#14: Bed without breakfast
#675: Elephant armor.
#75: Instant powdered horse
#233: Wind-powered pioneer dragster (‘rail’ as to be run out of town on a ‘rail’)
Blog
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Ideas that didn’t Work for Whatever Reason
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When the Cavalry Saves the Day
“Two men were in charge of a station at Egan Canyon in Nevada. One morning a band of Indians captured them, after a battle. The chief chose to make the prisoners feed his braves before murdering them, and compelled them to cook an immense quantity of bread. The Indians gorged themselves during the day, while the captives toiled and sweated over their cooking, probably no more cheerfully because of a promise that they would be burned at the stake at sundown. A wagon tongue had been driven into the ground to serve as a stake, and preparations for their roasting were in progress, when in true story-book style, a company of cavalry happened along and saved them. This was the narrative given out as absolute truth in after years given by one of the men.”
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American Avocet
A common to abundant winter visitor to salt ponds, fresh and saline emergent wetlands, and mudflat habitats throughout the Central Valley and the central and southern coastal areas. Breeds from March to mid-July, and is relatively common during this period in northeast California, the Central Valley, and coastal estuaries. Common most of the year at the Salton Sea, but only a few pairs have been known to nest.
Forages on mudflats, salt or alkali flats, in shallow ponded areas with silt bottoms, and in salt pond. Feeds by probing in mud, sweeping bill through water or soupy mud, or by swimming and tipping-up like ducks. Preferred foods include aquatic insects, crustaceans, snails, worms, and occasionally seeds of aquatic plants
— State of CaliforniaThese were spotted in the Saline Valley several hundred yards away from the salt lake shoreline. They would, randomly it seemed, all take off into the air, circle around and land in the same spot they left. I imagined that was an adaptation they have made to spot predators.
A gentleman coming from the Warm Springs walked up to me and we started talking. He told me this was a “lost” flock of American avocet that drifted into the valley long ago during a storm. They found the lake hospitable enough to stay — that every time they tried to leave, they just turned back after a short distance returning to the salt sink at the bottom of the basin that was now their home.
Maybe the guy was knowledgeable and truthful, but more likely he was passing along something he heard that was passed along by someone else who heard something and so on and so forth. You never know who you are talking to.
more about the American avocet
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I’ve been Working on the Railword
Southbound out of Barstow, Ca.
“BOOMER—Drifter who went from one railroad job to another, staying but a short time on each job or each road. This term dates back to pioneer days when men followed boom camps. The opposite is home guard. Boomers should not be confused with tramps, although they occasionally became tramps. Boomers were railroad workers often in big demand because of their wide experience, sometimes blackballed because their tenure of stay was uncertain. Their common practice was to follow the “rushes”-that is, to apply for seasonal jobs when and where they were most needed, when the movement of strawberry crops, watermelons, grain, etc., was making the railroads temporarily short-handed. There are virtually no boomers in North America today. When men are needed for seasonal jobs they are called from the extra board”~ from Railroad Avenue, by Freeman H. Hubbard – 1945
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Coyote Holes
Note on: Freeman Stage Station (Coyote Holes).
Robber’s Roost near Freeman Station Freeman Station was established by the ex-stage driver Freeman S. Raymond in 1872. On the last day of February, 1874, the Station was attacked by Tiburcio Vasquez. Although the station occupants had surrendered, “Old Tex” (who was sleeping in the barn) awoke and fired at Vasquez, wounding him in the leg.
Tiburcio Vasquez the ‘Gentleman’ bandito. Vasquez returned fire and delivered a leg wound to Tex (Pracchia, 1994). In 1894, Freeman’s parcel became the first homestead in Indian Wells Valley.
~ R. Reynolds -
Illustrator of Mojave Desert flora
Henry R. Mockle (1905-1981),
Illustrator of Mojave Desert floraRather than documenting the structure of each plant species in scientific detail, Henry Mockle intended his illustrations to capture “the pleasurable feeling at coming up on one of these little creations”.
Paintbrush As did naturalist Edmund Jaeger, Mockle took pride in all his studies of desert plants being taken directly from life. This work often involves lying on the ground for hours, in conditions ranging from hot to cold, windy to wet. As some annual plants – like the Phacelia – per growing up and through the protective spread of woody shrubs. Mockle found he had to lay beneath creosote bushes and other scrub vegetation to depict these wildflowers in full.
Coyote melon 
Desert Mallow Source: Riverside Metropolitan Museum
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The Man Who Was Hanged Twice
by Myrtle Nyles – November 1964 – Desert Magazine
Skidoo came to life because of fog. When Harry Ramsey and a man called One-eye Thompson lost their way on a road leading to the new boom camp of Harrisburg, they stopped to rest near a log lying against an outcropping of rock. When the fog lifted, the rock turned out to be gold. This was back in 1905. In deciding upon a name for the town that sprung up, a numerologist associated a popular expression of the day, 23-Skidoo, with the fact that a Rhyolite man named Bob Montgomery had successfully piped water from Telescope Peak 23 miles away and suggested the name Skidoo. So it became.
Downtown Skidoo. Death Valley National Park Old-timers say the camp produced over a million dollars worth of gold ore between its discovery and its demise some 20 years later. Skidoo’s chief claim to fame, however, was not its riches. Rather, it was an infamous lynching of a scoundrel named Joe Simpson in 1908.
On a tour to the ghost town of Skidoo in 1962, we were privileged to be accompanied by an 87-year-old gentleman named George Cook. The interesting thing about Mr. Cook was that it was he who pulled on the rope at the lynching. His participation had only recently been divulged to a few intimate friends—after all others involved had passed on to their rewards, or whatever.
Joe “Hooch” Simpson “Joe Simpson,” Mr. Cook told us, ‘was a would-be villain who had killed a man at Keeler after shooting-up Jack Gun’s Saloon in Independence the preceding year. He’d somehow gotten off and drifted to Skidoo where he became a partner with Fred Oakes in the Gold Seal Saloon. Across the street was Jim Arnold’s Skidoo Trading Company.
“Arnold was a friendly, well-liked man and had always been on good terms with Simpson, but Simpson became drunk and abusive one April morning and decided to hold up a bank situated in part of Arnold’s Skidoo Trading Company. Apprehended, his gun was taken away and hidden by the deputy sheriff, but a little later Simpson found his weapon and returned to the store to shoot Jim Arnold. He then turned on two other men who had come to the rescue, but his aim was poor and both escaped. Eventually, Simpson was overpowered and placed under guard in the deputy sheriff’s cabin. Unfortunately,” Mr. Cook lamented, “the popular Jim Arnold died that night.”
Skidoo went wild with indignation. After Arnold’s funeral, which the entire camp attended, a group went to the improvised jail, led the prisoner out at the end of a rope, and hanged him to the nearest telephone pole. When Sheriff Nailor from Independence arrived, after a hazardous trip over rough roads via Tonopah and Rhyolite, he made the now famous statement, “It’s the best thing that ever happened to Inyo County; it saved us $25,000!”
But this wasn’t the end. Several spectators had forgotten their cameras and wanted pictures of the hanging. So, Joe Simpson’s body was obligingly strung up again, this time from the ridgepole of the tent where he was “laid out.” News of this gruesome encore spread and the lynching won everlasting fame. In his private narrative of the event, George Cook added a factor never before related: “Joe was dead before we got the rope around his neck; he died of a heart attack (from fright) and was already gone when dragged to the telephone pole scaffold.”
It was also he, George Cook confessed, who assisted Dr. MacDonald in removing the head from Simpson’s corpse. The doctor, it seems, had once performed an operation on Simpson s nose and wanted to make a further medical study of the case. Going at night, they performed the severance at the lonely prospect hole where Simpson’s body had been tossed. (No one in Skidoo would give him a decent burial, so great was the indignation at his senseless crime). The skull was exhibited for a period in a showcase at Wildrose, but later disappeared.
The remainder of the skeleton resisted oblivion, however. Years later when George Cook returned to Skidoo to work in the mill, an agitated prospector appeared one day to report a headless skeleton of a man who’d evidently been murdered. Because Cook was the only old-timer around at the time, he was consulted. Indeed a crime had been committed sometime, he agreed, but of the details, he had conveniently forgotten.
Last year George Cook passed away. Small in stature, religious, mild-tempered, and given to writing sentimental verse, he was the antithesis of our Western idea of a vigilante. The role forced upon him by his acute anger over the murder of a friend bothered this good man to the end of his days. His belief that Simpson did not expire at his hand appeared to be a real comfort. And, perhaps he was right. We cannot disagree, for George Cook was there.
Much interesting history is connected with the now-defunct Skidoo. Following its early boom, the town was deserted for a period, then, under new management, the mine and mill reopened during the 1930s and a period of production occurred. The old wild days never returned, however, and its fame as a mining camp still rests upon the lynching incident —to which we add, “Joe Simpson did not die because of a rope and a telephone pole. He died of a heart attack!”
by Myrtle Nyles – November 1964 – Desert Magazine
Editor’s Note: This is but one version of this story, and it is worth saying that it has generated many other versions and stories through its telling.
