Shorty Harris

Single Blanket Jackass Prospector Shorty Harris’ burial beside Jim Dayton in lower Death Valley was quite an occasion. Four hundred CCC boys, an army chaplain and a goodly gathering of desert rats and interested visitors gathered at the site near Eagle Borax and awaited arrival of the hearse from Bishop, as the sun dropped to the crest of Telescope Peak.
All day two old miner friends had been digging the grave aided and abetted by a jug of firewater hidden behind a clump of greasewood.

When the casket arrived and was measured the grave was too short as the diggers had figured on the length of the “Short Man” and not the coffin.

As the sun dropped behind the Panamints and the chaplain and mourners fidgeted uneasily, a voice came from the grave.

“Bend the so and so in the middle and let’s plant him. He won’t give a damn.”

However it wasn’t feasible to bend a coffin but it was lowered on an angle and Shorty was buried with his head up.

—Told by T.R. Goodwin, Superintendent Death Valley National Monument
Harry Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrapbook