chill from their
bodies, before taking to the air.
Becoming more interested in the buzzards, we decided to bone up on them
by doing some research. Some of the things we learned might be of interest to
you.
There was once a German Prince, Alexandra Maximillian, Prince of Wied,
who visited our country for a couple of years, 1832-34; The Prince had a
brilliant mind, and was well versed in the natural sciences. He didn't dress
like a Prince, as he wore the dirtiest and greasiest leather breeches
imaginably. Could be, he only had one pair of breeches with him on the trip. He
must have been the original "Old Iron Pants" inasmuch as he never changed pants
in the two years he spent roaming the wilds of our country, gathering material
and pictures of the Indians and wildlife along the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. In
his travels, he got clear up to the Yellowstone River in Montana.
How, you might think, did a German Prince get into this story about a
buzzard roost. It was this Maxmilian, Prince of Wied, who first described in
ornithological literature the turkey vulture in his book "Reise In Das Inners
Nord America", later translated into English, the title, "Travels in the
Interior of North America". This book is now only available from dealers in
rare books. The price, a mere $75.00
The Prince made some interesting observations of the lowly buzzard, from
which we jot down a few excerpts, a refresher course, so to speak. To brush
you up on the buzzard. The feathered kind. We know the buzzard is migratory,
but do we know why?
The North American buzzard winters in Southern Mexico and Central
America. It has never been expressed to our knowledge, wheather or not the
buzzards outnumber the winter tourist in these Latin American Countries. It
would seem that with the Influx of all the buzzards from North America for a
winter of fun in the Sun, the small Countries would be over-run with a powerful
lot of buzzards. As they feed principally on dead carcasses, you would think
there would be a shortage of feed, and wonder how they manage to survive. They
have been known to eat one another. Perhaps they partly subsist on their fallen
brother, the ones that have died of starvation. That's a good subject for
future research.
The buzzards migrates from out frigid zones in winter because they are
not equipped to feed on frozen carcasses. Although they have strong legs, their
feet or talons are not strong enough to tear the frozen carcasses apart.
The name buzzard is a misnomer, since in England the buzzard is a hawk.
What we commonly call buzzards in this country, are actually Turkey Vultures,
The name Vulture, comes from the Greek word "Cathartes" and means cleanser.
They were put here for the purpose of cleaning the land from ill smelling, fly
producing rotting flesh. They are necessary scavengers of the lowest type.
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Did you know that they will vomit when shot at? You had better not shoot
at one, because they are protected by law. The Turkey Vulture or buzzard lays
one or two eggs, which are beautiful with their bright brown markings. Usually
the nest is located in a secluded spot on a barren cragg. If you ever get near
a nest you can find it by the foul smell of the carrion which is brought in to
feed the young.
The mature buzzard is a peaceful fallow, actually cowardly, as it will
not fight, nor will it attack any living thing. If desturbed while feeding it
will limber into the air, circle around and return to the carrion the minute
the intruder is gone. Not so with the young after they are two weeks old. They
are more spunky than their parents. When desturbed in their nest or den, they
will put up a fight by snapping, hissing and rushing at the Intruder with outstretched wings, their beaks are sharp enough to inflict injury on an
unprotected hand.
For the most part the buzzard is a silent creature, except for the
hissing of the young and a low whine emited rarely by the adult bird. This
puppy like whine is seldom heard by man.
***********************
LITTLE LAKE TO BECOME PRIVATE CLUB
Little Lake the historical and picturesque spot known as the southern
gateway or bottleneck to Owens Valley along with the surrounding acreage and
the only privately owned lake in Owens Valley, has been sold to the Morehart
Land Co., of Santa Monica. The 100-acre spring-fed lake and surrounding 1000
acres will be made into a select Hunting and Fishing Club, the new owners
announced. The property was sold to John W. Morehart by Thomas Bramlette who
inherited it from his father, who used it for farming and operation of a small
hotel and service station, until the construction of the new state highway
required razing of part of the structure. On the property, half of which is
arable, are a brick residence, two barns and a postoffice. The estate is
located ten miles north of the Junction of highway 395 and 6, midway between
Mojave and Lone Pine. The Southern Pacific Railroad tracks parallel the lake’s
southern end. In the early days Little Lake was Indian Country, here they
camped, hunted, fished and made arrowheads from nearby mountain of black
obsidian. Bill Bramlette, founder of the modern resort was a nationally known
automobile racer in the era of the great Barney Oldfield, whom he raced
against. One of the main tourist attractions at Little Lake are the Potholes in
the dry bed of the Owens River
***********************
75
IS AUSTIN HALL D00MED???
The word is out but not officially, that Austin Hall, Searles Valley's
commercial center for the past 50 years will fall, a victim to progress. The
picturesque, sturdy old building, a familiar landmark for low these many years
is slated to be razed eventually, if not sooner, and the 2900 square yards of
space which it covers, will become, of all things, a parking lot.
The first of last July, when the Security Bank moved across the street into
their new quarters the old building had lost her last business to Trona's new
shopping center, which for the most part is centered near the Death Valley
Highway. The old building had been loosing her occupants one by one since
1953, when the new Fox Theatre was build. Now that they are all gone she sits
vacant and dark, sadly forlorn. Just another derelict that is now in the way
and must go. It’s too bad the old building can’t talk. If she could, she
would tell you of the glory that was once hers—of the history she had seen in
the making—of the great and near great people she had served. She can't talk,
out of respect for the old girl, the writer, who earned a livelihood under the
shelter of her roof for 18 years, 1928-1946, will, in his humble way, endeavor
to talk for her.
Let us shed a tear or two for our dear old friend, while telling you some of
her history. Bur first, at this point, let us say that we are still in shock
from loosing Searles Valley’s greatest natural attraction the "PINNACLES". The
early day prospectors, miners and teamsters named the Pinnacles,"CATHEDRAL
TOWN", and if they were around today, you can bet they would have unlimbered
their shooting irons and saved the Pinnacles from the greedy men who, for a few
76
paltry dollars are blasting them apart and carting them away. They would have
saved them for posterity, where we moderns with our fancy talk and fine letter
writing failed. We will always blame San Bernardino County, The State of
California and the National Park Service for the loss of the Pinnacles. Some
one of the three could have saved them. They have made parks and monuments of
areas far less important and attractive than the Pinnacles. There is one
consolation, We still have Searles Lake. The richest known mineral deposit in
the world today. Fortunately we won't be around when it is gone. With that off
our chests we will resume the story of Austin Hall.
If old Austin Hall could talk, she could tell you some wonderful tales
about her 50 years in Trona. She could proudly tell of her great usefulness to
the people of Searles Valley and to the rugged men,the prospectors and miners
who toiled in the wild Death Valley Country beyond. She could tell how she
served the chemical workers who toiled in the heat and the cold to build the
giant sprawling chemical works into what it is today. How she housed, fed,
clothed and amused them, making their life a little easier. How the men coming
off the swing shift from the plant could take their lunch and refreshments into
the patio theatre, and while eating, drinking and making merry watching the
mid-night show, would kibitz the players on the screen to their hearts content.
She could tell how the following men availed themselves of her services;
Death Valley Scotty, Shorty Harris, Pete Aguereberry, Seldom Seen Slim, Chris
Wicht, Joe Ward, Harry Hughes, Billy Hyder, Fred Gray, Indian George Hanson,
Indian Joe Peterson, Johnnie Shoshone, John Thordike, Harry Porter, Ed
McSperrin, Lou French, Joe Foise, George Griest, Shady Myrick, Jim Sherlock, Ed
Teagle and countless others, including Shotgun Mary and Grandma Two-gun. Most
of the above people were, and are well known characters of this area. She
could tell also of chemical work's managers that were accomotated. G.P.
Grimwood, H.S. Emlaw, Fredrick Vieweg, J.J.Eason, Judge W.E.Burke, A.A,
Hoffman, R.W.Mumford, A.J."Andy" Anderson and others. She could tell how Indian
Joe, who had returned to avail himself of his garden home in the Argus
Mountains north of Trona, which was appropriated by John Searles, how when he
would come to Trona to spend the brand new $lOO bill that he received monthly
in payment for the water that was piped from his springs, and how he would
spend every dime of the money before returning to his canyon home, and how the
small school children of Trona, would follow him around town, as if he were a
pied piper.
She could tell of Joe Ward, the eccentric, but wealthy prospector, who
would come out of the High Sierra Mountains in the wintertime and camp with his
burros on what is now the golf course, while prospecting the local area, and
how Joe would buy barley for the burros, grub for himself, and how he always
brought an extra burlap sack in which he used to pack the vegetable trimmings
which he mooched for his beloved burros. She could tell how Harry Porter, who,
upon making his rare appearances in the store, would dump a can of wire gold
nuggets on the counter, much to the amazement and delight of the tenderfoot who
had never seen raw gold. The gold came from Harry's Mountain Girl Mine at the
head of Happy Canyon in the Panamint Mountains.
77
In the beginning, in the year 1911 before the coming of the Trona Railroad
which was completed in 1914 a modern building would have to be constructed in
Trona in which to house and feed the hardy men that would be brought in by the
newly formed American Trona Corporation to construct and operate their new
chemical plant. The tents, furnace-like cabins and Chic Sales' would no longer
suffice to keep men on the job in Trona. Austin Hall was the answer. A city
under one roof with walls a foot thick, not for protection from friendly
Shoshone Indians, but from the desert heat.
We do not know for sure who the men were that was responsible for designing and
building Austin Hall, as the records of that period are rather sketchy and
vague. After fitting the pieces together we don't think we are far from wrong
in saying that, John W. Hornsey, C . F. Poock (Mr. Poock, later became an
artist of note) and Charles P. Grimwood had a hand in building Austin Hall. Mr.
Hornsey, a chemical engineer built the first expermental plant on the edge of
the lake at the site of John Searles'old borax plant for the American Trona
Corporation which was the predecessor of the huge American Potash end Chemical
Corporation, which is today, the largest chemical plant in the west. Mr. Poock,
was Hornsey's chief draftman and he prepared the original sketch for the
commercial production plant proposed by Hornsey, At this point, Mr. Grimwood
took charge of the development.
The architectural design of Austin Hall must have been taken from the Moorish
type of construction in northern Africa, for it is a building that one would
expect to find on the edge of the great Sahara Desert and not on the upper
Mojave Desert of California. The building is so foreign to our part of the
world, that it, along with the smell of the dead lake, are the two things most
likely remembered by visitors to Trona.
Seldom Seen Slim, our most famous desert character helped build Austin Hall,
which was completed in 1912. Slim says that material for the construction was
freighted for a distance of 35 miles from the railhead of the branch line of
the Santa Fe Railroad which terminated at Johannesburg by a mechanical Reynard
tractor train, and when the monster broke down, which was quite often, freight
wagons and teamd were used.
Austin Hall, built of solid concrete enclosed a spacious patio, which in the
early days was planted to flowers. As the town and the need for recreation
grew, the patio was converted into an open air motion picture theatre where
silent pictures were shown three nights a week. With the advent of talking
pictures, the shows were increased to six nights a week. Harry "Bud" Keller, an
oldtimer, who will be retired by A.P & C.C. next year, was the first and only
projectionist as well as manager until the old patio theatre gave way to the
new Fox Theatre in 1953.
The stage in the patio theatre was used by Desert Players, a local group, who
for years entertained the people of Trona with live drama. Some of the smash
hits we remember were, "Charley's Aunt," "Up in Mable's Room," and "Getting
Gerty's Garter.
The stage was also the setting for boxing and wrestling matches, with our own
Jim Branek acting as referee. Some of the top notch boxers were, Jack Groves,
Kid Triggs and Philip Tussing. The wrestlers, Jack Small, Clifford Pratt and
Lyle Hawthrone.
78
The old building is a "SQUARE," covering some 28,225 sq.ft. including the
patio. It contains 45 arches, which march around three sides, supporting the
roof which shades the broad walk. It would be a beautiful building if it had
been crowned with a red tiled roof. The Americanized corrugated sheet roofing
spoils its looks,giving it a drab appearance like a woman wearing a last years
hat.
For years, giant oleanders in three colors ringed three sides of the building,
adding to its charm. Benches conveniently placed along the broadwalk, were
usually occupied in the cool of the evening by the gay young blades,as well as
the old, sporting their liner bermuda shorts.
Austin Hall was named in honor of S.W.Austin, who was the husband of Mary
Austin, author of the book, "Land Of Little Rain." Mr. Austin was serving as
registrar at the public land office at Independence, when, in December 1909, he
was appointed by the United District Court for the northern district of
California as receiver for the California Trona Corporation, the predecessor of
the American Trona Corporation. It was his duty to take over the properties
and perform the necessary assesment work to protect the claims on dry Searles
Lake. The group of claims comprising some 3320 acres was under his
jurisdiction, when, in 1910, C.E.Dolbar a former manager of the California
Trona Corporation, and his associates attempted to take possession of the
building on the property, Mr. Austin and his men were successful in thwarting
the attempt. Later that year in October, another claim jumping party of 44 men
appeared on the scene, headed by Henry E.Lee, an Oakland attorney. The party
consisted of three complete surveying crews,the necessary cooks, helpers and
laborers and about 20 armed guards or gunmen, who were under the command of the
legendary Wyatt Earp, were fought off by Mr. Austin and his associates. A U.S.
Marshal was called in, and he arrested the entire party, including Wyatt Earp,
and carted them away.
Mr. Austin, and his associates were also in the thick of the legal fight
which was waged from 1909 to 1918 over who was entitled to rightful ownership
of the valuable claims on Searles Lake. In December, 1917, he and his
committee, representing the American Trona Corporation appeared before the law
board and Secretary of the Interior at Washington D.C. They presented a strong
case and won out against the protestants. In 1918 the Department of Interior
issued four patents, covering the 3320 acres, to the Company.
If and when Austin Hall is demolished, it is our earnest hope that a historical
monument will be erected on the spot in commoration to a fighting man, S, W.
Austin, and to Austin Hall the old building which so proudly bore his name.
The writer first saw Austin Hall in September 1925. 37 years ago, when he came
to Trona as a member of Cartago's baseball team, which defeated the Trona
Tigers 19 to 18 on a long hot Sunday afternoon. We arrived Saturday night and
slept in the bullpen, in #lO bunkhouse. The thing that stands out so vividly in
our memory about Austin Hall, was the good wholesome food served in the
company's messhall, and the abundance of ice cream that was served in vegetable
dishes. Nothing ever tasted so good and hit the spot so well as that ice cream
did to a hot and tired baseball team. When we came to work in Trona in April
1928, and after working a couple of weeks in the plant, was transferred to the
79
General store in Austin Hall. I was started as the third man on the soda
fountain, which was very popular in those days. Fourteen years later after
working up through the rankd I reached the top rung, that of supervisor of the
store.
