Loafing Along Death Valley Trails: A Personal Narrative Of People And Places

LOAFING ALONG DEATH VALLEY TRAILS

By WILLIAM CARUTHERS A Personal Narrative of People and Places COPYRIGHT 1951 BY WILLIAM CARUTHERS Printed in the U.S.A. by P-B Press, Inc., Pomona, Calif. Published by Death Valley Publishing Co. Ontario, California...

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DEDICATION

To one who, without complaint or previous experience with desert hardships, shared with me the difficult and often dangerous adventures in part recorded in this book, which but for her persistent urging, would never have reached the printed page. She is, of course, my wife—with me in a sense far broader than the words imply: always—always ....

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THIS BOOK

This book is a personal narrative of people and places in Panamint Valley, the Amargosa Desert, and the Big Sink at the bottom of America. Most of the places which excited a gold-crazed world in the early part of the century are now no more, or are going back to sage. Of the actors who made the history of the period, few remain. It was the writer’s good fortune that many of these men were his friends. Some were or would become tycoons of mining or industry. Some would lucklessly follow jackasses

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Chapter I A Foretaste of Things to Come

In the newspaper office where the writer worked, was a constant parade of adventurers. Talented press agents; promoters; moguls of mining and prospectors who, having struck it rich, now lived grandly in palatial homes, luxurious hotels or impressive clubs. In their wake, of course, was an engaging breed of liars, and an occasional adventuress who by luck or love had left a boom town crib to live thereafter “in marble halls with vassals” at her command. All brought arresting yarns of Death Valley

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Chapter II What Caused Death Valley?

When you travel through the desolation of Death Valley along the Funeral Range, you may find it difficult to believe that several thousand feet above the top of your car was once a cool, inviting land with rivers and forests and lakes, and that hundreds of feet below you are the dry beds of seas that washed its shores. Scientists assert that all life—both animal and vegetable began in these buried seas—probably two and one-half billion years ago. It is certain that no life could have existed on

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Chapter III Aaron and Rosie Winters

While Bellerin’ Teck was selling half interests in the spectacular hills to the unwary, he actually walked over a treasure of more millions than his wildest dreams had conjured. Teck’s nearest neighbor lived at Ash Meadows about 60 miles east of the valley. Ash Meadows is a flat desert area in Nevada along the California border. With several water holes, subterranean streams, and abundant wild grass it was a resting place for early emigrants and a hole-in for prospectors. It was also an ideal re

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Chapter IV John Searles and His Lake of Ooze

Actually the first discovery of borax in Death Valley was made by Isadore Daunet in 1875, five years before Winters’ discovery. Daunet had left Panamint City when it was apparent that town was through forever and with six of his friends was en route to new diggings in Arizona. He was a seasoned, hardy adventurer and risked a short cut across Death Valley in mid-summer. Running out of water, his party killed a burro, drank its blood; but the deadly heat beat them down. Indians came across one of

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Chapter V But Where Was God?

For years, on the edge of the road near Tule Hole, a rough slab marked Jim Dayton’s grave, on which were piled the bleached bones of Dayton’s horses. On the board were these words: “Jas. Dayton. Died 1898.” The accuracy of the date of Dayton’s death as given on the bronze plaque on the monument and on the marker which it replaced, has been challenged. The author of this book wrote the epitaph for the monument and the date on it is the date which was on the original marker—an old ironing board th

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Chapter VI Death Valley Geology

The pleasure of your trip through the Big Sink will be enhanced if you know something about the structural features which are sure to arrest your attention. For undetermined ages Death Valley was desert. Then rivers and lakes. Rivers dried. Lakes evaporated. Again, desert. It is believed that in thousands of years there have been no changes other than those caused by earthquakes and erosion. It is no abuse of the superlative to say that the foremost authority upon Death Valley geology is Doctor

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Chapter VII Indians of the Area

The Indians of the Death Valley country were dog eaters—both those of Shoshone and Piute origin. Both had undoubtedly degenerated as a result of migrations. The Shoshones (Snakes) had originally lived in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The Piutes in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. The true blood connection of coast Indians may well be a matter of dispute. “Almost every 15 or 20 leagues you’ll find a distinct dialect,” was said of California Indians. (Boscana in Robinson’s Life in California, p. 220.) Mo

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Chapter VIII Desert Gold. Too Many Fractions

