195209 Desert Magazine 1952 September

8/14/2019 195209 Desert Magazine 1952 September

1/44


2/44

RIPPLES ON THE DESERT SANDBy GASTON BURRIDGEDowney, CaliforniaWe weigh astar beycnd our eyeAnd fail toknow theman uponourright.We search the atom for its secret tieUnmindful of ourstarving brother'splight.And just ashuman aseach thing wedoIs failure toadmit that this istrue.DESERT ECSTACY

By W. RODGERS and R. FISHERPhoenix, ArizonaBeauty for so many soulsIs landscaped, terraced and graded.Give me nature's sod totreadJust asMother Nature made it.Though far removed from haunts ofma nKnowing not the stench offilthy town.Though whipped by wind and stinging sand,A tiny blossom inecstacy, hugs the ground.

THE SOUTHWESTBy GRACE BARKER WILSONKirtland, New MexicoA turquoise canopy hangs overhead,And sunshine ofpure gold dots allthe land.From snow-capped mountains where thesky-gods stand,Across the timbered slopes, where streamletsthreadTheir devious ways from thegreat water-shed;And o'er thewide expanse of desert sand,Whose stony towers and craggy mesas grandGive gradual place to growing fields, thatspreadTheir green abundance that men may havebread.Those only who have dwelt here understandThe measure of the greatness God hasplannedFor souls that open, yearning to be fed.This great Southwest, apart from man-madestrife,Not just aplace, it is away oflife.

By MARGARET HOR MEL LNorth Palm SpringsAt theend of a road that is red andawry.Where the compass ofdesert converges withsky.Lies a basin where yucca and juniper grow,And the colors, intensified, shimmer andglowIn a circle of hillocks as red as the road,Wherein silence is music, andwind-song'san odeTo the memory of men of anancient caste;In the nocturnal Stardust their phantomsfile past.Therein time on a peg of eternity swingsIn a medley of dreams about primitivethings,And all harassing fancies arelost, or sub-dued.In the infinite peace ofits vast solitude.

MIDSUMMER HEATBy MARGARET HORMELLNorth Palm Springs, California

Midsummer heat haswrought a holocaustFor all but poet and fool.To him who highly rates the solid thingsOf earth, which he cangrasp with ringerssure,The torrid ghouls are cruelAlas, he cries invain, "Cool! Cool!"But those whodream may see in casualsprayA million limpid dewdrops,That quench thedancing ghouls, as cool,cool, cool,They drip, from verdant athel boughs, andsplashInto ashaded pool.

LAND OFMY DREAMSBy MARY PERDEWSanta Ana, CaliforniaI long for the sweep ofunfenced lands:Mountain, mesa, and gray trackless sands.Rock-lined canyons deep and wide,Washes where rivers rush and subside,Grim, rugged peaks standing guard likeportalsBarring the steps ofmarauding mortals,Winds blowing free, wide skies azure blue,And sharp thorns close set round bloomsof bright hue.1 love the sweep ofunfenced landsWith barriers wrought only by Nature'shands.

By TANYA SOUTHHere do I stand: Theroot and thefoundation,Result of all the lives I've everlivedThe substance and thesum and cul-minationOf all thegood and bad mysoulhas sieved.Here do I stand. No power onearthcan break me,

Save I myself break with theyokeI bear.Go d inHis mercy never shall forsakeme ,And ever shall I onward, upwardfare.

DESERT MAGAZINE


3/44

D E S E R T C A L E N D A RAug. 29-30 Tooele County Fair,Tooele, Utah.Aug. 29-Sept. 1Elko County Fair.Elko, Nevada.Aug. 29-Sept. 1 Annual Fiesta,

Santa Fe, New Mexico.Aug. 30-Sept. 1Desert Peaks Sec-tion, Southern California Chapter,Sierra Club, hike up the Thumb,Sierra peak in Southern Calif.Aug. 30-Sept. 1Fallon '49 Show,Fallon, Nevada.Aug. 30-Sept. 1Old Time MiningCelebration, Randsburg, California.Aug. 30-Sept. 1 Annual NevadaRodeo, Winnemucca, Nevada.Aug. 31-Sept. 1Annual Labor DayRodeo, Williams, Arizona.Aug. 31-Sept. 1World Champion-ship Steer Roping, Clovis, New