History of Skidoo
In January 1906 two wandering prospectors, John Ramsey and John (One-Eye) Thompson were headed towards the new gold strike at Harrisburg. Along the way a blinding fog came in and the two camped near Emigrant Spring for fear of getting lost. … More …
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Train Wreck
In August of 1907 a brakeman at Cajon Summit station failed to secure a train while unhitching helper engines and over fifty cars began rolling out of control down the grade into the Victor Valley. After seven miles of plummeting down the tracks thirteen cars derailed. A few miles further thirty more cars failed to make the curve before passing through the Upper Narrows. One after another they hurtled into the river bursting into flames. There were cattle on the train too. Many survived the initial accident, but died soon afterward. The last nine cars, with a frightened local rancher on the lead caboose, rolled to a stop in Oro Grande.
In the ashes of one car that burned for over a week, there were four hats found. The brakeman, it was discovered, had been selling rides to hobos for $1. Those at the scene agreed that there were at least that many that died.
Photos – courtesy B.F. Minister -
An Orchestral Landscape
An Orchestral Landscape
“The point of view is born of the desert herself. When you are there, face to face with the earth and the stars and time day after day, you cannot help feeling that your role, however gallant and precious, is a very small one. This conviction, instead of driving you to despair as it usually does when you have it inside the walls of houses, releases you very unexpectedly from all manner of anxieties. You are frightfully glad to have a role at all in so vast and splendid a drama and want to defend it as well as you can, but you do not trouble much over the outcome because the desert mixes up your ideas about what you call living and dying. You see the dreadful, dead country living in beauty, and feel that the silence pressing around it is alive.”~ E. Bush-Perkins – The White Heart of Mojave
http://mojavedesert.net/white-heart/c07.html -
Special Delivery
Hesperia, CA. pre-1950 – Then and Now
Jack and Margaret Nelson, were a very nice couple, who lived on the corner of Olive and E Street. They had three dogs, two were copper-colored police dogs, named Penny and Copper, and one chow dog, named sugar. My parents became very good friends with them. They had a cow, and we soon started buying our milk from them, until they moved away.
After the Nelsons left the area we started purchasing our melt from the Snell Dairy and Creamery Company that was located in Apple Valley. Dick and Winnie Weening took over the milk routes, serving all the high desert, as far as State Line in 1942. In 1943, the Weening family purchased the dairy and the name of Snell Dairy. The milk was delivered in glass bottles and the empty bottles were picked up with the next delivery. The milkman would even put the full milk bottles in the refrigerator. There will never be service like that again.
This photo was taken in 1945 or 1946, and was provided by Barbara Weening Davisson, daughter of Dick and Winnie Weening. She notes, that the picture is of the Johnny Weening, driver and Iva Weening Carpenter, with son Jerry (standing), Phil McGurn, being held.~ Mary Ann Creason Dolan-Rohde
More about …
Hesperia, California -
Walters’ General Store
We did what shopping money would allow, at Roy Walters’ general store. We purchased some beans, flour and canned food items, (canned tuna for my mother and me and canned sardines were for my daddy) gas for the vehicle, and I remember ice for the icebox and we also picked up our mail. The post office was located inside of the store, in our mailing address was PO Box 166, Hesperia, CA. There were no ZIP Codes back in those days.
The store was indeed a general store. They carried just about everything a person would need. There was a glass enclosed section that had any candy, which always drew my attention. There was a very large glass jar that sat on the counter that held dill pickles. I remembered these, because I liked both. There were shelves with items all the way from food, medicine, cosmetics two blankets. I remember a large cabinet that had a lot of small drawers, with labels on them. But I do not remember what was in the drawers. I think there were a couple wood barrels sitting on the floor and many items hanging on the walls. If I remember right, I think the butcher shop was located in the back of the store with a cold storage box to keep the meat from spoiling.. I do not remember if the bread was sliced. But I do remember that oleomargarine, (butter substitute) was non-colored and you had to mix a yellow powder packet into it, to make it yellow.There was a wooden barn that sat next to the store, where the hay and grain was stored. The gas pump was located in front of the store. I only remember one, but there must’ve been to. I am not sure what brand gas they sold. I do remember that you could buy oil for your vehicle or what equipment you might have at home. I do not remember, but going by the fact that the Walters store carry just about everything, I would guess they also sold batteries for your vehicle and equipment, else well as for your radio and flashlight.
For the longest time, they had the only telephone in this area. And going by history, the railroad station had a telegraph office. The Hesperia depot set almost across the street from the store.
Roy and Laura were both extremely friendly and up on the latest gossip. Roy loved to talk, and so did my daddy, so they would talk for what seemed like hours.
Hesperia, CA. pre-1950 – Then and Now
~ Mary Ann Creason Dolan-RohdeMore about …
Hesperia, California -
‘Billy Goat’ Thompson
Rock house Our nearest neighbor, was a Dr. Nelson, who lived in the large rock house further up Highway 173 on the next bend in the road. He was a Seventh-day Adventist who spent weekends there and would manage to come to our house at dinner time. Daddy would always ask him if he would like to stay for dinner, and he would always say yes, and eat meat. Our neighbor on the other side, which would have been on Lake Arrowhead Road, was an old man my daddy called ‘Billy Goat’ Thompson. My guess is, that his real name was Russell Wilson Thompson, but because he raised goats, people had given him the name of ‘Billy Goat’ Thompson. He was a rather dirty man, with a tattered clothing and a beard. I remember that he lived in a cave and had a number of working herd dogs, that I enjoyed watching. I remember that he had a very gentle voice and that he loved his animals.
Hesperia, CA. pre-1950 – Then and Now
~ Mary Ann Creason Dolan-RohdeMore about …
Hesperia, California -
Oh, I see what you mean.
One day a man passed by a ranch and saw a beautiful horse. Hoping to buy the animal, he said to the rancher: “I think your horse looks pretty good, so I’ll give you $500 for him.”
“He doesn’t look so good, and he’s not for sale,” the rancher said.The man insisted, “I think he looks just fine and I’ll up the price to $1,000.”
“He doesn’t look so good,” the rancher said, “but if you want him that much, he’s yours.”
The next day the man came back raging mad. He went up to the rancher and screamed, “You sold me a blind horse. You cheated me!”
The rancher calmly replied, “I told you he didn’t look so good, didn’t I?”
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Betty & Veronica
This is a crummy picture of ‘Betty.’ She is about 3 inches tall and rides on the dashboard of my truck tucked up against the windshield. She keeps me company. She reminds me of Betty in the old Archie comic books. She was the sweet one as opposed to her shallow-minded ‘frenemy,’ Veronica. I had a Veronica too. One day, as I was driving down Main St. here in town, Veronica starts up with her spoiled whining and demands. I really didn’t want to hear it. So I grabbed her by her skinny little ankle and tossed her out the window.
Main Street, Hesperia, Ca. The end.
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A Story that could have been Funnier
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
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Man Catches Fish in Dry Lake
BOULDER CITY, July 2, 1946
— Most people like to do things the easy way, but not Johnny Westen. Recently he attempted the impossible and went fishing on Dry Lake which did have a bare covering of water due to southern Nevada’s unusual weather of the past week.
His first day’s catch was nothing. Undismayed, Johnny fished another day, and another, and on the fourth day, he had the last laugh, for he returned with a gallon jar of lung fish.
Pictures were taken of the fish and a couple were preserved as samples. How they live in the mud of the lake was told; the way the mud forms a protective coat, but melts off when the rains come, and then forms up again as teh [sic] lake dries up. The fish, a type of lung fish, have both eyes on top of their heads and a half shell effect. What Johnny intends to do with the rest of his catch isn’t known for the average size of the lunk [sic] fish is between three quarters and one and a half inches.
Thanks to S.G. Buck, Indio
Harry Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrapbook -
Being a Desert Rat
How to be a Desert Rat and like it
By JOHN HILTONThere are as many deserts as there are people in them, just as there are as many worlds. Being a “Desert Rat” is like being a lover, for the desert is like a woman with a million faces.
Her flowery make-up in the spring is like a your chorus girl. There’s real beauty there if you can get past the sand verbenas and cloying perfume. Most visitors see only the surface charm. She’s in a flirting mood then is anybody’s girl. If you want to be a “stage door Johnny,” you can pay a high price for a cheap thrill and feel a bit silly afterward, carrying home a mass-produced flashy painting of the desert in bloom like a Paris postcard.
The desert possesses a rich dowry and some woo her for that alone, but the money leaves a bitter taste with a secret hatred for its source. For business reasons or to cover up their frustration, such persons may try to act and talk like real desert rats, but it won’t work! Even if they ride silver-saddled Palominos, wear embroidered shirts, teach their butler a western drawl and serve champagne in tincups.
Anyone can be a desert rat who can see and love the beauty of the desert in all her moods. There’s beauty and wild music in a desert sandstorm. The lightning and thunder of a summer cloudburst are the flashing eyes — the emoting and tears of a high-spirited, beautiful actress “putting on a scene.” They are soon over. There’s beauty in crisp cool winter mornings and hot sultry summer afternoons, but most of all there’s the intimate beauty of being alone with her on long walks on lying on her warm breast on balmy summer nights counting the stars in her hair — listening in the silence to your own heartbeat as it matches hers.
Being a desert rat and liking it is like being in love — you just can’t help it.
First published in Desert Rat Scrapbook, Winter 1946-47
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Are We there Yet?
A TOURIST ASKED
a Desert Rat, “How far would you say it was to Barstow?”
Teakettle Junction, Death Valley National Park “Well,” calculated the Desert Rat, “It’s 24,992 miles the direction you’re going; ’bout 27 if you turn ’round.”
Adapted from H. Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrapbook.
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Team Work
Back before Route 66 made crossing the desert easy, three friends wanted to cross the Mojave. Of the three buddies there was a “smart dude,” a “not so smart dude,” and a “not smart at all dude.” Before they left the “smart dude” says, “We’ll meet here in an hour. Bring something useful to cross the desert with.”
An hour passes. All three friends return.
The “smart dude” says, “I brought some ice packs to keep our heads cool.”
The “not so smart dude” says, “I brought a pail of water to keep us properly hydrated.”
The “not smart at all dude” smiles real broad and says, “I brought a car door so I can roll down the window when it gets hot.”
The end.
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The Story of this Picnic Table
Rattlesnake Flats
Way in back of a mining claim in a crack near a knob on a knoll up near Rattlesnake Flats there is some thick brush grown around a wobbly old picnic table.
Roy Rogers
My friend tells me that this table once belonged to TV legend, Roy Rogers. I believe this to be true. I am told that, well, look at it; it is a much longer table than normal. My friend has lived down the street and around the corner from the Rogers for years before Roy and Dale passed away. My friend is quite credible.
Roy Rogers’ old picnic table I sat at the table for a moment. I hardly had to close my eyes to see cowboy cuffed shirts, checkered table cloths, barbecued ribs, potato salad and hear some old time country western pop. The table spoke to me — it said, “Yep — they sat here.”
That is the story of this picnic table.
The end.
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Particular about Cheese
Las Vegas Clark County 1910-11-26
Gritts, the grocer, poses a pretty straight and put on his No. 1 smile As the lady with the I’m-placing-a-thumping-order air entered the shop. She wanted some cheese.
“Yes, madame.” smirked Gritts. “I have some delightful Derbies, madam, a quantity of choice cheddars, and a parcel of prime Parmeasans.”
Particular about Cheese Madam would certainly like to taste some if she could. Certainly, Madam could, if she would. Gritts flourished his gauge over this cheese and that. Madam nibbled at 11 different samples. No; none of them was quite “it.”
“Of course, Madam,” said Gritts at length, “if you require Stilton–” and he handed her a generous taster.
“Ah,” nodded the lady, as she smacked her lips, “that will do nicely! now, if you’ll give me a matchbox all be getting home. I only want to bait a mouse trap!”
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Trapper Andrew Sublette and Salt Springs History
Gold was discovered on December 1, 1849, by Mormons who were led by Jefferson Hunt to take gold seekers and others to southern California over the Old Spanish Trail. Most wagons left Hunt in southern Utah for a short cut to the gold country—ironically, short-cut survivors took up to two months longer to reach Los Angeles. It wasn’t much of a short cut. Those seven wagons that stayed with Hunt camped on the Old Spanish Trail at Salt Creek, near the present Hwy. 127 and Salt Creek Mountains. Some men rode up the Amargosa Spring wash and found gold. The Los Angeles Star dated May 7, 1851, reported the story.
When Hunt’s group arrived in Rancho Chino, owner Col. Isaac Williams sent out his right hand man Davis to examine the gold site. Ben Wilson, later mayor of Los Angeles and ancestor of General George Patton, fitted out another expedition to check on the Salt Springs site. Both expeditions brought back rich specimens and reported a “whole mountain” of gold bearing ore.
But as was the case of desert mining for years to come, there were obstacles to making desert mines pay off: transportation, distance, food and water, machinery to process the gold so that it would be practical to bring the ore to a smelter. Realistically, in the 1850s, miners still thought that in the Sierra Nevada gold country, gold could still be just picked up.
Old Spanish Trail/Salt Lake Road east of Tecopa, CA. One explorer went to San Francisco and shared his enthusiasm for the Salt Springs gold. Investors in June, 1850, sponsored another party to investigate. When they came back in July, they formed the Los Angeles Mining Company and made plans to take possession and work the area.