In 1928 Trona's residential area was limited to a few short streets, Main,
Alameda, Mojave, Mt. View, Panamint, Magnolia, California and Lakeview. Austin
Hall, as the hub in the center of the village, was a real modern shopping
center of the village, for that period of time. Far more compact than the new
shopping center of today. All the mercantile units were owned and operated by
American Potash & Chemical Corporation. A high standard of excellency was
maintained at all times. All profits were returned to the employees in
dividends. The highest paid in our time was 27.5%. A battery of slot machines
in the cafe contributed greatly to the high dividend. A cup of coffee, a
newspaper and national brand merchandise with fixed price could be purchased in
Trona cheaper than Los Angeles.
The mercantile department of A.P.&.C.C. was operated solely as a
convenience for the employees, a necessary convenience. There was no other
place to shop. In 1928 Austin Hall housed the following units, the A.P.&.C.C.
office, Trona Railway office, postoffice, barber shop, pool hall, library,
telegraph office, cafe, messhall, (Board was $1.25 a day, rooms $6 to 9 dollars
a month) soda fountain, general store and theatre. The fire station was located
at one corner of the building and the ice plant and meat markey at the opposite
corner. A wagon and team was used to haul away the garbage. This was done in
the morning, in the afternoon the wagon was hosed down and used to deliver ice
and grociers to the homes in the village. Chappo Redon, a fiery Spaniard drove
the wagon-team, assisted by Mexican Joe, his swamper. Chappo, had left his wife
for many years, every year he would pass out cigars, when asked what the
occasion, with a grin from ear to ear, he would proudly exclaim, "Ah! my wife
have fine baby boy" Chappo, never lived to see his fine family in Spain, for
after loosing his wagon to progress, he had a stroke, lingered a while and
died. The writer drove the first delivery truck which replaced the wagon. The
truck was a Dodge, with a special built body. e also inherited Mexican Joe as
a swamper. A salute, and the tip of our hat to the wonderful memories of dear
old Austin Hall.
***********************
DOWN MEMORY LANE.
An interview with Seldom Seen Slim, (Charles Ferge) by a Pot-Ash Reporter in
1937. "Hello, Slim! Long time no see." "Hi, thar! young fellow, how you be? So
began the conversation. Seldom Seen Slim, one of the most picturesque
characters in the entire Mojave desert. "Slim" is well up in years, but hale
and hardy, and as sturdy as the hills that he prospects. There is still a
twinkle in his eyes. He 1oves the sandswept desert and the bleak barren
mountains that stretch from Nevada to the southern boundry of the United
States. He can tell stories of the old days when this country through which we
moderns travel at such terrific rates of speed in our streamline cars was
nothing more than barren waste, uncharted courses over which hardy prospectors,
like himself,
80
traveled on foot leading a few slow gaited burros. He tells of unbelievable
hardships of days without food, of parched bleeding lips and a thirst that
"tore at your throat like an ugly beast."
Yes, said Slim, the desert today is a far cry from days when I first tramped
over the surface of Searles Lake. "Then you have seen Trona and the plant grow
from a small place to the present modem and up-to-date plant of today?" said
the reporter. "Grow!....Well, I should say so," said Slim. As I first remember
the plant here at Trona and compare it with what it is now, I have to wonder.
In 1912 the Trona plant sat down by the edge of the lake, he continued. I had
been prospecting and was a little low on capital, realizing that if I was to
continue on, I would have to have a grub stake. I hired out to the company here
at Trona and helped build Austin Hall. With that grub stake, I again put into
the Panamints the latter part of 1912 and from that day to this I have never
worked for anyone but myself.
"That sounds as though you were doing all right with your prospecting," said
the reporter. "All right," replyed Slim with a sly smile, I'm doing better
than that, there is gold in them thar’ hills and I'm a findin’ it." "Where is
your home, Slim?" asked the reporter. Home, I guess I never had one as near as
I can recall. The Mojave Desert is my home. Wherever I make a strike,
wherever I camp at night-- the hills with their mysterious lore,the call of the
unknown—these are the places I call home. Well, I must be getting back. Just
dropped in to buy a mite of grub. "Back, back where?" asked the reporter.
"There," he said softly as his long arm swept the outline of the hills from
north to south, "there" he said with a twinkle in his keen eyes. With that he
was off again into the little explored region of the desert where few venture.
End of quote.
Where is Slim today and what is he doing? Well, he is still with us. He is 78
years old, and has retired from the life of a prospector. He is the last of the
early day burro prospectors in our part of the desert. Long ago Slim went from
burros to a pickup truck, which he had painted on the side in large bright
letters, "Seldom Seen Slim, The Prospector." Slim went from the pickup to a
jeep which he used for years. Someone, now has to drive the jeep for him. The
Department of Motor Vehicle in Ridgecreet would not renew his drivers license.
When he went to apply for a renewal, they gave him a driving test, Slim flunked
it with flying colors, within six blocks he had six violations. That was the
end of the line for him as a driver.
Slim’s mind is keen, and his health is good for his age. Due to long exposure
to the desert sun, he had several skin cancers removed. He lives alone. If you
should ever want to meet him and talk to him about his colorful life, in the
wintertime, you will find him in Ballarat, the ghost town in Panamint Valley.
The extreme heat and the like of water drives him out of Ballarat into
civilization. During June, July and August he lives in a small apartment on the
Death Valley Highway in Argus. Most likely, in the daytime, you will find him
sitting in the shade on a bench in front of Ted Lang's Chevron Service Station.
Don't look for him at night, as he goes to bed at dark, and gets up at three in
the morning. That is one of his peculiarttes. Slim is a firm believer that the
early bird catches the worm. Old-timer Ted Lang says, that Slim is no longer
"Seldom Seen" He is now often seen.
81
BASQUE SHEPHERDER
Spring has come to our desert. The mountains and high valleys may show a faint
touch of green for six weeks, and again they may not, for we had a ten month
stretch without any rain. The sheepmen will survey the great barren triangle
of land, tipped by the Rand District, the Spangler District and the South end
of Indian Wells Valley. If enough greenery is found to justify their bringing
in the sheep, huge double-decked trucks and trailers will rumble into the area
and discharge their live cargo. There was a time when the sheep were herded all
the way from the Sacramento Valley and grazed through this area. A few base
camps will be established, the white tents of the young Basque Sheepherders
will dot the desert, the tinkling bell of their pack burros will be heard along
with the bark of the sheep dogs. The whine of the tank trucks, hauling in water
for the sheep will also be heard. If one will listen closely another sound may
be heard, the griping of the Johnny-Come-Lately jackrabbit homesteaders who
have built shacks on their five acre empires. At times one may hear some of the
homesteaders abusing the young Basque sheepherders who are tending their
flock...this will be the homesteaders, way of practicing the good neighbor
policy. Let us say to these homesteaders, that the sheep were grazing this area
long before most of them were born, since the year 1890 to be exact. If they
wish to protect their precious land from straying sheep, then let them fence
their property. The writer is one old-timer who has welcomed the coming of the
sheep in the spring for the past forty years, and we would like to be around to
welcome them for another forty years.
82
The true story which we are about to relate, deals with a young Basque who
started his career in our land before the turn of the century as a lowly but
courageous sheepherder, who overcame many trying obstacles and hardships to
leave his mark upon the desert sands of time. As long as our great country
stands, his name will remain forever enshrined on the finest view of Death
Valley from the Panamint Mountains. "AGUERREBERRY POINT". We only wish that
our space would permit us to give you the whole story.
Jean Pierre "Pete" Aguereberry, was born October 18, 1874, near the village of
Mauleon, on the French side of the Pyrenees mountains, within ten hours walking
distance of the Spanish border. Tragedy struck early in his life, when at the
age of six, he lost his mother, who died in agony from the bite of a poisonous
viper. In 1890, at the age of 16, he came along to America, where he joined an
older brother in San Francisco. Saddled with the handicap of not speaking
English, there wasn't much that he could do except herd sheep.
It was our pleasure to know Pete Aguereberry for the last 18 years of his life.
We first met him when we came to Trona in 1928, where he was employed
temporarily by the American Trona Corporation. He was 54 years old at the time,
and was sole owner of the Cashier Mine, in Harrisburg Flat (orininally named
Harrisberry) where, while partners on the trail with Shorty Harris, he
discovered gold in 1905.
He was proud of his mine and the five mile road that he had built by hand from
the mine up to the view of Death Valley, which bore his name. He was always the
happiest when guiding visitors through the mine, and showing them Death Valley
from, the view at the end of his road.
We were always interested in the early day prospectors, miners and their
stories. As Pete and I had become good friends, I was anxious to do a story of
his life. The opportunity was presented in 1941, when the employees of the
Potash Company were out on strike for four and a half months. I worked every
other week, and spent many of my off weeks visiting Pete at his mine, gathering
material for the story. Many nights we sat in his cabin and talked until the
sun came up out of Death Valley. It was while on one of these visits that I had
the experience of hearing snow falling. The heavy moist flakes were as large as
a half dollar, and upon hitting the ground the plopping sound they made was
audible to the ear. My biography of Pete was published serially in the old
Trona Potash Newspaper. The story took Pete from the cradle to the grave.
Death came to Pete at the age of 71 in a tragic manner. On a November day in
1945, he was found floating face down in a warm spring at Tecopa, where he had
gone to recuperate from a serious operation, which he had undergone at the
Trona hospital. As there were no witnesses to his death, it was presumed he
had remained in the warm spring too long, fainted and drown. Although there was
a bruise on his face, and his gold pocket watch, radio and most of the money he
was suppose to be carrying was missing, and never found. The watch, with his
name engraved on the back, was highly cherished by Pete, He had been awarded
the watch for being the champion foot racer at a 4th of July celebration, held
at Skidoo in 1907. I was a pallbearer at the funeral in Lone Pine, where a
memorial mass was said by Father Fred Crawley at the Santa Rosa Catholic
Church. Father Fred Crawley was the brother of the great desert padre, Father
John J. Crawley.
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Pete began his career as a sheepherder at Huron, west of Hanford in the San
Joaquin Valley, in the year 1891, with a bond of 2600 sheep. He was instructed
by his Basque boss to herd the sheep in the near vicinity, as shearing time was
only a month away. For a beginner he did quite well, after becoming accustomed
to sleeping on the ground and learning to cook... As it was springtime, the
range afforded ample feed for the sheep and they were well behaved. Only, old
"Pacho"the name Pete had given his burro, was troublesome. Pacho had been with
sheep so long that he was lonesome without them. When they moved, he moved with
them, regardless of whether Pets had the camping equipment packed on his back.
Many times he would break away while being packed, scattering the equipment
right and left.
Driving his band into the big corral at Huron where the shearing sheds were
located and seeing that they were safely corralled, Pete was confident that now
he was a fullfledged sheepherder. He had gotten by the first month with little
trouble and was beginning to believe what the boss had said when hired him,
about how easy the job would be. Ah! poor Pete, if he known how onery sheep
could be at times and the trouble they would cause him in the future, he would
have lost his cock-sure-ness in a hurry.
Huron was a great shearing center in the '90's, more than 200 shearers were
employed at the height of the season. Enormous corrals held more sheep than
Pete imagined there were in the world. Everyone was busy at shearing time and
Pete was soon engulfed in a maelstrom of toil, sweat, dust and the noise of
bleating sheep, the shearers rolling up great piles of wool, their near naked
victims scampering wildly away at the last snip of the shears. The old mule
plodding around and around the well, motivating power for the pump that lifted
water for the sheep, were all new and interesting sights for Pete. After a
month of loneliness on the range, Pete thoroughly enjoyed the companionship of
the Basque sitting around a campfire at night telling stories, singing and
talking about their homes in the far away Pyrenees.
The first day after leaving Huron with the band of sheep, Pete made camp and
sometime during the night a cold rain set in, having just been relieved of
their winter overcoats, the poor sheep had to do something to keep warm so they
started traveling. When Pete awoke they were gone. Jumping out of his blankets
he became panicky fearing that if he lost the sheep, he would lose his job as
well. Scouting around in the darkness, he heard the faint tinkling of a bell in
the distance. Then he lost his head completely and running through the darkness
toward the sound of the bell, he plunged headlong into a dry creek bed, falling
fifteen feet striking a boulder. When he regained his consciousness, he was
lying on his back with the rain beating on his face. Terrible pain racked his
body and he was unable to move. The rain continued and the water started
running in the creek bed, gradually raising inch by inch and Pete lying there
in agony in the darkness, knew that he was beyond human aid. Stark fear
overwhelmed him as the water rose higher and higher. If it continued rising it
would be only a matter of time until he would drown like a rat in a hole.
Thoughts of dying so young kept running through his mind, as he fervently
prayed to All-Merciful-God to save him. His prayers were answered, for the rain
stopped and the waiter receded. When daylight came he discovered that his ankle
was broken. He was neither able to walk nor could bear the pain caused by
trying to crawl. The only way he could travel was by walking on his knees,
reaching behind and holding the injured ankle off the
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ground by grasping the cuff of the pants leg. This was a slow and painful
procedure but he had to do something. Following the line of least resistance,
he made his way down the creek bed hoping to find a road crossing the creek
where by chance someone passing along would find him before it was too late. It
was noon before he came to a road and none too soon, as he had about reached
the limit of his endurance. He had covered a mile and a half. The knees of his
pants were worn out and his knees were bloody and raw. Collapsing alongside the
road, he lay there helpless. Luck was with him as ten minutes later, a
sheepman came along in a wagon and found him. Pete was never so glad to see
anyone in his life as was to see this man.
After giving Pete water and hearing his story, the sheepman asked, "where’s the
sheep?" Pete told him that he did not know and furthermore he did not care.
Loading Pete in the wagon, the sheepman told him to drive back to camp, while
he went hunting the sheep. After all, the sheep were worth more than a herder.
Pete was hardly able to sit on the wagon seat, much less drive, but he did the
best he could. Several times he almost fell from the wagon, his irrational
driving freightened the mules causing them to run away and nearly upset the
wagon. The men in camp saw the runaway and came out and caught the team.
Driving into camp, they lifted Pete from the wagon and laid him on the ground.
Unlacing the boot, they tried to pull it off but Pete yelled to the high
heavens. The ankle was so swollen they had to cut the boot off. After
administering what first aid they could, Pete was loaded in the wagon and taken
to Huron and put on the train for Fresno. On arrival he was taken to a hotel
which was owned by a Basque. The sheepmen used the hotel as a hospital and
convalescent home for injured sheep-herders, Sickness among the herders was
something unheard of, their life in the wide open spaces, coupled with the
plain and wholesome food they ate, made them about the most healthy people
known.