Mexico.Aug. 31-Sept. 1Annual Labor DayRodeo, Benson, Arizona.Sept. 1-5Annual Rodeo, Silver City,New Mexico.Sept. 2St. Stephen's Fiesta, AcomaIndian Pueblo, New Mexico.Sept. 4-6 Sanpete County Fair,Manti, Utah.Sept. 4-7Antelope Valley Fair, Lan-caster, California.Sept. 5-7Mojave Trail Expositionand Panorama, Barstow, California.Sept. 6Seventh Annual Dick Wick

Hall Day, Salome, Arizona.Sept. 6-8Harvest Dance, San Ilde-fonso Pueblo, New Mexico.Sept. 11-13 Southern Utah Live-stock Show, Cedar City, Utah.Sept. 12-14 Coif a x County Fair,Springer, New Mexico.Sept. 12-14Valencia County Fair,Belen, New Mexico.Sept. 13-21Utah State Fair, Fair-grounds, Salt Lake City.Sept. 16Mexican Independence Day,Las Cruces, New Mexico.Sept. 17-19Curry County Fair, Clo-v i s , New Mexico.Sept. 19 Annual Fiesta, LagunaPueblo, New Mexico.Sept. 19-20 Hidalgo County Fair,Lordsburg, New Mexico.Sept. 19-20 Union County Fair,Clayton, New Mexico.Sept. 19-21Northern New MexicoFair, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Sept. 20-21Annual Prescott Quar-terhorse Show, Prescott, Arizona.Sept. 20-21Sheriff's Posse Rodeo,Lordsburg, New Mexico.Sept. 23Roosevelt County Fair andRodeo, Portales, New Mexico.Sept. 24-28Dona Ana County Fair,Las Cruces, New Mexico.Sept. 27-Oct. 6New Mexico StateFair, Albuquerque.Sept. 29-30San Geronimo Fiesta,Taos, New Mexico.

V o l u m e 15 SEPTEMBER. 1952 N u m b e r 9C O V E RPOETRYC A L E N D A RHISTORYC O N T E S TA R C H E O L O G YRECREATIONWILDLIFEEXPERIENCE

DESERT QUIZP H O T O G R A P H YMININGLOST MINELETTERSFICTIONN E W SCLOSE-UPSLAPIDARYH O B B YFIELD TRIPC O M M E N TB O O K S

Bill Hostetter, Uranium Prospector. By Ray Manley,Western Ways, Tucson, Arizona.Enchanted Basin and other poems 2September events on the desert 3He Built Scotty's CastleBy RANDALL HENDERSON 4Prize announcement for photographers . . . 10When Ancients Dwelt on the Shores of Old LakeMohave, by A. LA VIELLE LAWBAUGH . . 1 1We Climbed Rabbit Peak

By LOUISE T. WERNER 16Recent Emigrants from Mexico

By H. JACKSON CARY 20Life on the Desert

By PAUL WILHELM 21A test of your desert knowledge 22Pictures of the Month 23Current news of deser t mines 24Lost Lead of the Santa Clara

By GEORGE GARDNER 25Comment from Desert 's readers 27Hard Rock Shorty of Death Valley 28From here and there on the deser t 29About those who write for Desert 35Amateur Gem Cutter , by LELANDE QUICK . . 36Gems and Minerals 37Gems, Minerals and Mines Along Southwestern

Trails, by CLAUDE A. CONLIN, Jr 40Just Between You and Me, by the Editor . . . 42Reviews of Southwestern literature 43he Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Press, Inc., Palm Desert,California. Re-entered as second class matter July 17, 1948, at the post office at Palm Desert,California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No.358865 in U. S. Patent Office,and contents copyrighted 1952 by the Desert Press, Inc. Permission to reproduce contentsmust be secured from the editor in writing.

RANDALL HENDERSON, EditorBESS STACY, Business Manager MARGARET GERKE, Associate EditorMARTIN MORAN, Circulation ManagerUnsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility fordamage or loss of manuscripts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Sub-scribers should send notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue.SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne Year $3.50 TwoYears $6.00Canadian Subscriptions 25c Extra, Foreign 50c ExtraSubscriptions to Army Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must Be Mailed in Conformity WithP . O. D. Order No. 19687Address Correspondence to Desert Magazine, Palm Desert, California

S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2


4/44

Recent photograph of Matt Roy Thompson. He wasthe man who built Scotty's Castle in Death Valley. Death Valley Scotty in the doorway of the palatial homebuilt for him by the Johnsons. Frasher's Photo.H e B u i lt S co t ty ' s C a s t l e . . .A school-day romance at Stanford led to the selection of Matt Roy Thomp-son as the man to build the palatial mansion in Death Valley known asScotty's Castle. Six hectic years were devoted to the building of this milliondollar palace in a remote desert canyonand even then it was not finished,

for reasons made clear in this story.By RANDALL HENDERSON

AND Bessie Johnsonfurnished the money for thebuilding of the fabulousScotty's Castle in Death Valley. Walter(Death Valley) Scott gave name andpublicity to the project. Matt RoyThompson was the construction en-gineer who planned and directed thework. For six yearsfrom 1925 to1931Thompson was the boss on thejob.It was from Thompson that Ilearned the story. Still healthy andalert, he works every day on hisjob as principal civil engineer in theLos Angeles office of Holmes & Narver,Inc., engineers and constructors who

specialize in military and naval instal-lations all over the world.We sat in the living room of the spa-cious Thompson home in PasadenarecentlyMatt, his wife Ivah, Cyriaand Iwhile he recalled with amazingmemory for details the story of hissix-year association with the Johnsonsand Scotty in Death Valley.While the construction of the Castlewas not started until 1925, the storyof its architectural design, and theselection of Matt Roy Thompson asthe man to do the building job, goesback much earlier than that. It is astory in which Stanford Universityplayed an important role.

Stanford opened its doors as aninstitution of higher learning in 1891.Matt Roy was one of the first to reg-ister in the new western school. Hav-ing had a year's engineering work atRose Polytechnic in Terre Haute, In-diana, he entered Stanford as a sopho-more. He was 17.In the social life of the school hemet a pretty blonde freshman, BessieMorris Penniman. Her father owneda large ranch and orchard at WalnutCreek east of Oakland. It is nowknown as Johnson's Shadelands Ranch."Bessie and I attended the first foot-ball game between Stanford and theUniversity of California at Haight

DESERT MAGA ZI NE


5/44

Recent photograph of Scotty's C astle in Death Valley. This and adjoining build-ings were erected as a private home for Mr. and Mrs. Albert M. Johnson and DeathValley Scotty. Unfinished swimm ing pool is in the foreground.

Until Johnson brought his millions into the partnership this was the cabin in whichScotty lived in Death Valley when he was not on the road with Buffalo Bill.Albert Johnson in the doorwa y. Frasher's Photo.S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2


6/44

Bessie and Albert Johnson, with Death Valley Scotty in the middlephotographedin the living room soon after the Castle was furnished. Frasher's Photo.Street Park in San Francisco," MattRoy recalls. "Stanford, playing underthe management of a 17-year-oldfreshman named Herbert Hoover, wonthe game 10 to 7."In the financial panic of 1893 Matt'sfather, in the real estate business inTacoma, Washington, met with finan-cial reverses, and young Thompsonhad to leave school. A year later Bes-sie Penniman transferred to Cornell.At first they corresponded regularly.Then she met a rich young engineeringstudent named Albert M. Johnsonand letters became less frequent. Ayear or so later Matt Roy and hisbride, Patience O'Hara Thompson, re-ceived the announcement of Bessie'smarriage to Johnson.

During the ^0 years which followedhe kept contact with the Johnsons, andsaw them occasionally. In the mean-time Matt Roy had made notable ad-vances in his own career as a construc-tion engineer and appraisal expert. Hewas a member of the Interstate Com-merce Commission's appraisal boardwith an office in Washington, D. C,in 1925 when, without any previoushint as to what it was all about, hereceived a telegram from Albert John-son in Chicago asking him to take

charge of some building improvementsin Death Valley, California."I went to Chicago to discuss theproject more in detail with Johnson,"said Matt Roy, "and it had a strongappeal. I asked my department chiefin Washington for a year's leave ofabsence, and accompanied the John-sons to Death Valley."At that time Johnson was repu-tedly worth $60,000,000, and was theowner of the National Life Insurancecompany of Chicago. His back hadbeen broken in 1899 in a railroadwreck in which his father had beenkilled, and after he recovered enoughto move around he decided to go Westand rough it in an effort to regain hisstrength."He arranged with Walter Scott,who as a cowboy in Buffalo Bill's WildWest show from 1890 to 1902 hadbeen widely billed as Death ValleyScotty, to accompany him on his jour-neys into the desert. Scotty had

punched cattle, skinned mules andprospected in Nevada and Californiaduring his younger days and knew theregion well."Just when the idea of a palatialhome on the desert was born, I do

not know, but when I arrived in DeathValley with the Johnsons, some im-provements already had been made onthe Grapevine Canyon site in upperDeath Valley. These consisted of alarge two-story box-like stucco build-ing about 40x150 feet which was usedas a hide-away camp and storage roomby Scotty and Johnson. Also, therewas an L-shaped garage about 250feet long near the other building."I was assigned office space andcomfortable living quarters in the frontend of the garage, and with the excep-tion of a few weeks' vacation eachsummer, I lived there alone for sixyears."Stories have been current that John-son originally had plans drawn for hisdesert retreat by Frank Lloyd Wright,the noted architect, but Thompsonstated that he never saw such plansand never heard them referred to.Actually, the architectural detail ofthe Castle was suggested by the build-

ings on the Stanford campus. MattRoy recalled the words of PresidentDavid Starr Jordan on the occasion ofhis inaugural address at Stanford Oc-tober 1, 1891: "these long corridorswith their stately arches . . . will oc-cupy a warm place in every student'sDESERT MAGA ZI NE


7/44

Scotty's bedroom inthe Castle. It issaid that Death Valley Scotty has never sleptin it. Frasher's Photo.1

! HF ' 4

' - - - / & - - ' . ; ,- " ^ , : ^ # H

; . * "

. / * *

" v . *

,-""""" * * $ M

o ^,..... - - y'irtgfi l l ' " ' " 1

iff 'M K > 1

fe '

Music room inthe Castle. The pipe organ is in the alcove on theleft. Frasher'sPhoto.S E P T E M B E R , 1952


8/44

Albert M. Johnson, left, and Matt Roy Thompson, with huge glyphcovered rock brought in from a nearby canyon to decorate the Castle yard.Frasher's Photo.

heart . . . never to be rubbed out inthe wear of life."It was a prophecy that had made adeep impression on the new sopho-more at Stanford. Matt Roy couldenvision the ugly box-like structurewhich Johnson and Scotty had erected,completely transformed by the addi-tion of a series of Stanfordesquearches, and crowned with red tile alongthe good old Stanford lines."I made a pencil sketch showing thelines of the transformed mansion as Iproposed to build it," recalls Thomp-son. "Johnson protested, saying he pre-ferred the rectangular type of archi-tecture because it symbolized that

everything he did was on the square.But Bessie had a warm place in herheart for Stanford and she liked mysketches. In the end she had herway, and with some compromises thestructure was planned and built as itappears today."We undermined the old buildingwith a full concrete-walled basementfrom which tunnels radiated to theother structures in the group. The

old walls were trebled in thickness byadding hollow-tile veneer and insulat-ing them against desert heat by fillingthem with insulex, a powder whichwith the addition of water expandedto 12 times its original volume. It

dries into a porous stone-like substance."Water was piped from the springsa mile up the canyonenough to sup-ply a population of 1000 persons, pro-vide hydro-electric power and fill theswimming pool. An immense solar-heater was designed and built to sup-ply hot water for the half dozen kit-chens and the dozen gorgeously-tiledbathrooms."The ties of the abandoned Tono-pah & Tidewater railroad, from Beattyto Tonopah, were purchased120,000of them. They were bought for $1500,and it cost $25,000 to gather them up,haul them to our building site overalmost impassable roads, and stackthem in a little tributary gorge nowknown as Tie Canyon. It was esti-mated they would provide fuel for the18 fireplaces in the Castle for 150years. Long tiers of them remain to-

day where they were stacked 25 yearsago."A huge pipe organ was installed,with the largest set of chimes west ofChicago at that time. No expense wasspared, either in the construction orin the furnishings which went into it.Johnson said we would build to last100 years."Costs were high due to the remote-ness of the site, and probably no onewill ever know what the final totalamounted to. It was in excess of amillion dollars, I am sure, and might

have added up to nearly a million anda half."Workers for the project were re-cruited mostly from two sources: TheShoshone Indian camps in Death Val-ley, and the employment offices in LosAngeles. The Shoshones did much ofthe manual labor and as many as 70of them were employed at one time.It was in the Los Angeles employmentoffices that they found the highly skilledAustrian wood-carvers who did thebeautiful and intricate designs of theinterior beams and wood finish. Thedetail sketches for the beams andtrusses were created by Martin Devyde Dubovey, a Los Angeles architect.The actual carving and constructionof these features was done at the Castleunder the direct supervision of H.Brewster Brown of Inglewood, Califor-nia. Landscaping of the Castle groundswas done by Dewey R. Kruckeberg ofGlendale.Albert Johnson was essentially abusiness man and neither he nor Scottycontributed much to the creative detailof the Castle construction. However,Bessie Johnson had a great deal ofcreative artistry and she shares withMatt Roy Thompson the credit for thebeauty of the Castle, both as to gen-eral design and as to interior finish andfurnishings.Some of the furnishings were pur-

DESERT MAGA ZI NE


9/44

Recent p icture of Death Valley Scotty, w ith Superintendent Ray Goodw in of theDeath Valley National monumen t on left. P hoto taken on the Castle grounds.chased personally by the Johnsons ontrips abroad. C. Alexander McNeil-ledge also contributed to the interiordesign and served in the role of pur-chasing agent, and until he and John-son had a serious disagreement, hewas sent to Europe on buying trips.One of the many details assignedto Thompson was the casting of rein-forced cement posts to enclose witha wire fence the 1270 acres to whichScott and Johnson acquired a federalpatent. All the posts were cast bear-ing Scotty's and Johnson's initials.Johnson once complained to Thomp-son that Scotty's initials were aboveJohnson's on too many of the posts.Until the Ton opah & Tidewater rail-road discontinued its service, materialsfor the Castle were shipped over thisrail line to the Bonnie Clare mine, nearthe head of Grapevine Canyon. TheBonnie Clare had been a boom miningcamp, with a postoffice and a store.Later materials were trucked in fromLos Angeles, Las Vegas, Beatty andother points.

Until their insurance company metwith financial difficulties in 1933, theJohnsons spent most of their time inChicago, making only occasional trips

to Death Valley. Thompson was incomplete charge in their absence. How-ever, all plans were submitted to theJohnsons either by mail or in personbefore they were carried out.At the beginning of the projectJohnson arranged for Scotty to coun-ter-sign the checks issued for materialand labor. But after three months ofthis Scotty threw up his hands. He didnot like clerical work, and after that,checks were honored on Thompson'ssignature only.Scotty referred to the new mansionas "the Castle" and this name gradu-ally was adopted. During the con-struction days an ever increasing num-ber of visitors swarmed over the place.As it was intended exclusively as a pri-vate residence for the Johnsons andScotty, these visitors were given gen-erous hospitality. Matt Thompson esti-mates that more than 5000 of themwere freely "fed and bedded down"as Scotty would say, during the con-struction period. Sometimes their carswere repaired and they were givengasoline without charge."But when the Castle was nearingcompletion," says Matt Thompson,"and the owners were Teady to movein and enjoy the seclusion they had