On the Nevada desert wind-whipped Mount Davidson (or Sun Mountain) guided the Forty Niners across the flat Washoe waste. At its foot they rested and cursed it because it impeded their progress to the California goldfields. Ten years later they rushed back because it had become the fabulous Comstock, said to have produced more than $880,000,000, though the Nevada State bureau of mines places the figure at $347,892,336. The truth lies somewhere between. “Pancake” Comstock had acquired, more by blu

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Chapter IX Romance Strikes the Parson

Scorning Al Myers’s advice to locate a claim on the Goldfield hill, Shorty Harris headed south, prospecting as he went until he reached Monte Beatty’s ranch where he camped with Beatty, a squaw man. “I’m going to look at a rhyolite formation in the hills four miles west. It looks good—that hill,” Shorty told him. “Forget it,” Beatty said, “I’ve combed every inch.” With faith in Beatty’s knowledge of the country, he abandoned the trip and crossed the Amargosa desert to Daylight Springs, found the

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Chapter X Greenwater—Last of the Boom Towns

Located on Black Mountain in the Funeral Range on the east side of Death Valley, Greenwater was the last boom town founded in the mad decade which followed Jim Butler’s strike at Tonopah. Records show locations of mining claims in the district as early as 1884, but all were abandoned. The location notice of a “gold and silver claim” was filed in 1884 by Doc Trotter, a famous character of the desert, remembered both for his good fellowship and his burro—Honest John—a habitual thief of incredible

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Chapter XI The Amargosa Country

In Hellgate Pass I met Slim again, resting on the roadside, his burro browsing nearby. Slim, I may add here, already had a niche in Goldfield’s hall of fame. He had walked into a gambling house one day broke, thirsty, nursing a hangover, and hoping to find a friend who would buy him a drink. Though it was a holiday and the place crowded, he saw no familiar face, but while waiting he noticed the cashier was busy collecting the winnings from the tables. He also noticed that in order to save the ti

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Chapter XII A Hovel That Ought To Be a Shrine

An Indian rode up to the bench, leaped from his cayuse and tried to tell Joe Ryan something about a “hiko.” Joe matched his pantomime and broken English, finally jerking a thumb over his shoulder and the Indian went into the store. “That’s Indian Johnnie,” Joe said: “Hundred and fifty miles to his place, other side of the Panamint. Awful country to get at. Shorty Harris is in a bad way at Ballarat.” A few moments later Charlie drove his pickup to the pump, filled the gas tank and before we reali

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Chapter XIII Sex in Death Valley Country

Sex, of course, went with the white man to the desert, but because there were no Freuds, no Kinseys stirring the social sewage, it was considered merely as a biologic urge and thus its impact on the lives of the early settlers was a realistic one. It was not good for man to live alone. The husky young adventurer found a water hole and a cottonwood tree and built a cabin. But he found it wasn’t a home. The lonely immensity of space he knew, was no place for a white woman and none were there. He f

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Chapter XIV Shoshone Country. Resting Springs

The country about Shoshone is identified with the earliest migration of Americans to California. It is a curious fact that prior to the coming of Jedediah Smith who, in 1826 was actually the first American to enter the state from the east, the contented Spanish believed that the Sierras were insurmountable barriers to invasion by the hated American or any attacking enemy. After Smith the first white American to look upon the Shoshone region so far as known, was William Wolfskill, a Kentucky trap

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Chapter XV The Story of Charles Brown

The story of Charles Brown and the Shoshone store begins at Greenwater. In the transient horde that poured into that town, he was the only one who hadn’t come for quick, easy money. On his own since he was 11 years old, when he’d gone to work in a Georgia mine, he wanted only a job and got it. In the excited, loose-talking mob he was conspicuous because he was silent, calm, unhurried. There were no law enforcement officers in Greenwater. The jail was 130 miles away and every day was field day fo

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Chapter XVI Long Man, Short Man

Before Tonopah, the first, and Greenwater, the last of the boom camps, Indians roaming the desert from Utah westward were showing trails to two hikos, who were to become symbols for the reckless courage needed to exist in the wasteland. They were known as Long Man and Short Man. Previous pages have given part of the story of Long Man. Coming into Death Valley country in the late Nineties, Ralph Jacobus Fairbanks wanted to know its water holes, trails, and landmarks. He hired Panamint Tom, brothe

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Chapter XVII Shorty Frank Harris