The above passage was Pete's down to earth version of the realities of a
sheepherder. Six weeks after his accident, he was back on the job driving his
sheep toward the Sacramento Valley where they were to be grazed for the summer.
8000 sheep were being driven north at the time, by several herders. The average
distance traveled each day was about 25 miles. Everything went well until they
were approaching Modesto, where they encountered extremely hot weather and a
long stretch of waterless country. For two days the traveling sheep were
without water. They were so thirsty that when nearing the Tuolumme River and
smelling the water, they stampeded for the river. The bank of the river at that
point was thirty to forty feet high. The thirst-crazed sheep plunged off the
steep bank into the water. Fifteen hundred were killed by the fall or drown.
There was a law that all dead sheep had to be burned or buried. Pete's boss was
arrested and fined for not complying with the law. But how was one to burn or
bury fifteen hundred dead sheep when they were all in the river?
Pete's luck as a sheepherder was not all bad, there were times when he
really enjoyed the lonely life, especially the summers in the high Sierras. He
fished in an unusual manner by building a dam across a small shallow stream,
floating the trout out on dry land. The surplus fish he dried for future use.
Protecting the sheep from mountain lions, bobcats and the coyote added zest to
the job. When his dog sounded the alarm, he would grab
85
his single-barrel shotgun loaded with buckshot and sally forth to kill or drive
the varmints away. Another diversion was matching wits with the cowpunchers
who, when tireing of eating their own beef and wanting a change of diet, would
set a snare in a thicket in the path of the sheep. Soon Pete learned to keep
the sheep away from the thickets. The cowpunchers and ranchers naturally hated
the sheep and many sheepherders were physically beaten by them. Luckily, Pete
escaped with only verbal abuse.
Back in those days California sheep were grazed around what was known as the
great circle, following the season out of the Sacramento Valley south through
the San Joaquin Valley into the Tehachapi mountains, skirting the foothills a
few miles north of Mojave up through the Goler and Rademacher districts and the
Indian Wells Valley. The summer heat would be upon them and the sheep were
driven into the high country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where they were
grazed northward through Inyo, Mono and Alpine counties, emerging in the
Sacramento Valley in the late fall.
In the years 1892-3-4, Pete made the great circle with his band of sheep. At
times he would not see a single person for weeks and then only the driver of
the supply wagon bringing in provisions. On these lonely stretches his dog
afforded him much company. He had trained the dog to gather firewood and to go
and fetch his hat when he had left it in camp. He was once offered $lOO for his
dog which he declined. It was while on one of these trips through the Goler and
Rademacher districts that he encountered the feverish activities and excitement
of gold discoveries. In later years while working as a stage driver in Nevada,
the great gold strike was made in Tonopah. Pete quit his job, bought a pack
burro and turned prospector, following the gold strikes southward through
Goldfield, Rhyolite and across Death Valley into the Panamint Mountains where
he made his first gold strike.
Late in the year 1894, Pete's sheepherding career ended at the ripe old age of
20. This was the year of the big drouth. The driest year in the history of
eastern California. The year when all the sheepmen went broke. The year when
they lost 200,000 head of sheep. Their carcasses were scattered from Tehachapi
to Bridgeport. It was customary in those days for the sheepherders to allow the
boss to keep their wages. (Pete's salary was $25 a month and grub) the boss
acted as their banker and most of the herders never drew their pay until they
quit. In Pete's case, he had three years pay in the boss's keeping. During the
year 1894, When the sheep were starving to death and the sheepmen were going
broke, Pete showed his loyalty to a fellow Basque, his boss, by lending him his
back pay thus trying to help tide him over, but Pete's meager effort to help
went for naught and they all went broke together. All the money Pete ever
received for his three years work as a sheepherder was a ten dollar bill which
his boss gave him to enable him to go to his brother's home at Madera.
86
JOHH SEARLES - BORAX - SEARLES LAKE
On Thursday, November 8th. at 11:00 A.M. an historical marker commemorating the
one hundredth anniversary of the discovery of borax on Searles Lake by John
Searles was dedicated in the town of Trona on the shore of Searles Lake. The
dedication was sponsored by the American Potash & Chemical Corp., the Westend
Chemical Co. a division of Stauffer Chemical, and the Death Valley 49ers inc.
This event marked the kickoff of the 1962 Death Valley Encampment.
John Searles was a '49er, who came to California seeking his fortune in the
goldfields, and wound up making it out of the borax which a bedraggled segment
of half-starved, gold hungry emigrants who had been trapped temporarily in
Death Valley, walked over on their way out. Little did they know they were
passing up a fortune. Even had they known, they would have gone on, for the
glitter of gold was the magnet that had drawn them westward.
At one time Searles Lake was covered by 900 feet of water. As the water
receded, the basin trapped the salts that had leached from rocks down through
the ages. These salts contained many diversified minerals, which were waiting
for man to discover and find uses for,through chemical science. Borax was the
first mineral to be discovered, which was crudely scratched from the lake
surface. The great wealth of other minerals lay beneath the hard crust of the
lake in the heavy brine which extended to a depth of a 100 feet. It was not
until fifty years after the original discovery of borax that chemical
researchers began to find and to work out refining methods to recover these
minerals.
The hard white crust of the lake glistening in the desert sun lay for some 2000
years awaiting the coming of man. The Franciscan Missionaries could have been
the first white men to see the lake, when they came out of Tucson
87
to explore the Mojave desert in 1775. They were followed by other Spaniards who
left their markings in the area where they dug for minerals. John C Fremont
could have seen the lake in 1845, while on a scouting trip when he passed
through the Pilot Knob country to the south. He is credited with having built a
stone corral in the area, which is still standing in what was known by oldtimers as Fremont Pass. We know that the little band of 49ers saw the lake in
the winter of 1850, when they came down to its shore looking for potable water.
One of the 49ers was buried at the north end of the lake. John Searles, first
saw the lake in the spring of 1862 while he was prospecting for gold in the
area. It was while crossing the dry lake that he gathered some salt crystals,
which he suspected contained borax. He did not know for sure until eleven years
later.
John Wemple Searles was born in Tribes Hill, a small settlement in Montgomery
County New York on November 16, 1828. The family was early American. His
grandfather served as a captain in the Revolutionary War. Searles died, October
9, 1897 at the age of 68. His body lies in the purple shadows of the little
cemetery at St. Helena, California.
John and an older brother, Dennis started for the California gold fields in
1849. They came in seperate sailing ships around Cape Horn to San Francisco.
They first settled on Indian Creek in Shasta County, where they bought 160
acres of land and two mining claims. Dennis farmed and John mined. Neither
venture was profitable, so they sold out and went to Los Angeles looking for
business opportunities. Dennis went to work in a mercantile establishment,
while John tried his hand at prospecting up in the Kern River Country, which
was experiencing a new mining boom at the time. After looking over Havilah and
Whiskey Flats, and not liking what he saw, he headed his pack train for the
Panamint Mountains in eastern California. Traveling over Walkers Pass, across
Indian Wells Valley and down into the valley which would later bear his name.
The dry lake was first known as Borax Marsh, and Searles Borax Marsh. The first
postoffice bore the name Borax.
In 1873 John and his brother Dennis were mining low grade gold ore at Slate
Range City overlooking the lake, when they learned of William T. Coleman's
borax discovery at Columbus Marsh in Nevada, and a secondary borax discovery at
Teel Marsh by young Francis Marion Smith, who later became nationally known as
Borax Smith. As these two men were making huge profits from the sale of their
borax, which was selling for $700 a ton at the time. The Searles brothers
wasted no time in getting into the borax business, when analysis showed that
the broad expansive white lake below them contained borax, Staking claims on
the dry lake, they formed the San Bernardino Borax Co., and built a crude
reduction plant on the eastern shore of the lake. They later built a larger
plant at what is now the town of Trona. They were soon in competition for the
borax market.
Chinese Coolies were used to harvest the borax on the lake, which was plowed
into wind rows and hauled to the plant on wagons. A crew of white men oper the
plant. At the height of their operations, a total of sixty men were employed.
88
The Searles brothers were originators of the 20 mule team borax wagons,
although they never received the credit. The theory that Borax Smith was the
first to use these wagons, which he later copyrighted into the trade-mark name
"Twenty-Mule Team Borax" is erroneous, as I have a picture of one of the
Searles 20 mule team wagons. The picture was taken at their Trona plant. The
wagons freighted the borax to the railroad at Mojave. The picture was made long
before Borax Smith started hauling borax out of Death Valley. The Searles
brothers strongly protested Smith's use of the name, but to no avail.
John Searles had one child, a son, Dennis III. From the time of Dennis' birth,
Mrs. Searles was an invalid the rest of her life. The task of raising young
Dennis fell squarely upon the fathers shoulders. Dennis lived in Searles Valley
until he was of school age. He was a member of the Stanford University’s first
graduating class, which included President Herbert Hoover. Upon the death of
his father, his Uncle Dennis having died earlier, young Dennis became president
of the San Bernardino Borax Co. In-the-mean-time, Borax Smith's Company, The
Pacific Coast Borax had discovered and were mining borax in the Calico Hills,
which was much closer to the railroad at Daggett, Young Searles’ Company was
unable to compete with the rival company, and when they offered to buy him out,
he very wisely sold. Young Searles was retained as manager of the works until
it was closed down two years later. We have the pleasure of knowing and
visiting a niece of the Searles brothers, Miss Elizabeth Conner in her home at
Pasadena, Miss Conner told me that her uncle made a fortune out of the Searles
Lake Borax.
There's no question but what John Searles was a courageous man, he had to be to
accomplish what he did in his lifetime. There's no question but what he was a
domineering person. It is a common fault among writers to make heros of the
early day pioneers. In sifting through a maze of material, we found where one
writer described John Searles as a great bear hunter and Indian fighter. He
wrote that once when Searles was passing through the Tehachapi Mountains,he was
attack by a grizzly bear, which nearly tore the side off of his face. In spite
of the ghastly wound, he fought and killed the grizzly with his hunting knife.
Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Searles in his own words, told
how the bear, after attacking and mauling him on the ground left of its own
accord. The attack occured, not in the Tehachapi Mountains, but in the SierraNevada Mountains in Walker Pass, about fifty miles from Trona.
Let us tell you exactly what happened as told by John Searles to and old friend
of his, John R. Spears, who later set the story to print. "Searles along with
four other hunters and a guide who knew the country were hunting brown bear on
the western slope of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains. One night while sitting
around the campfire, Searles expressed the desire to hunt the dangerous grizzly
bear. If Mr. Searles wanted grizzlies, why, another part of the mountains was
the place to find them, so the guide said. There were two there that had been
killing cattle for years, and they were not only big, but were bold and
ferocious as well. Searles said let's go, so away the outfit went. They reached
the spot in the high country and pitched camp, but due to foul weather, strong
wind and snow, were confined to camp for several days. To while away the time,
Searles shot up all his cartridges but four at target practice, and had to send
for more. This he did in the fashion of the day by hanging the written order
89
along with an empty cartridge box on a bush alongside the stage road. The stage
driver must have lost the cartridge box as he got the wrong caliber cartridges.
Searles found, however, that he could make the cartridges fit his rifle after
trimming the bullets carefully with his knife. Although for some reason it took
two blows of the trigger to fire a cartridge.
The morning the storm broke and the sun came out, Searles started out alone
hunting on horseback. When about foru miles from camp he tied the horse to a
bush and continued to hunt on foot. His rifle was loaded with the four good
cartridges and the whittled kind, as he called them. After plowing through the
moist snow covered brush for awhile he was wet to the skin. While working down
the side of a small draw, he spied a big grizzly in its bed across the draw.
Taking careful aim he fired and the grizzly rolled out of the bed. It took two
more shots to kill the bear. This left only one good cartridge in the barrel of
the rifle. Searles cut the bear's throat and while pressing on its breast with
his foot to make the blood flow more freely he heard a noise in a nearby
thicket. Nothing could be seen but he knew from the sound that it was another
bear. By this time the afternoon was wearing away and he was a long way from
camp. After picking up the bears tracks he took off in pursuit with all the
ardor of youth (he was about 40 years old at this time) the tracks led into
heavy brush, and while poking around he was almost shocked out of his boots
when the bear rose up on its hind legs staring him in the face from a distance
of eighteen inches. It was impossible, because of the brush, for Searles to
back off even a step, the best he could do was to point the rifle across his
body as near as he could guess toward the base of the beast’s jaw, and pull the
trigger, hoping to send a ball into his brain. As the gun was discharged, the
bear pitched over on his fore-feet gasping and pawing at its eyes, where the
flame of the cartridge had burned the hair, but apparently only a little hurt.
Quickly Searles threw a new cartridge into the barrel, raising the rifle and
pointing at the base of the brain, pulled the trigger. It was one of the
whittled cartridges and did not fire. With another wrench of the lever Searles
tried again and failed. A third time he tried to fire the gun, and then the
beast turned on him, open-jawed. Searles jammed the rifle into its jaws but it
brushed the weapon aside, threw him to the ground, and with one foot on his
breast bit him in the arm and in the lower jaw. The next bite was in the
throat, severing the wind-pipe and laying bare the artery. As the bear pulled
this mouthful of flesh clear, its foot slipped, and Searles rolled over. His
coat was balled up in a lump on his back and the bear bit into that once and
then went away. "What does a man think when a bear is tearing him to pieces?"
was asked, as Mr. Searles paused in his narrative. "Twenty years in California,
to be killed at last by a damn grizzly, is what I thought. I remember lying
there thinking so very well, I was plum disgusted." Searles was as near dead
as a live man will ever be, but a part of his discomfort saved him. It was
turning extremely cold and his wet clothing began to freeze, and the freezing
temperature sealed the torn blood vessels. This prevented him from bleeding to
death. In spite of his horrible condition and frightful pain,with his lower jaw
dangling about, his throat in shreads and his left arm useless he managed to
crawl end walk to his horse, to mount it, though it was a fractious animal, to
ride to camp, and to reach the Los Angeles hospital, a three day’s trip away.
He lived while surgeons consulted over the best way to make
90
him comfortable during the short time he had to live, and while they talked
about boring through sound upper teeth in order that they might wire the pieces
of the lower jaw together and to the upper one, he managed to kick one from the
bedside. Then one came who plastered, patched, pieced, sewed and inspired
confidence and hope, and in three weeks time the old bear hunter was up and
around, getting well in a way to astonish even the surgeon who had pulled him
together. Anyway the old grizzly bear was the cause of John Searles wearing a
heavy beard for the rest of his life to cover the unsightly scar.