sought in building this place, the vis-itors kept coming. Finally a whitesign was erected at the entrance gate:'TH E CASTLE IS CLOSE D. POSI-T I V E L Y N O A D M I T T A N C E . '"The white sign soon looked likea bulletin board, covered with hun-dreds of protesting epithets penciledby tourists who in many instances haddriven hundreds of miles to see theCastle. These protests eventually be-came so vociferous that the Castle wasthrown open for guided tours at a feeof $1.00 a person."When work on the Castle properwas stopped in the fall of 1931, therewere several unfinished features, in-cluding the 85x185 foot swimmingpool in front of the main building.The concrete walls of the pool werepoured, and the beautifully glazed tilefor finishing it had been received andstored in the maze of tunnels whenwork was discontinu ed. Th e tile re-mains there in storage today."Johnson intended to complete theconstruction some day. He wrote tome in 1947 asking if I could resumework on the project. Th e letter wasforwarded to me on Okinawa Islandwhere I was helping in the construc-tion of a military installation. La ter

S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2


10/44

when I returned to the United Stateswe discussed the matter in his Holly-wood home where he wasconfined byillness. He passed away in January,1 9 4 8 , without having recovered suffi-ciently to get the work started."Bessie had met a tragic death in1941 when the car in which the John-sons were riding skidded and over-turned near Panamint Springs. John-son suffered only min or injuries. The yhad no children."The problem of erecting so palatiala structure as Scotty's Castle in aplace so remote as Death Valley'sGrapevine Canyon in 1925 would havefrightened an engineer less resourcefulthan Matt Roy Thompson. He haddone much engineering and construc-tion work since his Stanford days, butnever under such difficult conditions.The distance from sources of sup-ply, the lack of adequate roads, theabsence of skilled labor in the im-mediate vicinity, the eccentricities ofhis bossfor Johnson was a man ofmany interests and many moodsallthese things added up to a tough as-signment. But to Matt Thompson theymerely were a challenge, and Scotty'sCastle as it stands today is a fine testi-monial to themanner in which he metand overcame the obstacles.Thompson was born in Dunlap,Iowa, in 1874. In 1885 hemoved with

his parents to Chattanooga, Tennessee,where his father was in the bankingbusiness. But there was the blood offrontiersmen in the Thompson familyan d in 1887 they came west to Ta-coma, Washington Territory, whereMat t Roy was graduated from highschool at the age of 16.He was an apt student, and his yearat Rose Polytechnic and two years atStanford gave himvirtually the equiv-alent of a full college course in engi-neering.During the 30 years which elapsedbetween Thompson's Stanford daysan d his arrival in Death Valley withthe Johnsons he had a rich and variedexperience in the field of engineeringand construction. He had served as acounty engineer, assistant state engi-neer, and state highway superintendentin Washington, had engineered andsuperintended a subdivision project forMajor Bowles of radio fame, and hadspent several years away from his Ta-coma home as an appraisal engineerfor various railroads in 25 states,earning a good living for his family offive growing children.This last experience had led himeventually to a responsible positionwith the Interstate Commerce Com-mission, and it was from this post that

he resigned to work for Johnson. Hesecured a year's leave, and when itbecame evident that the Death Valleyproject would extend over severalyears, he gave up the federal job.During theplanning of the Los An-geles Colorado River aqueduct he wassenior appraiser for the MetropolitanWater District, and spent much timeon the Colorado and Mojave deserts.In 1942 he helped lay out the MojaveAir Base for Kisner, Curtis & Wright,and later the Roosevelt Base on Ter-minal Island. He has been withHolmes and Narver the last nine years.It was during the last few monthsof construction of Scotty's Castle that,among the thousands of visitors, hemet his present wife, Ivah ThaxtonThompson. They spent their honey-moon in the finished Castle as guestsof the Johnsons. Ivah has accompan-ied her husband on most of his wide-spread travels since then.Mat t Roy and Walter Scott haveremained good friends down throughthe years, and they get together fre-quently at theCastle to recall the dayswhen Thompson was building a palacethat's "all too fancy for an old desertrat like me."