Salt Springs Another of the Los Angeles initial prospectors. Mr. Davis, went to the Sierras to find a supposed Gold Lake. When he returned to Grass Valley, he told Col. Lamb about his trip to “Gold Mountain,” i.e., Salt Springs. Lamb fitted out another exploratory trip, this time led by Davis. Col. Lamb’s group evidently arrived before the Los Angeles company and claimed what he thought were good areas, and sold three-fourth of his interest under the name Desert Mining Company in January 1851. By that spring the two mining companies had three Mexican arrastres (animal powered rock gold crushers) in operation, two for Desert Mining Company and one for Los Angeles Company. The latter company also bought, according to the Star, “a fine engine and machinery on the Amohave (Mojave) River, a little over half way out” —where it became stuck and was temporarily left in the sands of the Mojave River. The assay samples brought into Los Angeles were too few to be conclusive, but varied from 10 cents to many dollars per pound of rock. One of the companies had dug a mine 30’ deep.
Mojave River Andrew Sublette, famed trapper and mountain man family of brothers, was encouraged to invest in the Desert Mining Company, his great hope to become wealthy. He had became ill gold mining in the Sierras and went to San Jose to recuperate. In a letter to his brother Solomon, March 20, 1851, from Los Angeles, we see his dreams:
“I am concerned with a Company in a gold mine. It is in the rock and very rich. I have been there for six months and will Start out to that place tomorrow [to] take charge and Start some machinery to grind the rock… I have invested all my means (which was but little) in that mine but hope to get it out with interest.”
He was so poor that he borrowed money at 5% to invest and took the job as “chief field man,” (Superintendent). The company did not have enough resources, and President James F. Hibberd tried to obtain additional operating money with more investors and by attaching assessments for the stock owners to pay, or they would forfeit their stocks. For example, on May 7, [1851 ?] the company set an assessment on $2.00 per share. On June 10 it assessed another $1.00 per share. In August, 1851, the Desert Mining Company failed! Sublette declared insolvency. The partnership of B. D. Wilson and A. Packard dissolved.
Ruins: Amargosa Mine at Salt Springs A new mining company Salt Springs Mining Company, was formed. The new President was Benjamin D. Wilson, Albert Packard was Secretary-Treasurer, also partners in a transportation company. Since Andrew Sublette had no money to invest, he continued as chief field man. The company was running again in November 1851.
Always positive it seems, Sublette praised the mine to the Star, and said that Indians had been troublesome, had stolen tools and ruined machinery, but “The workmen were taking out remarkably rich specimens of quartz: on the whole the news is encouraging.” Sublette sold his holding in St. Louis for $6,000 to pay off bills and invest again in Salt Springs Mining. He wrote to his brother again in March 1852 that he had started mining again with new partners and that prospects were good. He hoped to go back to Missouri and visit again soon. His health has been the best it has been for the last two or three years.
Things were really going well.
Ravine in Cajon Pass But that’s not usual for mining in the Mojave Desert. In the next couple months things were typical for desert mining: Two of his men killed in the Cajon Pass, more Indian difficulties, the 220-mile supply line to Los Angeles, the dwindling supply of money, the calling for stock assessments–all led the Salt Springs Mining Company to try to sell to foreign investors—and that failed, and so did the mining at Salt Springs—for awhile at least.
Sublette, now broke again, went back to his mountain man roots: bear hunting to make some money. He provided some meat for the Los Angeles markets. He was badly wounded, but recovered.
Barracks, Ft. Tejon Because of his freight experience and his friendship with Wilson, Sublette received a contract to provide supplies to the new Indian reservation at Ft. Tejon. He went into partnership with James Thompson. They prospered and even leased the La Brea Ranch. According to his biographer, Doyce Blackman Nunis, Jr., Andrew Sublette had quite a resume of occupations: trapper, trader, guide, soldiers, hunter, peace officer, miner—and sometimes with ill-health—he found success as a California Indian Department contractor. Yet, within a few months he was dead at age 40.
Andrew Whitley Sublette’s funeral was in the parlor of the El Dorado Saloon in Los Angeles, and as Major Horace Bell said, “…every gringo in town turned out for the funeral.”
Sublette and his partner, James Thompson, hunted for grizzlies in Malibu Canyon. The two became separated, and when Thompson heard a shot he ran toward it, and found “Sublette locked in hand to hand struggle with the ferocious animal. To one side, partly covered by a cloud of dust stirred up from the contest between man and beast, lay the huddled corpse of the attacker’s mate. Apparently Sublette had slain one of the bears with his rifle, and then before he could reload his weapon, was set upon by another. With knife flashing, his hunting dog, Old Buck, adding his bite to the fray, Andrew finally dispatched his assailant with a mortal thrust. Falling near the crumpled carcass Andrew lay bleeding and dying.”
Thompson got help and took him to the Padilla Building where Dr. Thomas Foster frantically tried to stop the bleeding. The next day Sublette’s trapping, hunting and mining days were over. He was buried at Foothill Cemetery, a dramatic end to a short but glorious life of one of America’s great trappers, Andrew Sublette. Despite his illness, he struggled to the end to make a good living in difficult occupations. His last years added interesting facets to the history of the Mojave Desert.