John Searles, the Indian fighter. The same writer who wrote that Searles killed
the grizzly with a knife, brought forth this gem. "Shortly after the beginning
of his operations at Borax Lake, the Indians attacked his camp at night and
drove off most of his horses and mules, Searles immediately gathered togethered
a few men and followed the Indians over the divide into Panamint Valley, shot
them all and recovered his stock. The Indians themselves (the ones that were
not killed) at a later date, acknowledged that they had not returned to the
valley until after the death of Searles in 1897, they had a great fear of
Searles. In 1903 or 1904. Joe Peterson, or Indian Joe as he was called, brought
his father, Old Pete, and members of the family back to their home on Peterson
Creek (known today as Indian Joe's place) which Searles had appropriated. When
they returned, however, they found it greatly improved for Searlee had
developed the springs, planted fruit trees and converted the almost desert spot
into a terraced garden."
At least this writer was right when he said that Searles appropriated the
Indian's home. Needing water for the borax works, and a place to build a summer
home where it would be a little cooler, Searles drove the Indians from their
oasis home and moved in with his Chinese Coolies and fixed the place up. When
the Indians returned to raid his camp and drive off his stock, they were merely
seeking revenge.
Another writer told a little different story about the Indian raid. "John
Searles had gone with a mule teem shipment of borax to San Pedro, leaving his
son Dennis, then four years old, in the care of the Chinese cook, A few days
after the wagon train left camp, there suddenly appeared in the distance, like
a plague of locusts, a band of hostile Indians. Sensing danger the old
Chinaman quickly gathered some food and fled with Dennis into a nearby canyon
in the mountains. The Indians closed in on the camp, burned everything that
would burn, and drove the stock over the Slate Range into the Panamint Valley.
Sand storms in all their deadly fury are as nothing compared with the anger of
John Searles when he returned and beheld the ruins of all that he possessed and
his son gone. As soon as the Chinaman and Dennis reappeared he assembled the
team, took the same drivers, and started back for San Pedro, stopping enroute
to leave Dennis and the cook in friendly hands in San Bernardino. At San Pedro
he bought mules, old army saddles and repeating rifles, hired a small band of
longshoremen from the docks and returned to the desert to track down the
Indians. Searles caught up with them in the foothills of the Panamint Mountains
where a bloody battle ensued. The Indians were fighting with bows and arrows,
and, as one of the survivors told later, they did not fear the white men,
thinking that the arrows would mow them down while rifles were being reloaded.
Many Indians were killed and wounded and the remainder fled in panic, 1eaving
the livestock behind.
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Returning to Searles basin, he began the heart breaking task of rebuilding the
borax works.
If John Searles could return today, he would find that his lake has become the
world’s richest known mineral deposit, and his crude little borax works has
grown into the largest chemical plant west of the Mississippi River. He would
also find this inscription on an historical monument which was erected in his
honor.
SEARLES LAKE BORAX DISCOVERED
"Borax was discovered on the nearby surface of Searles Lake by John Searles in
1862. With his brother Dennis he formed the San Bernardino Borax Mining Company
in 1873 and operated it until 1897. The chemicals in Searles Lake which include
borax, potash, soda ash, salt cake and lithium were deposited here by runoff
waters from melting ice age glaciers. John Searles discovery has proved to be
the world's richest chemical storehouse containing half the natural elements
known to men."
CALIFORNIA REGISTERED HISTORICAL LANDMARK NO. 774
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THE PINNACLES-CASTLES BUILT BY PLANTS
The mysterious formations that one sees at the south end of Searles Lake known
officially as The Pinnacles are relics of the day when this desert was a most
beautiful botanical garden. Seen from a distance, this strange ensemble of
towers, spires and cupolas appear like temples built by man, and no wonder the
freighters, miners and prospectors gave them the name of Cathedral Town.
The desert country lying between Death Valley and the Sierra Nevada's was
composed of a series of fresh water lakes once extending from Mono Lake
southward through Owens Lake southward through Indian Wells Valley, eastward
through China Lake, northeast again to Searles Lake and then into Panamint
Valley and Death Valley. This string of lakes was fed by snow and glaciers from
the mountains. The water was impregnated with a smal1 quanity of lime in
solution. That those lakes abounded with life has been proven by the discovery
of fossils along the lake beds. But relics of ancient denizons of the deep are
very rare. Strange is the fact that these large mementos...The Pinnacles of
Searles Lake... are built of the tiniest of organisms known as blue-green
algae, also by the botanical name of "Cryptzoons," the smallest member of the
seaweed family which was microscopic; but like all small bodies its need for
carbon dioxide was enormous, which all members of the plant family must have in
order to exist. So the Cryptzoon absorbed calcium hydroxide in large
quantities, appropriated from it the carbon dioxide it needed, and precipitated
the residue of lime in solid masses that grew slowly with the years, under the
pellucid water. Like great coral reefs, these submerged islands slowly took
form, until they covered large areas under the restless waves that concealed
them. As the ages passed, a great climatic change occurred, From year to year
precipitation decreased until the streams of the Sierras that fed this chain of
lakes furnished less water than the greedy sun evaporated from their surfaces.
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The lowest in the series was first to feel the effects, and Panamint lake
receded until it eventually became a desiccated expanse of white chemicals, in
which salt predominated. Searles Lake was next to succumb. The motherstream
that flowed through Poison Springs Canyon faded to a mere trickle and waves
lapping boulder-strewn mountain-sides began a slow retreat that lasted for
centuries. As the lake sank to lower levels, tiny dots began to appear on its
surface near the southern shore. These were the tips of great tufa crags which
had been slowly built up under the water by Cryptzoon...a strange reef of
purest lime in a mysterious inland sea. The present accumulation, therefore,
required some 3,5OO years of time, which would indicate that Searles Lake was
fresh during the height of Babylonian civilation.
The Pinnacles are a most impressive reminder of the poignant fact that the
desert once blossomed like a rose. Their jagged outline is an arresting sight
to travelers bound for Death Valley by way of Trona. Those who yield to a
desire to see them at closer range will fine the intervening five miles from
the highway to be a fair desert road, offering no difficulty to the skillful
driver. Viewed individually and in small groups these rock structures are even
more strange and inconguroua to their setting than they appear to be from a
distance. There has been no wind and water erosion, which tends to soften the
contours of sandstone formations, but occasional rains and air slaking through
many centuries have made them even more bold in outline than they were when
receding waters left them high and dry
We wonder what John Searles would say, and if he could know that God's
majestical Pinnacles are being destroyed by man. Red-shirted John Searles would
have unleashed his pungent vocabulary on the ghouls and gone after them with
his buffalo gun. Since the last issue of Desert Sands, we have been deluged
with letters protesting the destruction of the Pinnacles. Letters of protest
have come from old-timers, Bill Baird, Al Paulson, Nix Knight and many others.
Recently the writer inspected the damage done to the Pinnacles. We found that
most of the Pinnacles are now as bald as an eagle, where the rough tufa crust
has been blasted away and sold as ornamental building rock. There is still
enough of the pinnacles left to be worth saving. But how do we go about saving
them? If any of the readers know,we would be pleased to hear from you.
*******************************
THE SAND TRAP
With members of the local Mineral Club dashing hither and yon attempting to
swap Hanksite crystals for gold nuggets, reminds us of a story we once heard
about a desert cafe owner who once grubstaked a youngster on a gold prospecting
trip. Two weeks after the boy set out he returned with a sack of quartz. The
rock was shot through with veins of yellow metal. A wise old prospector,
lunching in the cafe, hitched up his trousers, walked over and took a squint at
the rock. "Hump", he snorted, "just iron pyrites—absolutely no value, generally
called fool's gold because nobody but a fool would think it is gold." The
disappointed youth left without telling where he had found the quartz end the
cafe owner thought no more of it and dumped the rock in a corner. Several weeks
later a mining engineer dropped into the cafe and happened to notice the ore.
Where did you get those ore specimen?" he asked. "It is one of the richest I've
seen in these parts in a long time." The quartz was sent to an assayer and it
assayed over $5,000 a ton. Fool's gold---but who was the fool---?
93
EDWARD ELI "ED" TEAGLE
Ed Teagle will tell you that the desert wine will die as sundown, but he won't
say when it will rise again. He will tell you, that the way to keep an old cow
from freezing to death in a panhandle blizzard is to feed her three ears of com
and five gallons of water a day. He says, that in the mining game, more money
has been put in the ground than has ever been taken out, and that more dry oil
wells have been drilled than ones that produce oil. Ed should know about these
things as he was there and tried them all.
Ed Teagle at 92 is Searles Valley's number 2 oldtimer. Oh yes! we have an older
oldtimer. Jim McGinn, who is 94 and lives with his daughter Bessie Tyler in
Argus, we are not going to divulge Bessie's age but she is a retired
postmistress. Jim McGinn started his desert career as a merchant at Garlock in
1894. Ed started his in Johannesburg as a mining man in 1899. The two
oldtimers have been friends for the past 60 years.
Ed made the headlines last March when he sold his mine which he had owned for
the past 39 years. The famous old Stockwell, located 8 miles north of Trona in
the Slate Range. What made the old Stockwell famous you may wonder? Well! for
one thing a man was once murdered under ground in the mine by a fellow worker,
who caved in his skull with a length of tool steel. Another reasom, Ed, knowing
a good mine when he saw one, bought the Stockwell in 1924. for $100,000. That
my friends in those days was a lot of money, and last but not least, the great
amount of gold produced by the mine.
94
At the time of the murder, the owners of the mine were mostly walnut growers.
These people were sued by the victim's widow. The owner paid off wgen the court
awarded her a large sum for the death of her husband. If anyone should be
skeptical about Mr. Teagle having paid $100,000 for the mine, the sale was duly
recorded and is a matter of record for all to see, at the courthouse in
Independence. The mine was originally discovered in 1894 by a Mr. Greenlesf and
his partner Billy Norvell. The property consisted of 56 claims and known as the
Eagle group was developed by Greenleaf's son-in-law, Vernon E. Stockwell. The
mine is now of such magnitude that in case of a local bomb scare, it could
shelter the entire population of Searles Valley.
Ed Teagle was born May 4., 1871, of Quaker parents in the biggest Quaker town
west of Philadelphia, Richmond, Indiana. Although proud of his Quaker heritage,
he rebelled against the staid life in his early teens and ran away from home,
coming, which was then, way out west, to the north pole of the United States.
The Panhandle country of Texas and Kansas, where he became a cowboy. "A train
once stopped at Amarillo Texas in the panhandle country, while a norther was
racing into a blizzard, a passenger wishing to stretch his legs and get a bit
of fresh air, alighted from a coach and asked a shivering negro porter standing
by the train if the town was Amarillo, to which the porter replied, "no sor
boss, this am the north pole." Many times during his career as a cowpuncher in
the panhandle, Ed had reason to believe the porter was right, while struggling
to keep his cattle from freezing to death.
After serving his apprenticeship in the cattle business, he moved up along the
Cimarron in southwest Kansas, where he became a rancher, borrowing money from a
bank he bought land for a dollar an acre, with only a 10% down payment.
Starting with a small herd of cattle, he ranched for 14 years. In his own words
he tells how he prospered by working 26 hours out of the 24 in a day, but in
doing so he lost his health, becoming a walking skeleton, he was told by his
doctor that he only had six months to live. He was married at the time and had
fathered two children. Leaving his family on the ranch he came to the Mojave
desert in 1899 to die. Ed says that he fooled everybody including himself about
this dying business. He credits the old Mojave desert and the consumption of a
quart of whiskey a day with restoring his health.
Ed's brother, Charley Teagle, who was a merchant, had proceeded him west.
Charley had established e stage station at Garden City and a prosperous
merchantile business at the railroad terminal in Johannesburg (called Joburg by
the old-timers) in 1894. At the time, the Rand District and the Death Valley
country that lay to the northeast was swarming with prospectors, some of whom
were striking it rich. While spending a few months with his brother Charley
recuperating his health, Ed was bitten by the prospecting bug, and when he was
well enough to travel, he bought a team of mules, a light spring wagon and a
camping outfit. Teaming with C.H. "Charley" Churchill, whom Ed says was the
best durn geologist that ever set foot on the Mojave desert. He was, that is,
when he was sober.
95
They set out on an extended prospecting and mine buying trip into the Death
Valley country. Ed recalls that they camped for a few days at Postoffice
Springs, a few hundred yards south of Ballarat, also at Emigrant Springs and on
Furnace Greek at the Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek Ranch) in Death Valley.
Entering Nevada through Daylight Pass they visited an Indian Ranch where they
met the owner Walter Beatty, a squaw-man. The ranch later became the town of
Beatty.
It was while on this trip that Ed learned that the hard work prospecting was
for the birds. That it was also a hit and miss proposition, that for ever
prospector who struck it rich, thousands failed to make even a grubstake. Ed
had implicit faith in Churchill, and whenever he put his stamp of approval on a
proepect or mine, Ed would start negotiating with the owner to lease or buy the
property. Normally a geologist is not a prospector, but Churchill must have
been an exception to the rule, as he later made the original discovery of
tungsten, which was called heavy spar in those days. Churchill staked the first
three claims at what was to become Atolia during World War I, when there was a
great demand for tungsten.
Ed’s philosophy was to lease or buy a property, work it if feasible or sell at
a profit and that is how he made his money in the mining business. At one time
he owned and operated the famous old Minnietta silver mine in the Argus
mountains for a period of 2 1/2 years. Ed bought the Minnietta from the late
J.J. "Jack" Gunn, a well known pioneer in early Inyo County mining, Mr. Gunn,
was the father of Helen Gunn Edwards. He died in San Francisco at the age of 72
in March, 1918.
Charley Teagle, wanting to expand his business, took brother Ed in as a silent
partner, as Ed was making money hand over fist in the mining game and had
plenty of money to invest at the time. As a partner,Ed received $200 a month
and half the profits from the business, he in turn financed the expansion
program which consisted of a large hotel in Joburg, a freight and mail line
from Joburg to Skidoo by the way of Ballarat, a stage station and feed store at
the "Tanks", west of Valley Wells near Ezra King’s ranch, a store and hotel in
Ballarat and a lumber yard and feed store in Skidoo. Needless to say they
prospered during the boom days. The Teagle brothers were known far and vide as
good business men and square shooters.
In those days a man's word was his
bond and his credit was good with the Teagles. The brothers had the business
acumen to sell their branch businesses before the booms burst. For example,
they sold the station at Garden City, with its 40 acres of land and water
rights in 1911 to the Hutchison Brothers, contractors who built the railroad
from Searles Junction to Trona.