No history of Death Valley has been written in this century without mention of the Short Man—Frank (Shorty) Harris—and none can be. Previous pages have given most of his story. After his death at least two hurried writers who never saw him have stated that Shorty discovered no mines, knew little of the country. From a page of notes made before I had ever met him, I find this record: “Stopped at Independence to see George Naylor, early Inyo county sheriff and now its treasurer. We talked of early

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Chapter XVIII A Million Dollar Poker Game

Herman Jones, young Texan with keen blue eyes and a guileless grin, dropped off the train at Johnnie, a railroad siding, named for the nearby Johnnie mine. At the ripe age of 21 he had been through a shooting war between New Mexico cattle men, and needing money to marry the prettiest girl in the territory, he had come for gold. Finding it lonesome on his first night he sought the diversion of a poker game in a saloon and gambling house. He bought a stack of chips, sat down facing the bar and a m

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Chapter XIX Death Valley Scotty

A strictly factual thumbnail sketch of Walter Scott would contain the following incidents: He ran away from his Kentucky home to join his brother, Warner, as a cow hand on the ranch of John Sparks—afterward governor of Nevada. He worked as a teamster for Borax Smith at Columbus Marsh. He had a similar job at Old Harmony Borax Works. In the Nineties he went to work with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He married Josephine Millius, a candy clerk on Broadway, New York, and brought her to Nevada. He

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Chapter XX Odd But Interesting Characters

In these pages the reader has seen familiar names—the favored of Lady Luck—but what of those who failed—the patient, plodding kind of whom you hear only on the scene? They too followed jackasses into hidden hills; made trails that led others to fortunes which built cities, industries, railroad; endowed colleges and made science function for a better world. To these humbler actors we owe more than we can repay. For nearly half a century John (Cranky) Casey roamed the deserts of California and Nev

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Chapter XXI Roads. Cracker Box Signs

Any resemblance that a Death Valley highway bore to a road was a coincidence prior to 1926, and few tourists traveled over them unless two cars were along. “Just follow the wheel tracks and keep your eyes peeled for the cracker box signs along the road,” was the usual advice to the novice who didn’t know that tracks left by Mormons’ wagons nearly a century before may be seen today. One of these led me to the bank of a mile-wide gash made by cloudbursts. To locate the missing link I climbed the n

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Chapter XXII Lost Mines. The Breyfogle and Others

The most famous lost mine in the Death Valley area is the Lost Breyfogle. There are many versions of the legend, but all agree that somewhere in the bowels of those rugged mountains is a colossal mass of gold, which Jacob Breyfogle found and lost. Jacob Breyfogle was a prospector who roamed the country around Pioche and Austin, Nevada, with infrequent excursions into the Death valley area. He traveled alone. Indian George, Hungry Bill, and Panamint Tom saw Breyfogle several times in the country

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Chapter XXIII Panamint City. Genial Crooks

The first search for gold in Death Valley country was in Panamint Valley. From the summit of the Slate Range on the road from Trona, one comes suddenly upon an enchanting and unforgettable view of the Panamint. If you are one who thrills at breath taking scenery you will not speak. You will stand and look and think. Your thoughts will be of dead worlds; of the silence spread like a shroud over all that you see. Below, a yellow road twists in and out of hidden dry washes, around jutting hills to

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Chapter XXIV Indian George. Legend of the Panamint

The previous chapter records accepted history of the silver discovery at Panamint City. Indian George Hansen had another version which he told me at his ranch 11 miles north of Ballarat. It fits the period and the people then in the country. George, when a youngster lived in the Coso Range. East of the Coso there was no white man for 100 miles and renegades fleeing from their crimes and deserters from the Union army sought hideouts in the Panamint. Thus George was employed as a guide by three ou

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Chapter XXV Ballarat. Ghost Town

In the early 1890’s gold discovered on the west side of the Panamint in Pleasant Canyon caused the rush responsible for Ballarat. For more than 20 years the district had been combed by prospectors holed in at Post Office Spring, about one half mile south of the site upon which Ballarat was subsequently built. Here the government had a small army post and here soldiers, outlaws, and adventurers received their mail from a box wired in the crotch of a mesquite tree. The Radcliffe, which was the dis

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The Author

Nearly every newspaperman looks forward to the time when he can get away from the pressure of his journalistic job and retire to a little cottage by the sea, or a cabin in the mountains, and write a book. The only difference between William Caruthers—Bill, to his friends—and a majority of the others is that he did write his book on the spot, preserved it and after retiring to his orange grove near Ontario, California he got around to the job of revision, which resulted in these pages. Born on th

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