Salt Springs had another 158 years of history. It continued its up’s and down’s in mining, with scandals where “miners mined the investors,” with a great glory hole, and now this important water hole on the Old Spanish Trail is marked by the BLM with a picnic area, restroom, signs and trails. It is just a hundred yards off Hwy. 127.
Thanks to Emmet for most of this information. I also sourced Andrew Sublette: Rocky Mountain Prince 1813 – 1853, by Doyce Blackman Nunis, Jr, at the Huntington Library.
by Cliff Walker – Mojave River Valley Museum
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A Tale from the Trail
“Bro. Aldrich —Sir:
I left Fulton city on the first Monday in May, for Bashan, the land of peace, with my family, nine in number. About 30 miles from there, my little boy, about 3 1/2 years old, fell out of the wagon, and the wheel ran over his neck. I took him up and saw that he was about to depart this life. But not feeling willing to part with him, I administered to the child according to the law and order of the gospel, and the Lord blessed him, and he soon recovered, and is now hearty and well.”
~ Royce Oatman – 1850.
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Serrano Woman of Tejon
Serrano (Kitanemuk) woman “The Serranos (Spanish, “mountaineers”), a Shoshonean branch comprising numerous local groups, occupied San Bernardino valley, San Bernardino mountains north of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, a portion of Mojave desert north of that range and east of Mojave river, and Tehachapi mountains. This last group, who lived principally on El Paso and Tejon creeks, were the Kitanemuk. In 1853 most of the resident Indians, including not only various Shoshoneans but many Yokuts, were taken to Tule river reservation. Tejon rancheria remains, however, a settlement of various Shoshoneans, but predominantly Kitanemuk”
~ Edward S. Curtis
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A Visit With “Death Valley Scotty”
By Ivan Summers, from the SANTA MONICA EVENING OUTLOOK, Automotive Section, Thursday, January 29, 1925.
“Oh My Gawd”! The explosion of words roused my dog snoozing nearby. What else would you say when, while pawing through an old box of family junk, an eighty eight year old newspaper smacks your eyeballs? Especially if you’ve had a lifelong addiction to desert minutiae. The absorbing yarn of about 2000 words (with no byline) entails a journey by two Franklin automobiles into and out of Death Valley including a successful meeting with the legendary Death Valley Scotty. The (crumbling) newspaper itself is an historic gem laced with ads touting “Balloon Tires,” the new Maxwell Coupe, the Rio Roadster, the Hudson super six–all iconic in U. S. car history. As well, splashed front page, are several pics of the famous air cooled Franklins in the valley and a photo of that career rascal himself–Scotty!
According to the writer (unnamed) there had been an attempt the previous summer to negotiate Franklin cars from Furnace Creek Ranch to Scotty’s digs. But 126 temp and road (or no road) conditions turned them back for another try in January of 1925.
Good stuff here. They breakfast in Mojave, proceed to Randsberg, Leach Springs and Owl Springs. You can’t do that today as Leach Springs is on sacred military ground. That trip assuredly went
over what still is the Steamwell road out of Johannesberg, through Granite Wells connecting with Owl Springs and on to the Harry Wade road. Then east on Bradburg Wash to Shoshone. Tough going today if
you could even find it.These guys eventually got to Scotty but with an interesting little aside in Rhyolite. The mining camp had only been “partly disassembled.” A moving picture company was filming something to be entitled “The Air Mail.” (Film archives)??
Scotty, apparently a genial host, saw that the travelers were housed and fed. The writer goes on to inform that Scotty’s house was furnished with elaborate stuff from China with maybe a $6,000 import fee plus other niceties that exceeded $150,000. The story implied that these were Scotty’s digs done with Scotty’s money There was mention by Scott of his ‘partner.’ Albert Johnson, who Scotty mentioned was going to build a million dollar house near his.
Apparently what the Santa Monica writer didn’t know in 1925 was that Scotty was one of the magnificent cons of the early 20th century. He’d been exposed in 1906 and again in 1912 as a fraud and hoaxer. He relieved numerous gullible investors, including Johnson, of many thousands–invested in nonexistent gold mines. He even did some jail time in 1912. Despite this egregious behavior he remained in Johnson’s affection until Johnson passed in 1948.The Franklin car party’s announced intention was to negotiate the length of the valley, in this instance from North to South. From Scotty’s out of the south end. The article states “this had never been done before.”
Well, uh, not exactly the case. This writer’s father, Herbert S. Summers, made a journey in 1923 in a Model T Ford from south to north at least as far as Furnace Creek Ranch. His route was from Barstow north east past Bicycle Lake, Garlic Springs, Cave Springs and directly up the valley to Furnace Creek Ranch.