In 1905, Ed built a large six room house in Joburg and brought his family out
from Kansas. He was every inch a family man and very active in civic affairs,
chairman of the school board etc. He also had a heavy hand in keeping the town
clean. In 1915 Ed shook the desert sands from his shoes and moved to Redondo
Beach, where his children, who now numbered three, could attend high school. Ed
went into the real estate brokerage business with offices in Los Angeles. Later
he owned and operated a large merchantile business in 0range
96
County. With the wealth accumulated, he tried his hand in the production end of
the oil game in Kern County, near Bakersfield. Leasing land on which he drilled
for oil. Ed wasn't lucky in oil, as he sank most of his capital in dry holes,
but not all as he had enough left to buy the Stockwell mine. His first wife,
Lillie Clark Teagle died March 3rd. 1926. He married Mrs. Grace Armstrong in
1933. In 1934 he brought his new wife back to the desert, to his home at the
Stockwell. Well do we remember when they came, driving a shiny new Packard
sedan which seemed a half a block long in those days. What an elegant couple
they made and what a charming person she was. When they came to Trona once a
week for supplies she looked as if she had just stepped out of a band box. They
successfully operated the mine and mill up until the government ristricted gold
mining, in 1942.
Mrs. Teagle died at the Stockwell September 3, 1957, at the age of 85. The last
ten years of her life she was an invalid confined to bed. People who knew and
visited Mr. Teagle during this trying time in his life, have great respect and
admiration for him, for his loving care and devotion he gave his wife. He
literally nursed her night and day. Most of the time all alone. When she died,
he sent Dutch Baker, who at the time had the mine and mill under lease, in to
Trona, to have me do Mrs. Teagle1s obituary for the press. It was one of the
saddest things that I ever had to do.
One of the days best remembered by Ed was in January, 1934 when the government
pegged the price of gold at $35 an ounce. This eventually sounded the death
knell for the gold mines. The present day high cost of mining gold is
prohibitive. A word of warning, never mention the name Roosevelt in Ed's
presence. Need we say that Ed is a conservative Republican? At 92, he's still
as independent as a hog on ice, tough as an old boot and as sharp as most men
are at 62. Last April he was floored for the count of two weeks by a case of
fatigue. He was found unconcious on the floor of his home and rushed to the
Trona hospital. Many of his old friends including the writer sadly shook their
heads thinking that this would be the end for Ed, at his age you know. At the
end of two weeks I went to visit him at the hospital, when I asked a cute
little nurse if I could see Ed, she informed me that he had gone home that
morning. Driving out to his home at the Stockwell, I found him down on the
floor putting a new wick in his kerosene burning refrigerator and complaining
about the beer being hot.
In our files we have 101 of Ed's desert stories. Picking a short one at random:
"In 1897, north of Mojave there was a stage and freight line station known as
the ‘Eighteen Mile House’. The place was run by Clare Gaynon, whom Ed says is
still living on Ash Street Fullerton. One evening three toughs stopped and
ordered feed for their horses and food for themselves, and to be quick with the
service as they were hungry. Clare sensing that the men were up to no good and
while they were eating he was thinking of some way to run a bluff on them.
While he was thinking a rat ran across the dirt floor of the room, quickly
drawing his '32 he shot the rat's head off. This display of marksmanship
impressed the toughs enough that they offered to bet him $50 that he couldn't
do it again. The money was put on the table and covered with a bowl. As they
sat waiting for another rat to cross the room, Clare was silently praying that
he could do it again.
97
Beheading the rat with the first shot was purely luck, he knew that he wasn't
that good a marksman. Pretty soon another rat started across the room, with the
toughs yelling there goes one, Clare snapped off a shot with a prayer,
beheading the rat. A deathly silence fell over the room for a few moments as
Clare pocketed his gun and the money. Controlling his shaking voice he told
them to come around in the daytime and he would show them some real shooting.
The toughs wasted no time in mounting their horses and riding away toward
Mojave. The next day the stage driver from Mojave told Clare that three mounted
men had robbed and beaten the livery stable and feed yard man in Mojave.
In our story of Ed Teagle, we have barely scratched the surface of his life.
There are many things left untold, enough to fill a book. It is our earnest
hope that what little we have written will in some way be a tribute to the
grand old man of the Mojave desert, who is almost the last of a vanishing race.
The hardy men of the old school, who believed in pulling themselves up in the
world by their own boot straps.
*******************************
THE MOJAVE'S LAST GREAT GOLD STRIKE.
The last big gold strike on the Mojave Desert was made by George Holmes on the
Soledad Mountain near the town of Mojave in 1933. We had been wanting to do a
story about Mr. Holmes fabulous discovery for a long time but did not have
enough facts to build a story. The April 22, issue of the Los Angeles Times
carried a story written by Henry Southerland of an interview with George Holmes
at his home in Arizona. Many of our oldtimers have often wondered what became
of Mr. Holmes and what he did with his wealth, we are taking the liberty of
reproducing Mr. Sutherland’s fine article for those who may have missed it.
Thirty years after his discovery of the Silver Queen Mine, latest in a long
line of California gold bonanzas, hard-rock miner George I. Holmes shook his
head and said of his find: "it may be the last". In a comfortable Yuma
residence--Holmes divides his time between California and Arizona--he fingered
mementoes of his 1933 Soledad Mountain strike that launched the Mojave gold
rush. "The gold is still in the ground", he said. "As much as ever has been
mined". Any cloudburst may uncover a vein or a telltale piece of float, but
nobody is looking for it any more. Very few know how, and the number of those
who do is dwindling. Give us another 20 years and all of the gold miners will
be dead." If Holmes' foreboding proves correct he may be the last of a line,
too---last of the discoverers who stretch back to John Marshall, kneedeep in
Sutter's mill race, last of the pick and shovel miners who "Struck it rich".
Holmes dug $600,000 worth of ore out of the Silver Queen before selling out for
$3.7 million plus royalties on January 11, 1935. The buyer was Consolidated
Gold Fields of South Africa, founded by Cecil Rhodes, fabulous 19th-century
British Empire builder called the "uncrowned King of Africa". During the seven
years before gold mining was haulted as a war measure in 1942, Consolidated
took a million tons of ore worth $13 to $15 million from the flank of Soledad
Mountain.
98
Holmes is 60 now, but still lean, hard-banded and calculating of eye.
This
is his story of how he found the Silver Queen, and the reason why he fears it
may prove to be the last of the big bonanzas:
"I've been mining since I was
16," he says. "Worked underground in most of the glory holes of the West--Grass Valley, Randsburg, Tonopah, Jerome---When I found the Silver Queen I was
leasing on Soledad (mining independently for a percentage of his production)
in Jess Knight's Elephant Eagle." Knight, father of former Gov. Goodwin J.
Knight end a veteran of the Utah and Nevada gold fields, sold his Soledad
Mountain claims for a reported $500,000 after the Mojave rush. The association
echoed years later when Gov. Knight, himself a one-time hard-rock miner,
appointed Holmes to the California Horse Racing Board for an eight-year term
which ended in 1960. "You have to know that gold miners are always
prospecting,"Holmes continued. "Either while at work underground or in their
spare time". It'slike a reflex. "That Sunday, September 17, 1933, I decided
to go up a draw on the north face of Soledad and look at a couple of feet of
open ground (unpatented public land) which I heard might run $12 to $14 a ton.
"It was high up, toward the top, and near a small side draw forking to the left
I found this piece of float." Holmes pointed to an ordinary-looking chunk of
rock on his coffee table, a fragment broken from a similar vain by accident
thousands of years ago and in the course of time, floated to the surface.
"It's argentite," he said,
"Very heavy". This piece weighed about 300 lb.
before I sawed parts of it off.
I knocked off samples, up there in the draw,
and when I got home I pounded some to dust in a mortar and panned it in an egg
skillet. It was high- grade. I figured it at $l800 a ton". Assays confirmed
his conclusion a few days later, Holmes recalled.
The high-grade streek,
about 18 in. wide in the center of the vein, assayed at 4.5 oz. of gold and
377 of silver.
"The main vein of the Queen was 1,100 ft. long, Holmes recalled." At its
narrowest point, on the 2OO-ft. level, it was 20ft. wide, and at its widest,
100 ft. After finding the rich float, Holmes said, his problem was to locate
the vein from which it came. "If I hadn't found it, I'd have been there yet,"
he said, but it wasn't hard. I trenched only about 15ft., before I came on it,
6ft. under the over-burden. "Then it was a question of development. It took
me six weeks to get out 30 sacks of high-grade with a pick and shovel and haul
them about a mile and a half down the mountain on my back. But after I shipped
them to the smelter at Shelbyville I had $2,000 and that was enough to
bulldoze a rough road up to the mine. I moved in a small compressor and
stripped out the first carload." "Working with typical secrecy Holmes mined
and shipped 300 carloads during the first 11 months of 1934, and the pick and
shovel miner became a mining magnate with a $600,000 fortune.
Whispers of
the bonanza spread like ripples. On December 4, 1934, the Los Angeles Times,
banner-lined the story under an eight-column, "HUGE GOLD STRIKE REPORTED," and
the Mojave rush was on. "Several sizeable strikes were made within five or six
miles of the Silver Queen," Holmes recalled. "Mines like Harvey Mudd's Cactus
Queen and Dr. A.H.Giannini’s Middle Butte, but the Queen was the largest."
Why does Holmes fear the like may never happen again? "Because gold mining is
about dead’" he says. Except for the Homestake in South Dakota, I don’t know
of a single gold mine operating in the United States. The old prospectors are
dying off, and no young ones are replacing them, without mining, young men have
no opportunity to work underground and learn to know ore.
99
There is no substitute for practical experience, but surely schools of mines
can produce prospectors. "Did you ever hear of a geologist finding anything?
Holmes scoffs. No, and neither did anyone else. Geologists never tell you
where it is, just how it happened to be there after you've found it. A
prospector has to know what ore looks like, and how to judge what it is worth
right now. There's no time to wait for assays. I don't suppose I ever
missed(the value of) a car load of ore by over $5 a ton. But gold is the basis
of our currency, why has gold mining declined to almost nothing? "Simple
economics."
Holmes explains, under present conditions it would be unprofitable to mine any
but extremely high grade ore. In January of 1934 the government pegged the
price of gold at $35 an ounce. At that time miners wages were $7 or $8 a day.
Mine timbering, 8 x 8s and 2x2s, were $40 a thousand board feet. Powder
(dynamite) was $8 a case, and everything else similary priced, now wages are
$25 and up, timber is around $200 a thousand and powder $18, but the price of
gold is still $35. The price would just about have to double to restore things
as they were. "It would double, too, on a free market. Dozens of mines would
reopen and thousands of miners would go to work. A whole industry would be
revived, but gold miners don't look for that to happen. Recently Holmes
developed a Yuma Shopping Center in association with Lewis W. Douglas, former
ambassador to England and one-time U.S.budget director. I'm still a
prospector," he insists. "Right now I'm wearing out my third Jeep." What would
Holmes do if he found the Silver Queen today instead of 30 years ago. I'd never
find anything like that again in 50 lifetimes," he says. Neither would anyone
else. Musing, Holmes found a new small flame of hope: "We just might find out
some day," he said. " I have some ideas about a place over in the Chocolate
Mountains. Going to do some diamond drilling this summer. Last week an oldtimer brought me some samples from farther north. He'd been single-jacking
(hand drilling) up there in the rhyolite. Of course you can't tell, just from
samples, but they looked pretty good..."
****************************
As we go to press word has been received, that two old-timers, long-time
friends of ours, have passed tway. A letter from H.P."Nix" Knight informed us
that Frank Kutz, died ct his home in Glendale, May 6, at the age of 78. Frank
may be remembered by some of the old-timers, as a maintenance man at
Borosolvay.
The Tall Joshua of Shoshone - is dead at 79. Charley Brown, who served 14 years
as Supervisor of the 5th. district in Inyo County and 24 years in the State
Senate, died suddenly May 9, at his Shoshone Home. He was laid to rest in the
Shoshone Cemetery. The writer met Chas. Brown in 1924 when he was running for
supervisor for the first time.
100
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In this the 16th edition of Desert Sands which ends the 4th year of
publication, we are happy to feature a story by the late Louis Daniel Spaulding
who helped make history shortly after the turn of the century in Death Valley
Country.
Mr. Spaulding, as a young man worked at Bob Montgomery’s mile high gold mill at
the mining camp of Skidoo in the Panamint Mountains. The mill was powered
principally by water which flowed by gravity through a 23 mile pipeline from
Birch Springs high on the west side of Telescope Peak at the head of Jail
canyon. Auxiliary power when needed was furnished by a kerosene burning engine.
The kerosene which came in five gallon cans was freighted by team from the end
of the Santa Fe Railroad at Johannesburg.
Mr Spaulding’s story written in 1958 deals with how he traveled to Skidoo,
spending a night at John Calloway's hotel in Ballarat, work in the mill and how
he walked across Death Valley from Skidoo to Rhyolite Nevada with an injured
hand. In reading the story you will find that the hardy men of those days were
just as rugged as the wild country in which they toiled. We extend our sincere
thanks to Mr. Spaulding’s daughter, Louise Ehrhart, for permitting us to use
the story. It is our aim with Desert Sands to put into print for posterity the
stories of the old-timers so that future generations will know what life was
like in these parts in the early days.
****************************
THE
AMALGAMAT0R - SKIDOO 1909
By Louis Daniel Spaulding
In the early days of lode gold mining, stamp mills were used for crushing the
ore. Where there was free gold in the ore, a silver plated copper plate was
placed so that the discharge through the screen from the morter,with the
addition of water, flowed down over this plate which was coated with
quicksilver allowing the free gold to become amalgamated and retained on the
plate. The man who operated such a mill was called an amalgamator.
101
In September of 1909, Bob Montgomery came to my home to discuss sending me to
Skidoo to run his mill. He had learned, from his chauffeur, a friend of mine,
(Cecil Loomis) that I was an amalgamator. Arrangements were made for me to go
to his office the following Monday to care for financing the trip. He advanced
me fifty dollars and the pay for my services agreed upon as seven dollard a day
and board. I took train from Los Angeles to Barstow, where I transferred to a
combination train to Johannesburg. From there I went by stage to Ballarat. The
distance was seventy-two miles, past Searles Dry Lake at which point the horses
were exchanged. While this was being done, I talked with the man on the front
porch of the station shack. Hanging by bailing wire wrapped around the bare
plant was a small cactus with a single reddish pink blossom on it. The man
told us that Mr. Searles himself had hung it there fifteen years before and
now, was the first time it had blossomed or shown any sign of life. He figured
the desert air contained more moisture this particular year.
Arriving at Ballarat, which at that time had a store, postoffice, restaurant,
and hotel. I made arrangements for a bed, meals etc. At six in the morning,
having had breakfast, I was on the stage as sole passenger with Ed Robinson,
stage driver for Skidoo. The trip was through Wildrose Canyon by way of
Harrisburg Flats, a distance of 43 miles. I amused myself on the way shooting
at coyotes with Colt automatic pistol. We got into Skidoo just at dusk.
I had been down-spirited because of having left a year-old-baby who was
becoming dear and interesting to me, and also the thought, that there would be
no one at Skidoo whom I had previously known. ( A co-incidence was that my
wife had been born in Virginia City and the daughter in Searchlight Nevada,
where I had been an amalgamator in the Quartette Mill), As I got off the stage
the first person I saw was Austin Young, who had been postmaster in Randsburg
and was now the Skidoo postmaster. Also I talked with a miner I had known
previously who was later killed at the Arondo Mine. I was driven to the mine
about a half a mile further and met Bob's superintendent, Al Davis; had my
supper at the mine boarding house, which employed a middle-aged lady who had
been a registered nurse. There was also a younger woman for dishwashing for
handyman, a young man in his early twenties, named Potts.
It was agreed that I would take up my duties the second day following. I was
to replace a man who had become careless and was loosing amalgam from the
plates. I was given a room in the bunkhouse which had a bed, chair, water
pitcher, and basin. As I had a sailor's hammock with me, I decided to sleep in
that. It was a bad idea, for one of the supports broke in the night giving me a
painful fall. In the morning I had breakfast and went down to look over the
mill which was eight or nine hundred feet down in a steep gulch below the
office.
The mill was fifteen, ten-hundred-and-fifty pound stamps, run by a Doble type
water wheel without a governor. It was possible to walk under the floor on
which the amalgam plates were located. Under here was a Continental gas engine
with hit-and-miss type governor. This engine by a belt could be hooked to a
line shaft to give additional power when crushers on the upper floor were
operating. It also served when thus hooked up to a certain extent to govern the
water power.
102
I began immediately to improve amalgamation and with the help of Fred Davis,
the superintendent's brother, make repairs to the mill. I cleaned up twice a
month and recovered from nine to fourteen thousand dollars each clean up We had
some trouble with the pipeline, which was twenty-three miles long coming from
Telescope Peak. It was broken once where it lay on the surface near the mill.
I had only made one clean-up when Mr. Montgomery sent word to Al Davis to put
me in charge of the mill. An amusing but rather dangerous accident happened in
the assay office one day. It was the custom to take the sponge gold after
retorting away the mercury, and placing it with proper flux into a plumbago
crucible. The old one looked rather weak so there being a new mate to it, I
used the new one. When the gold is thoroughly melted it is poured into four
pound bricks, as at this time the postoffice would not transport larger sizes.
This crucible would hold about two-and-a-half or three gallons of liquid. The
method of handling is shown here: One man on each handle, protected by long
gauntlet asbestos gloves, would lift the crucible, thus pouring the gold into
one mold after the other. The ring in this case was not tight enough. The
crucible tipped out of the ring and upside down, spilling the molten gold on
the concrete floor where it ran in every direction. The superintendent, who was
helping me, and I had to step lively to escape the molten gold from striking
against our feet, as it would have burned right through the sides of our shoes.
Afterwards we used a smaller crucible which could be handled with tongs by one
man.
Another amusing incident occurred at the mill. We were operating two twelvehour shifts. I had replaced the other amalgamator with a new man named Perch
Douglas, who not only was a capable man but very conscientious.
I had been in the habit of carrying balls of amalgam in a large iron pot up to
the main office safe, but it being very heavy, decided rather to hide it in a
large carpenter and tool box in the mill. Hiding it for the first time under
the tools and locking the box with a padlock, I forgot that Percy might have to
use tools during the night and I failed to mention it to him. In the morning
when I relieved him he said that during the night he had needed tools end was
quite miffed. When I told him why and upon showing him several thousand dollars
worth of amalgam he said if he had known it he would have been worried all
night for fear of being knocked on the head and robbed.
Things went along almost in a routine way until a day or so before Christmas
when I had trouble with the gas engine having a tendency to run away. I had a
pair of pliers for which I had sent to Chicago, similar to model T ford pliers
with one handle having a screwdriver edge on it, and which cost me forty-five
cents. I attempted to make an adjustment on the governor without stopping the
engine. There was a weight about four inches in diameter and two inches thick
on one spoke of the flywheel. This was a part of the governor mechanism. In
some manner it struck the pliers and drove the screwdriver handle into the
center of the palm of my right hand. I had a sharp pain in the back of my
right hand and thinking it had knocked my hand against the hood of the engine
and knocked the pliers from my hand, I began looking for them on the floor:
suddenly I discovered that they were still sticking in my hand, and had to put
them in a vice on the work bench and pull my hand off from them.
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I left the mill in Fred's care and went up to the mine office, where we had a
first aid kit. The strongest antiseptic we had was Peroxide of Hydrogen. I
cleaned and dosed my hand with this and Al wrapped it up for me. That evening
Mrs Davis roasted an onion which I placed on the hand, but I slept very little
that night and in the morning had a terribly swollen hand. Our doctor had gone
away prospecting so Al Davis advised me to take the stage to a doctor at
Randsburg. As it was seven below zero in the morning and there was a foot and a
half of snow on the ground, I decided against.
Young Potts had been wanting to go for a short vacation to Los Angeles so I
persuaded Mr. Davis to let him go with me and we would walk the sixty-two miles
to Rhyolite, Nevada, crossing Death Valley. We carried a small coffee pot,
frying pan and a small amount of food, and each of us had two gallon canteens
of water, and me with my pockets full of onions.
We arrived at Stovepipe Wells by dark. There was only an unroofed adobe house
with a dirt floor and the so-called well, a hole probably four feet deep and
fourteen inches in diameter. We did not use the water from this well; which was
heavily impregnated with arsenic. This place being 4.9 feet below see level, we
slept fairly warm inside the house without blankets, which we could not carry.
In the morning, after making coffee and frying bacon, we started up the other
side through the Funeral Range. Several miles up the road we came to Daylight
Springs where we refilled our canteens. During both days we stopped every two
or three hours to roast an onion and placed it, as hot as I could bear it, in
the palm of my hand with a bandana handkerchief for a bandage.
We passed a dozen or so of the old twenty-mule-team high-wheeled borax wagons
parked off the road. It was very cold out and we were very lucky to catch a
ride the last two hours out of Rhyolite with a teamster going our way. As we
came into Rhyolite we got off the wagon and went to a two-story frame hovel and
got a room upstairs. We had hot water brought up and cleaned the hand. The
swelling being gone, I paid no heed to Potts urging that I see a doctor. Potts
was hungry but I was cold and do not remember ever feeling colder. After going
to a drugstore and having the hand bandaged with anti-phleglstine on the wound,
we went into a large saloon with two big cherry red coal stoves, and a long bar
with Tom and Jerry bowls along it, I finally got warmed through and to this day
am very fond of Tom and Jerrys.
The next day about two in the afternoon, we left by Tonapah and Tidewater
narrow guage train for Ludlow on the main line of the Santa Fe, We arrived in
Ludlow toward midnight and being informed that the train from the east was
delayed by storm, we went to a hotel and to bed, with word to call us. We Were
called about six in the morning, and as the train was late, the conductor
pulled the train to find out about stopping for breakfast at Barstow.
We had had no news at Skidoo about the burning of the Harvey House at Barstow,
so being a bit slow in getting off, and noticing the crowd going into a
restaurant opposite where the depot had been I therefore went down the street
to a large restaurant and sat down at a table, when suddenly I realized it was
run by Chinese, then I noticed a small Chinaman standing beside me, who said,
"when you see Jim Hodgeman last?"
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I recognized him and told him I was in a hurry, being from the train, and
without a word left. He was back with breakfast for me, apparently remembering
the things I liked, I finished my breakfast and went to the counter where the
Chinaman was standing, I pushed open the cigar case and Took three 5¢ cigars,
placing two in my vest pocket: I was about to cut the other when he took my
cigars, and put out a box of Principe de Gales, three for 50¢. Two he placed
in my pocket and one he clipped and put in my mouth and lighted it for me. I
shoved a silver dollar across the counter and he pushed it back saying, "your
money no good here".
I have never seen the chinaman since, but I would sure like, sometime in God's
plan for our soul's future, to meet up with this real Chinese gentleman and
friend. I came home to my wife and child, to find the doctor there, treating my
wife for some slight illness. He told me, after looking at my hand, that I had
done as good a job as he could have done, and left me some alum to burn to
prevent proud flesh.
I stayed in Los Angeles about a week and had talks with Bob Montgomery and
started back to Skidoo with a new outfit of heavy underware, socks and shirts,
wrapped in a bundle about four feet in length and twelve inches in diameter,
wrapped with a new white canvas.
There was a combination train from Barstow to Johannesburg, which had one
passenger car that had one end partitioned off for a smoking compartment with
two seats facing each other on either side. On one side, facing each other were
John Singleton, one of the owners of the Yellow Aster Mine, and myself.
Similarly, on the opposite side of the car sat Ed Robinson, stage driver from
Ballarat to Skidoo, who had been on a short vacation to Los Angeles, and Harry
Cheesebrough, whose uncle did a lot of teeming around Randsburg, and also had
the mail-carrying contract from Johannesburg to Ballarat.
We all had suitcases, each containing several bottles of whiskey. Harry opened
a quart of Sunnybrook and passed it to Ed who in turn passed it to me, each of
us taking a drink. I passed it to Mr. Singleton who said, "I don't want your
rot gut", but picked up a paper bag containing a bottle which he had setting on
the floor, from which he drank without taking the bottle from the paper bag so
that we could not see what kind of whiskey it was. Each of us carrying a
bottle of Sunnybrook, we had several more drinks along the way, each tame John
refusing and going through the same procedure. Finally, I said,"John,your
whiskey is probably no better than ours". Picking up the paper bag and
withdrawing the bottle, I saw it was labled "Sunnybrook", and we all had a
hearty laugh at John's expense.
The driver of the stage from Johannesburg to Ballarat was a Chilean Indian
named Manual who would throw out the mail, including the registered sack with
gold bullion bars from Skidoo in front of the Joburg postoffice and shout,
"Here's the mail" without getting a receipt for it until he had come back from
taking care of his horses. When we left Johannesburg next morning, the stage
was full of men on their way to the Panamint mountains to relocate claims.
There was a great deal of baggage, including my bundle, tied on behind. There
being so many men on the stage, immediately on arrival at Ballarat, I rushed
across the road to get a room as accomodations there were limited. Then I went
back to the postoffice for my bundle, which was nowhere to be found.
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I went back to the hotel and had the proprietor go with me to search the rooms,
thinking some of the men had gotten my bundle by mistake. The rest of the men
had gone to supper in the dining room. We did not find the bundle, so being
late for supper, I took the one remaining chair at the table. On my left was a
bleary eyed man, very drunk. He had a large revolver on the table on my side of
the plate. He looked at me and kept muttering, "I guess I ought to shoot you."
I jollied him along by such remarks as "you wouldn't shoot a man before he
finished his meal, nevertheless keeping a close eye on him so that if he
grabbed for the gun, I could prevent him from using it. Finally I finished my
supper and was able to go to my room and to bed with no further trouble.
At six in the morning, Ed Robinson and I, having finished our breakfast, went
out to start our journey on to Skidoo. It was barely daylight, and in turning
to the north as we left town, I saw something white which looked as if it might
be my bundle, out in a vacant lot. Ed stopped, and I recovered my bundle,
intact. I realized then that it had been stolen to delay me,by some of the men
who thought I was on my way to jump claims in the Panamints. We continued on
toward Skidoo and stopped for lunch in the Wildrose Canyon, this being a
stopping place for the stage to change horses.
Indian Johnny, a piute Indian in his forties, was there with his eighty-yearold mother, with snow-white hair which she curled. He told me there was no food
at the Rancheria there on the reservation, so I gave him a can of peaches which
he opened, and drank the Juice off instead of offering any to his mother; I
took the can from his hand and gave it to his mother.
We duly arrived in Skidoo. I found the mill shut down and the pipes all
frozen. Al Davis had men trying to thaw out the pipes by wrapping with waste
soaked in distillate, and burning. They were making no headway, as at night it
was much colder, although they burned at night also. I tried to get Mr
Montgomery through telegram from Mr. Davis, to let me take the pipe apart and
lay it out in the sun on the inclined hillside, and let the water run out
during the day, and then re-pipe the mill; but he refused to allow this. For
about two weeks we tried burning the waste over the pipes, and finding it
useless, gave up and quit the job. Coming back to Los Angeles, we heard shortly
afterward that the mill had burned down.
******************************
INFLATION HITS GHOST TOWN
Seldom Seen Slim the last inhabitant of the ghost town of Ballarat in Panamint
Valley, was in Searles Volley last week rustling empty cigar boxes. Slim plans
on making parking meters out of the cigar boxes and installing them on the 1000
acre parking lot around Ballarat.
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AGNES CODY REID
Located at the extreme northwest end of Panamint Valley
at the foot of the Argus Mountains where Highway 190, winds its
way down from the Darwin Country, one will find a beautiful
Oasis.
This is Panamint Springs, where a group of gayly colored
buildings nestled among fruit trees, shrubbery and flowers make a haven for
Death Valley Tourist, desert travelers and the birds that flock to the place
seeking shade and water.
Panamint Springs is the only public resort in picturesque and historical
Panamint Valley and it is open the year around. Panamint Springs was once the
home of Agnes Cody Reid, a true pioneer of the desert, who with her husband the
late W.A. "Bill" Reid, carved the resort out of the barren desert.
Mrs. Reid is a direct descendant of Philip Le Cody a French Huguenot, who
came to America and settled at Beverly, Mass., in 1695. The Cody family is one
of the oldest families on the continent. It is recognized by the American
Institution of Genealogy as one of the first four hundred families in America.
Its early history is full of memorable events that played a lasting part in the
story of North America, events radiant with romance and picturesque in folk
lore.
The thread of its story winds its way from the rock-bound New England
Coast, through the colorful days of the Seven Year War, when the New England
militia fared forth against the French and Indians down to the grim days of the
Revolution. When its ancestors again answered the call to arms. The story takes
its way through the hardships and privation of the early pioneers, these
dauntless men and women who planted firm the foundation of our land. The men
who struck forth into the wilds of the American West, who braved the dangers of
the wilderness of Upper Canada, East, West, North and South. Coming down into
the present day, we find the descendants of these hardy pioneers. Generations
have passed but the same blood is still there. Anually, somewhere in the United
States or Canada, the Cody descendants hold a family reunion.
Colonel William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a member of this great
family. Mrs. Reid's father and Buffalo Bill were cousins. Agnes Cody Reid was
born in Nebraska, and when a small child came with her family by covered wagon
to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where her father earned a livelihood as a trapper. As
most everyone else in the Jackson Hole Country, at the time were horse thieves,
the family did not tarry long and soon moved on into Idaho and then Montana.
While crossing the prairies, Mrs. Reid recalled having seen many Indian skulls.
In the year 1909 Agnes Cody married W.A. "Bill" Reid. They were the
first couple to be married in Lucky Boy, Nevada, a mining boom camp. Bill was a
big genial North Carolinaian, a mining man, and he followed the mining game
into Owens Valley of Eastern California and eventually to Darwin where for
twenty-five years he was superintendent for the Sierra Talc Mining Company and
had charge of all its properties.
In May 1937, Mr. & Mrs. Reid started building their motel, cafe and
service-station on the highway fit Panamint Springs, there was nothing there
then, no water , just sand and rocks and sagebrush. First they had to have
water so they piped water from Whippoorwill Springs a mile above the place.
The water from
107
from this spring soon proved inadequate, so they piped in a four inch line from
Darwin Falls. They opened the place for business that fall. By long hours of
hard work they developed Panamint Springs into a man made oasis. They built a
swimming pool and installed a water wheel which furnished the power for
electricity.
After thirty-six years of blissful married life Mr. Reid died of a heart
attack in January, 1945, and the following April the cafe and service station
was destroyed by fire. For many women these two blows in succession would have
been too great a handicap to overcome, but not for Mrs. Reid. Misfortune had
never gotten the best of a Cody yet, and she did not intend for it to do then.
She carried on the business in a small cabin, while a new $50,000 fireproof
building was being erected. Mrs Reid is now retired and lives with her daughter
at Mills Valley, California. Before retiring, she traded Panamint Springs for
the Tides Motel on the beautiful coast at Newport, Oregon, which she operated
for a few years and then sold when she retired to a well earned rest. You would
have to know Mrs. Reid to know what a grand person she is, and what a credit
she is to the Cody family.
*********************************
32 3EARS AGO IN TRONA.....TAKEN FROM AN ISSUE OF AN OLD POT ASH.
"Sometime ago we published a request by the Los Angeles-Trona Stage Company for
suggestions of names for a new stage that is soon to be put in service between
Los Angeles and Trona. Haley Davis won the prize, which is a round trip ticket
from Trona to Los Angeles on the new stage when it is put into service. His
suggestion was, "The Sage Hen." Mr. Davis' letter and suggestion are as
follows: "Dear Mr. Proper: I noticed in the last issue of the Pot Ash that you
would like to have the people of Trona suggest a name for one your 'flyers! It
has been my privilege to roam the romantic deserts of Southern California and
Nevada for over a quarter of a century. Therefore I feel somewhat qualified to
offer a name for your consideration. In the early days there was a specie of
the bird family that thrived and flourished among the sagebrush and cactus of
the desert. It was very fleet on wing and foot and provided many savory meals
for the old-time prospector and emigrant. It is now almost extinct and I think
it would be quite proper that you remember this fine old bird by christening
your 'cruiser' THE SAGE HEN. 'CACTUS KATE’ and THE SAGE HEN should make good
team mates, and I feel that they will prove to be omens of good luck and
success to their justly proud owners. Then too, your courteuus, efficient and
'Handsom' drivers will take a great personal interest in seeing that the 'Old
Hen' is properly groomed and pepped up to look and do her best on all
occasions. Thanking you for the privilege of making the suggestion, I remain,
Very truly yours, Haley Davis"
And that is what we might term "fancy" writing .
End of quote.
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SEARLES VALLEY INSTITUTION CLOSES DOWN
The last link of public transportation out of Searles Valley was broken
on July 4 at at 5:45 p.m., with the departure of the Trona-San Bernardino-Los
Angeles stage.
A Trona institution is now gone but we can't let it go without recording
a bit of its history for posterity. No longer will the familiar blue and whitebuses be parked across the street from Austin Hall between Magnolia Ave., and
Main St., no longer will the familiar face of veteran bus driver, Henry (Hank )
Hull, be seen on the streets during his 18 hour layover in Trona. Henry Hull a
driver of the Trona-Los Angeles Stages for the past 35 years. He started
driving in 1923.
HAULED NEW MEN
Forty-five years ago, the late James R. Proper, "Jim" to his friends, and
the late Fred L. Austin, who was a veteran employe of the American Potash &
Chemical Corp., worked together as young pipefitters for Los Angeles County in
Los Angeles. These men were close personal friends through the years. In 1914
Jim Proper purchased a seven passenger Studebaker touring car and went into the
transportation business hauling new hires from an employment office in Los
Angeles to the Solvay Process Co's plant on Searles Lake which is known as
Boro-Solvay. The plant was removed many years ago. In the meantime, Fred Austin
had come to Trona as an employe of American Potash & Chemical Corp. It is
possible that Fred could have been instrumental in getting Jim Proper to haul
new enployes into Trona which led to the founding of the Proper's Los AngelesTrona Stage Co.
At that time there was railway passenger service into Searles Valley via
Southern Pacific and the Trona-Railway. Traveling by rail was a long 12-hour
journey which necessitated changing trains twice in route, in Mojave and at
Searles Station. If it was in the heat of summer the trip was a hot and dusty
one. The writer knows as he made the trip on April 18, 1928. The Trona Railway
discontinued service in 1938.
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About that time, Jim Proper put into service a fleet of new buses. They
were really something for those days as they were deluxe Pierce -Arrows and
proudly bore the name Trona Clipper. For many years the Morris Hotel at 805 E.
5th St. in Los Angeles served as stage station for the Trona buses.
Then came the war years when all mode of transportation was taxed beyond
limit. The Trona Stage Line was no exception, the old Pierce-Arrov became
inadequate. They were too small and too few. The late J.L.Robinson of the
Trona Railway was instrumental in helping Jim Proper acquire three new modern
buses. These buses were still in use when the line was so recently
discontinued.
To acquire new buses during the war years was no little feat.
Everyone in the transportation business was trying to purchase new buses. As I
recall, Robinson made a trip or two to Washington, D.C.,in behalf of acquiring
the buses for Proper. It practically took an act of Congress to get them.
The new buses were put into service on Nov. 20, 1942, with twice daily service
to
Lob Angeles and believe it or not, if anyone wanted to ride these buses,
reservations had to be made a day in advance...business was booming. After the
war, the passenger traffic between Los Angeles and Trona began dropping. In
the last few years the bus has left Trona many a night without one single
passenger aboard. Business had become that bad for the stage line. On Dec.
11, 1942, bus service was established between Trona and San Bernardine with the
running time four hours and the one way fare $3.05 or $5.50 for a round trip.
In the early days when it was all dirt road between Trona and Mojave the
buses came out of Mojave five miles on Highway 6 then turned right past Chester
Conklin's turkey ranch on the Old Death Valley 20 Mule Team Borax road. At the
junction with the Red Mountain-Atolia road the buses turned north into Red
Mountain and on to Trona via the nine mile grade. The early bus drivers on the
Trona run across the Mojave Desert were a hardy breed. They had to be. Like
the old time long line teamsters ahead of them, many times the bus drivers were
caught in cloud bursts and sand storms. As late as Feb. 22, 1944, Henry Hull's
bus was stuck in a snow bank overnight between Red Mountain and Randsburg.
Henry has recited many thrilling experiences he encountered to the
writer. Some amusing, others near tragic. The most unusual thing he told did
not happen to a Trona bus. It was about Trona’s first fire truck. This was
the way Henery told it and I quote:
A used Stutz fire truck was purchased by Trona from a fire department in
Southern California. Pee Wee Cameron was sent down to drive the fire truck to
Trona. This was during prohibition but Red Mountain was wide open. Saloons,
girls and gambling. The law had pulled many raids but that did not seem to
faze them as they always managed to open again for business. Pee Wee, the
canny Scot with an uncanny sense of humor, came roaring up the grade at night
into Red
Mountain with the red light on the fire truck flashing and the siren
going full blast. It created quite an incident. Thinking they were in for
another raid by the law, people poured forth from the emporiums and scattered
in the darkness in all directions across the desert and a lot of moonshine went
down the drain.
110
The old-timers of Trona wish to thank the Los Angeles-Trona Stage Co. for
their consideration and honor of letting their veteran driver, Henry (Hank)
Hull, pull the last bus from Trona. A few of us old-timers, friends of Hank,
bid him. and the last bus goodbye when we boarded the bus at 5:45 and rode to
Argus. Adios, Hank!
Time marches on. There are times when it hurts. This was one of them.
***************************
VISIT TO FASCINATING LAND OF COSO YIELDS RICHES IN LORE OF AREA'S EARLY DAYS
The narrows at Little Lake through which U.S.Highway 6 and 395 passes is
known as the bottle-neck to Owens Valley. Beyond this pass lies a fabulous
land. A sportsman paradise, a geologist dream, a challenge for the
archaeologist, a fertile field for the historian and a happy hunting ground for
the modern day rock hound.
The Sierra Nevada mountains, which stretch from Mexico to Alaska, form
the western boundary of Owens Valley. They are known as the "Alps of America".
The scenic drive through eastern California in Owens Valley is one of the most
beautiful in our country. Within this mountain range, Mt. Whitney rears its
head 14,495 ft. The highest point in the original 48 states. Eighty miles
southeast of Mt. Whitney lies the lowest point in the western hemisphere— Bad
Water in Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level. These two geological wonders
are contained in the County of Inyo,
LAND OF CONTRAST
Yes, it's a land of contrast, even the weather gets into the act, from a
mean winter temperature of 40 or more below zero at the summit of Mt. Whitney
to a meaned summer official government recorded high of 134 above in Death
Valley. The mountains forming Owens Valley eastern boundary—the Inyo, White and
Coso ranges, furnished the mineral wealth which transformed the sleepy little
Pueblo of Los Angeles into a thriving metropolis. The great silver producer
"Cero Gordo" was the chief supplier of wealth.
The City of Los Angeles could not have become the third largest in the
United States without water. The original water and still a source of supply
are the High Sierras out of Owens Valley, through a 200 mile aqueduct. The City
of Los Angeles paid dearly for the Owens Valley water. When the ranchers who
had sold their water rights, saw their Garden of Eden wither and die they
staged a small war against the city back in the '20s.
FASCINATING LAND OF COSO
Tucked away in the extreme southeast corner of what we like to associate
with being a part of Owens Valley is the fascinating land of Coso. Coso is an
Indian word meaning fire, and it is literally so for in spots the earth is a
seething cauldron of scalding steam, boiling mud and sulpher. There are seven
extinct volcano craters that once spewed hot lava over the countryside. Desert
diamonds are found atop a giant lava flow that was stopped when it reached the
cooling waters of the river that flowed through the narrows at Little Lake.
111
Left today in the Coso region there is a mountain of black obsidian for
the pleasure of the rockhounds, a steaming canyon called Hell's Kitchen, where
cinnabar from which mercury is extracted was once mined. There is also the
magnificent ruins of what was once a popular and profitable health resort known
to the world as Coso Hot Springs, Inc.
EVIDENCE OF PINTO MAN FOUND
The Southwest Museum found evidence that the Pinto Man once inhabited the
Coso region. Perhaps the first white men to see this land were the Darwin
French party while in search of the Gunsight Lode in the year 1860. It was
written that Dennis Searles was probably a member of this party. Searles Lake
bears the name of the two Searles brother, John and Dennis.
Long before the coming of the white men the local Indians used the steam
and hot mud at Coso for healing purposes. It was here they brought their aged
and infirm, and it was here they made arrowheads from the mountain of volcanic
glass.
Last December the writer had the pleasure and privilege of again visiting
Coso Hot Springs on a field trip with the NOTS Rockhounds and the Searles Lake
Gem and Mineral Society. Special permission had to be obtained from the U.S.
Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake as the Coso area belongs to the Navy
and is closed to the public. A total of 32 cars containing 107 people made the
exciting trip—exciting because it was made into an almost forbidden land, on a
typical desert winter day. The caravan gathered outside the main entrance to
NOTS and departed promptly at 8 a.m. The early morning chill soon gave way to
the warm sun, making a fine day for the outing. Apparently there were more
photographers than Rockhounds on the trip and they had a field day shooting the
building, ruins, whistling steam mud pots and each other.
The Rockhounds found the sulfur crystals in the steam vents very
beautiful, but fragile. Several nice specimen of cinnabar were found, and a lot
of silver-sheen obsidian was collected for cutting material. On the way home a
few visited the interesting potholes in the old river bed just north of Little
Lake. The odd holes were made by rushing water over a lava flow.
When our party reached Coso Hot Springs in the morning, I took my young
grandson, who bears my name, George Pipkin, and headed for the building that
once housed the steam baths. I wanted to show him where his grandpa was
miraculously cured in ten minutes of a deep seated chest cold 33 years ago.
This is the story:
In. 1925 I was employed as storekeeper and iceplant operator for the Inyo
Chemical Company at Cartago on Owens Lake. In the early days Cartago was the
landing point for the two Cerro Gordo steamboats.
At the time of my employment a man named Nichols was managing the Coso
Hot Springs Resort. He purchased part of his supplies from us, especially ice
and fresh meat. One day when he came to shop he found me sick with a cold,
nearly verging on pneumonia. In those days we worked seven days a week. Help
was scarce and we had no relief. If one was sick they worked until they dropped
and that was it.
Seeing my condition Mr. Nichols said, "you come over to Coso Hot Springs
and I will kill or cure you in ten minutes". I asked him how? "In the steam
bath," he replied. I took the gamble and away we went. Being too sick to
drive,a friend drove me over. The weather was cold and the trip was made in an
open car. However I bundled up in a heavy-sheepherder's coat.
112
I spent 10 minutes in the steam room, which in those days was a crude
cave, and 40 minutes in the drying room. It is a must that one thoroughly cools
off before explsure to the outside. If they don't, they might as well kiss
themselves goodby—as you will see later on in the story. When we returned to
Cartago and I stepped out of the car I was a little weak, but my cold was
completely gone.