Summers wrote a delightful little tale of their adventure describing the perils of mid-summer travel and took numerous photos–still in the family archives.
On exiting Scotty’s, the Franklin party passed by something referred as the “lost wagon” and another site called “Surveyors Well,” neither of which appear on today’s maps. They evidently turned west to take the Wingate Wash (Pass) road paralleling the Epsom Salt Mono Rail and eventually found Mojave, unaware that it was possible to complete the North-South transit through Cave Springs and to Barstow. It in fact (in reverse) had been done.
Death Valley survived Scotty–and is a better place for it
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A Desert Painting
Pastels & gold.
Dulled colors of a hazy sunset.
Brown cloak of dry brush.
A nakedness of patches of earth.Gasping wind gleaning miniscule, dried, brown flowers from indistinct and unkempt bushes.
Alone by being alone.
The sun no longer paints our backs,
The whole black of a moonless night rushes into the vacuum.~ w.feller
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Lake Thompson
Lake Thompson, an extinct lake that filled part of Antelope Valley during the Quaternary (1.8 to .126 Ma). Rogers and Rosamond dry lakes occupy parts of the ancient bed of Lake Thompson.
Lake Thompson -
Back in the Old 1900s
In The Year 1910:
Only 14 percent of the homes in America had bathtubs.
A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost $11.
There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.~
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Pictures of Hammers
Pictures of hammers for your perusal and enjoyment …
Hammers #1 of 4 
Hammers #2 of 4 
Hammers #3 of 4 
Hammers #4 of 4 -
Bath by Installments
On the Mojave Desert where water, like gold, in considered a precious element, a bath is often possible only through divine intervention plus human ingenuity. When Bob Alexander, dusty and dirty from a month-long prospecting trip through the Mojave Desert Mountains, awoke one morning in 1867 to an overcast sky and smelled moisture-laden dust in the atmosphere, he grinned from ear to ear.
“Rain, by jeepers!” he prognosticated. “And here’s where Bob takes a bath!”
He hurried through breakfast, and just as he’d finished scraping the last spoonful of chuck from his plate, the rain began to fall. He stripped his clothes off, stepped out of his tent, and stood for a long time under the ample shower. Wet from head to foot, he ducked back into the tent for soap and worked up a generous lather all over his body. He chuckled with glee.“Better than going to church,” he told himself. “After four weeks of dry camping, cleanliness is sure on a par with godliness, as the feller says.”
With eyes closed to keep out the soap, Bob left the tent. “Hell’s Bells!” he exploded. Typically, the desert shower had ceased as abruptly as it had begun. He squinted at the clouds from under a carefully raised eyelid. They were rising. The sun was breaking through.
Ugly words like blue flames flicked from his angry lips. He groped his way back into the tent, took the first rag he could lay hands on and wiped the soap from his eyes. The sun blazed forth, and the clouds disappeared over a distant mountain rim. Bob watched their departure with baleful eyes.
Providence Mountains “Dry gulched by a rain storm!” he thundered bitterly, “without enough water to wash a horned toad!” The soap was beginning to dry and draw on Bob’s skin. A quick rub-down served only to increase the irritation. There was nothing to do but to hike to Fort Rock Springs, five miles distant in the Providence Mountains. Here he could find water and relief. Donning his dirty clothes, Bob struck out across the country.
When he reached the Fort entrance, his feet, tough though they were, smarted like blazes and his skin, drawn and puckered under his clothes, itched unmercifully. He stopped in agonized surprise when the sentry order:
“Halt!”
“What the hell!” Bob remonstrated.
“You can’t go in there. The Fort is quarantined. Measles.”
“I’ve got to go in there. I’m all lathered up with soap!”
“Drunk or just crazy?” interrogated the sentry.
“Neither,” Bob returned, exasperated. His voice took on a pathetic tone as he stripped off his shirt to illustrate his story. The sentry listened and looked, his face changing from astonishment to amusement and sympathy.
“Mister,” said the sentry, “orders from Lieutenant Drumm, Commander of this here fort, are that only officers of the Fort, people with passes, and details, are permitted to pass through here.”
Bob was desperate. He retired abjectly. But not for long. In a few minutes, he marched up towards the sentry again, this time, simulating, awkwardly enough, the gait of a soldier on parade. The sentry smiled.
“Halt! Who comes there!” he sputtered, fighting back laughter.
“Detail of one, bound for the Fort,” returned Bob, grimly.
“Pass, detail!” shouted the sentry.
Bob passed, on a dead run, headed for a tub and water.
Taken from The Old West, Pioneer Tales of San Bernardino County