A fair lady Rockhound found nine discernible grave mounds at Coso. At one
time there were many more, but time and the elements have obliterated most of
the mounds. The lady inquired of the writer if they were Indian graves. Our
answer was no. As the early Indians hid their graves.
Most of the people buried in the Coso Boothill were victims of the deadly
Spanish influenza which swept the whole of our country during the first World
War in 1918. Old-timers still believe that it was germ warfare unleased by the
enemy upon the civillians of our country.
To give you a bit of Coso's history that concerns the swelling of its
boothill, we take an excerpt from our biography of the late "Jean Pierre
Aguereberry," the oldtimer for whom Aguereberry Point, overlooking Death
Valley, is named.
In 1918 Pete Aguereberry tried to enlist in the army, but was rejected as
physically unfit. Doing the next best for the war effort he went to mining lead
at the Copper Queen; now known as the Gold Bottom mine which is across Searles
Lake. The Copper Queen was a dusty, dangerous mine. Its operators cared little
for the miners’ safety or healthful welfare, consequently most of the miners,
contracted arsenic poisoning, lead poisoning or fell victim to an accident.
Pete was no exception. In due time he got a touch of arsenic poisoning
and he became leaded which slowed his action so that he couldn't get out of the
way of a falling boulder that broke his leg, The late D.W.(Pop) Whipple, an
old-timer in the Searles Basin, was hired by the mining company to act as
Pete's nurse while he was recuperating in the company bunkhouse.
When Pete was able to use crutches he went to Coso Hot Springs, a health
resort, to finish convalescing. At Coso he found Tom Kirk, an old friend of his
from Tonopah and Goldfield days. Kirk had been drafted into the army and was
killing time at the health resort waiting to be inducted.
There reunion was
short for two days after Pete's arrival Kirk took a natural steam bath in one
of the caves, and without spending the prescribed time in the cooling room, he
exposed himself to the chilly weather. The next day he was dead, a victim of
double pneumonia. Kirk's brother was an undertaker in Bishop and he came for
his brother's body.
About this time the influenza epidemic hit Coso and the men were dying
like flies—four died in one day. The county had to bury most of the victims and
their coffins were built on the spot.
Pete contracted the disease and became deathly ill. From his cabin he
could hear the noise of hammering and sawing as the coffin making went on. By
raising his head from the bed at such times that he was able he could look out
the window and watch the operations, as the carpenters completed the coffins,
they stood them on end in rows. Pete would lie and wonder which coffin he would
occupy. Eventyally he recovered sufficiently to go to Trona. Pete was in Coso
in 1906 convalescing from a gunshot wound in the head. A hired killer had shot
him over a mining deal at Harrisburg Flats. The bullet in creasing his skull
caused a fracture in which felt from his hat became embedded. He rode a horse
30 miles to Coso for treatment. Being French Basque, he did not have faith in
doctors and medicine, but he did have great faith in the healing power of Coso
Hot Springs mud.
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Once four mining engineers were investigating the cinnabar deposit in the
Devil's Kitchen, at one period during the day while discussing the mine they
sat upon the warm ground. Later they drove over to Olancha to eat. As the three
men entered the cafe, the fourth man bringing up the rear burst into laughter.
His three companions had lost the seat out of their pants. His laughter died in
his throat as he felt a rear draft. He, too, had lost the seat of his pants.
The warn ground upon which they had sat contained enough sulphuric acid to
remove the seat of their pants.
Perhaps in the years to come my grandson will tell his grandson how he
once visited Coso Hot Springs with his grandpa, and that his hrandpa warned him
not to wander from the beaten paths as he once knew a Mrs. Larsen from Cartago
who stepped from the path, sinking to her waist in boiling mud and was horribly
scalded.
Perhaps he will also tell him that his grandpa told him not to stick his
hand in the live steam blowing from the wells, as it would burn him. But that
he stuck his hand in the steam to see if his grandpa was right.
*************************
DAVE GOULD, HERE ON VISIT, REMINISCENCE ABOUT EARLY DAYS IN TRONA.
Recently a knock on our door was acknowledged by Ann. A tall greying man
announced that he was looking for George Pipkin. There on the threshold stood
the one and only David Frances Gould, once of South Norwalk, Conn, new of Santa
Monica and formerly of Trona, where he came in the roaring 20's and stayed long
enough to put life and gaiety in what had been up until then a drab place to
live. Although 27 years had run under the bridge since we last saw Dave, we
would have known him if the meeting had been in a crowd on the corner of 5th.
and Main in Los Angeles.
Dave was a person whom one never forgets, brought his new bride of seven
months to visit his old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Gerry Knowles. Gerry formerly of
South Boston, and a Tronan for the past 38 years, brought Dave to see us. The
way Gerry and Dave found Trona is straight out of Ripley.
Five young men, Gerry Knowles, Sam Katz, Hank Gersenburg, Al Brown and
Dave Gould, became buddies while serving an army hitch in Hawaii. When
separated from the service in San Francisco, they bought two model "T" Fords
and headed for the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, by way of Tijuana and Mexicali.
When someone suggested they should see Death Valley before leaving the West
Coast, away they went, and by the time they reached Mojave Desert their money
was gone. They were so broke they slept in a cave at Homestead on Highway 6.
They traded one Ford for a tank of gas to make the last lap to Trona, where
they were told they would find work, and they did.
There is no need for me to describe the town as it was then, Dave said,
although I must say there were very few of the fair sex here then. In fact, in
order to get a date, you had to be a foreman, or at least an operator. At that
time all the operators were getting a bonus on production and the gals knew it.
The girls' quarters were on Magnolia St. The house has since been moved and is
now part of the Trona Hospital. However, speaking of girls and their quarters—
at that time the A.B.& S.Co. used a house down in back of the school house,
called the Canary Cottage, and all the waitresses lived there. How many of you
remember Goldie, and the Blue Room in the mess hall and late night when you
used to bribe the night cook for a beef broiled to a turn?
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Nearly all the men were against everything, and there were no clubs and
not much of anything to do around town. There was only one show a week, and
they had a dance once in awhile, but that was all. And then the Billy Goats
came into their own.
The Billy Goats did more for this town than anything before or since, as
they brought together all manner of men and created a spirt of good-fellowship
and afforded a source of entertainment which everyone needed, he reminisced.
The group first undertaking was an annual ball. After a lot of work putting the
hall into shape to stage the affair, the committee got the thing under-written
for the sum of over $500. Earl C. Anthony over KFI, had an orchestra called the
Packard Six, which was engaged for the dance.
On March 3, the eve of the ball, every woman in town had a program
filled. All the smart boys, due to the constant shortage of women at the
dances, had ganged up and booked dances weeks before. At last the night of the
ball arrived, with taxi service to and from the hall free, a doorman and a rug
down the steps to the street. There were men in tuxes, women in clinging
evening gowns, bought special for the affair, a favor of a beautiful fan for
each lady and a carnation for the men, and everyone having a bang up time!
At the intermission, a buffet lunch was served, all included in the price
of the ticket. Then dancing went on till 2 a.m. After the dance, we visited
various homes till the 6 a.m. whistle called us to work. It was one of the best
times we had in town up till then, Gould recalled.
The ball met with so much approval that we staged one every year and each
one out-did the other. The following year, with the same band and a Spanish
Patio effect, and a buffet lunch served in a tent alongside the hall, that was
a bigger and better dance. The next year, with a lot of indirect lighting
effects, spotlights, and a band shelter for The California Dons,the dance was
considered the best. But the next year’s ball was the one they date things
from. That year we repainted the hall and put in a glass ball that revolved
and, vari-colored lights playing on it, the effect was ideal for the waltzes,
Gould said. All in all the balls that the Billy Goats staged were THE SOCIAL
EVENTS OF THE YEAR.
Then the Goats sponsored several whing dings, pot latches, dinner dances,
and carnivals, and a free program at Valley Wells every year, where they held
sort of an open house with entertainment, free lunch and ice cream.
On the Fourth of July they collected $50 towards fireworks, but the most
fun was the carnival staged for the Boy Scouts. The opening night arrived amid
a gust of wind and a promise of rain. In fact, a few drops were felt at the
time, and here we were with Spanish shawls and blankets, not to mention plenty
of other merchandise that the rain wouldn't do any good to, Gould said. But
with more nerve than brains we opened, and lady luck was with us as it got fine
in a short time, and the populace started to gather down on the tennis court
and enjoy the games.
The carnival, became an annual affair for the ammusement of the community
and its sponsors, not to mention the Boy Scouts, as the money derived from the
event was used to send the boys to summer camp.
The Valley Wells annual open house was a picnic, with entertainment and
free food. The entertainment was usually limited to a Kangaroo Court, and one
year Oscar Johnson and Ray Kearn took a ducking in Valley Hells, clothes and
al1.
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Then Jin Branek and Jack Small put on a few shows with Greeko-Roman
wrestling. Another tine, Dr. D.Frances Gould, world traveled lecturer and
originator of the "International Cure-Ail Gin Sin and Tiger Lily Salve", put on
a demonstration with his "world famous card manipulator," Ramon.
"Then there was the Trona Tigers, our football team," Gould said. "Yes,
we had a football team. a good one , too. What if we did loose all our games?
The men on the team never did get out to practice all at one time. They
couldn't nearly all of them worked shift. They played three games. The first
game was with the Santa Fe R.R. shop of San Berdoo, who beat them seven to
nothing. But they had been playing together for five years, and that year they
went back to Kansas City and won the play-off for the title of the whole Santa
Fe shop teams throughout the United States.
Later the team played Lancaster Town team and lost 3-0. They had a squad
of 30 men and the Tigers never boasted over 15 men. In fact, there were
uniforms for only 12 men and only 11 complete uniforms. In a return game with
Lancaster, they lost 9-0.
"Some time during my early days here a golf club was formed and a course
laid out," Gould stated., and all the members would turn out on a Sunday and
help build greens and cut the sage-brush off the fairways in the morning, and
in the afternoon, play over what they had done in the morning. After a while it
became so popular that the company helped build better fairways and greens.
"The year that Oscar F. Johnson won the Trona Open, a group of us put on
a big feed out at Valley Wells to celebrate the event, and that was one time
that the face of Oscar really BEAMED."
"Ever hear of borrowing a house?" Gould asked. "Well a group of us
fellows used to do just that. Every time we heard of anyone going away for a
day or two, the one in the gang that was the best qualified to proposition the
folk would see them and try to borrow their house while they were gone. If
successful the butcher would be called on for his choicest cuts of steak or
roast, and a meal was cooked in the borrowed house by myself and other members
of the gang. In the event there were no houses for a long time, Valley Wells
would be the scene of a big spread in the open.
I never will forget the first year the Riding Club was formed— everyone
in town was riding the nags, and if you didn't smell like a horse you wern't in
the swim. On moonlight nights a horse was liable to pop out at you most any
place. After they were here for a few weeks you had to be a real bronc buster
if you could herd them anyplace other than Butch’s place. If you stayed too
long at Butch’s, only the horse's want of feed, his knowing the shortest way to
the barn, and your death grip, kept you from being killed.
"Was the golf club burned up at the riding club?" Gould recalled. "And
justly so, as they did ride all over the greens. But the announcement in the
'Pot Ash’ to the effect that the riding stock had arrived was the laugh of the
year. Over a large picture of a dead horse that the buzzards had half-eaten was
the caption "Riding Stock Arrives."
At one time the "Pot-Ash" had competition. There was first the news sheet
called the "Yellow Dog," then later the "Billy Goat Horn." Of course we had the
A.C.W.A.News, but at the time of the other sheets the town was much smaller.
During the height of the Put Put golf course around the country. Trona, too,
had one. It was run by a man who used to have the Ford agency at Lone Pine and
was located about opposite the Standard Oil Plant at the edge of town, but it
burned along with his house one night.
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It was easy to find moonstones on the edge of the lake down toward the
pinnacles. There was an abundance of mountain quail at Indian Joe's place if
you arrived early in the morning. In season, the figs up there were big and
plentiful and luscious, and there used to be grapes and peaches.
Trona had a girls' Softball team long before the girls played down town.
It was a good team,too.
You could put all the Democrats in a phone booth at one time here in
Trona, Gould remembered.
The production gang worked seven days a week until 1932, and if anyone
went out, 12 hour shifts were the rule till they returned.
The custom was for married foreman to have some of the boys down to his
house for Thanksgiving dinner, and a different gang for Christmas, and if not
his wife sent up a large cake to the men on shift.
The time Ben Roos from Westend got married, he put on a free hard time
dance at the Billy Goat hall in Borosolvay that will long be remembered by all
who attended, Gould declared.
Trona was just like my hometown to me. The friendships I made here will
always be with me. And I can truthfully say that I, for one, have had lots of
good times here, and I know that a lot of others feel the same way about this
place they call Trona. Gould concluded.
********************
TALES FROM OLD BALLARAT
Back in the days when the mining town of Darwin was booming, Lonnie Lee
was a prosperous and respected merchant in the town. When his wife died he went
to pieces. He drank himself out of business and out of town, winding up in
another mining town, Ballarat as a barfly (today they are called wineos).
In the good old days when a saloon patron imbibed too freely, he wasn't
bodily thrown out, or the law called to take him away, he was put to bed in the
back room. Every saloon in town had a couple of courtesy beds, this was
considered good business, for when the patron sobered up he was still a
potential customer.
Lonnie would make the rounds of the saloons mooching drinks and at a late
hour when he became overly tanked he would take advantage of a courtesy bed.
There were a clan of Irish miners working at the Ratcliff Mine in the
Panamint Mountains above Ballarat. One of their brethren was killed in a mine
accident. The Irishmen quit work and took the body to Ballarat. There was no
morgue so they placed the corpse on a courtesy bed in the back room of Chris
Wicht's saloon and covered it with a bright colored quilt.
While awaiting the arrival of the coroner who had to travel over a
hundred miles by horse and buggy, the Irishmen proceeded to hold the Wake.
During the course of the night many drinks were lifted in toast to the departed
Mike.
At a late hour, Lonnie, who had been working the other end of town and
not knowing about the Wake, staggered through the back door seeking a courtesy
bed. Seeing the bright, colored quilt he thought, that is if he was still able
to think, that the quilt covered another drunk, so he crawled under the quilt
with the corpse. Along toward morning he awoke just as an Irishman in the bar
bellowed "set 'um up for the house." Lonnie, cold and with the shakes wrapped
the quilt around his head and shoulders, walked into the bar and announced that
he would like a drink too.
The bewildered, drunk, and freightened Irishmen thought the corpse had
come alive. Along with the bartender they stampeded through the front door
splintering it as they went, leaving poor Lonnie and the corpse in sole
possession of the saloon.
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