Following his death in 1948 it wasdisclosed that Johnson had bequeathedthe Castle andother holdings to a non-profit religious organization, the Gos-pel Foundation of California, withprovision that Walter Scott was to beprovided with a home as long as helives, and that all profits from touristadmissions to the Castle were to beused for charitable purposes. Thefunds are being ably administered bya board of which Mary E. LiddecoatLos Angeles social worker, is thehead.

A beautiful room in the Castle wasprovided for Scotty, but it is said thathe has never slept in it When visitorsbecame too numerous at theCastle hemoved to a little cabin over the hill amile and a half away and lived therealone until last fall when a crippledfoot made it necessary for him to spendnine weeks in the hospital at Las Ve-g a s . After leaving the hospital Scottyreturned to the Castle where he oc-cupies a back room and sees visitorsonly when he chooses to do so. Scottydoesn't care for the "damned emi-grants" who swarm over the Castle inguided herds every day. But he alwaysha s a warm reception for old friendswho come to visit him.

P r i z e s F o r D e s e r t P h o t o g r a p h sOn thedesert the air is clear, and the sun is shining so muchofthe time that photographers seldom have tocontend with murky atmos-phere. But while the sky is seldom overcast, there are many dayswhen fleecy cloud effects provide beautiful backdrops for desertphotography.Desert Magazine's Picture-of-the-Month contest enables this maga-zine's readers to share thebest of the pictures taken by amateur andprofessional photographers. Any subject which is essentially of thedesert isqualified forentry inthis contest.Entries for the September contest must be in the Desert Magazineoffice. Palm Desert, California, by September 20, and the winningprints will appear in the November issue. Pictures which arrive too

late for one con test are held over for the n ext mon th. First prize is $10;second prize $5.00. For non-winning pictures accepted for publication$3.00 each will be paid.HERE ARE THE RULES

1Prints for monthly contests must be black and white. 5x7 or larger, printedon glossy paper.2Each photograph submitted should be fully labeled as to subject, time andplace. Also technical data: camera, shutter speed , hour of day, etc.3PRINTS WILL BE RETURNED WHEN RETURN POSTAGE IS ENCLOSED.4All entries must be in the Desert Magazine office by the 20th of the contestmonth.5Contests are open to both amateur and professional photograph ers. DesertMagazine requires first publication rights only of prize winning pictures.6Time and place of photograph are immaterial, except that it must be from thedesert Southwest.7Judges will be selected from Desert's editorial staff, and awards will be madeimmediately after the close of thecontest each month.Address All Entries to Photo Editor

*DeA&tt PALM DESERT. CALIFORNIA10 DESERT MAGAZINE


11/44


12/44

Three projectile points found on the north shore of Silver Lake playa.The variegated desert paving on which these artifacts lie makes it difficultto find them.shore watching for sand dunes. Noprevious dry lake had appeared sobleak, so completely devoid of sites.An old section of the Tonopah &Tidewater Railroad formerly ran acrossthe playa (dry lake bed), but later wasrealigned to the east. Th e rails andmany of the ties have been taken up,marking the end of a romantic tale ofgold and silver and tide of empire. Anemergency landing field now occupiesa part of the playa. A weather stationis on the east shore near the north endand a large sub-station of the HooverDam system is just to the northeast.

We scanned the west shore throughthe field glasses. The north end ofSilver Lake is marked by a rise inground level and several limestonehills. Three sets of transmission linesare borne lightly aloft by tall steelskeletons which stalk imposingly acrossthe nor thern tip of the playa. At thepower line we turned westward to se-cure a closer look at the far shore.About half way across the dry lakebed we stopped the car for a sand-wich. While discussing the possibilityof swinging northward toward DeathValley to another dry lake, we sawwhat appeared to be a wave-cut hill.We had just driven past it withoutinterest, but here was a different per-spective.Perhaps it was just an unusual formof erosion. We discussed it while fin-ishing our lunch. From the uniformlylevel base line which the hill presented,it must have been the result of waveaction. Yet it seemed unlikely thatwater had ever filled this basin to thewave-cut base line, considerably abovethe playa level!

A cold mist was falling as 1 climbedthe hill. From that vantage point, whatappeared to be a beach took the form

of a gradual arc across the north endof Silver Lake but far removed fromit. I scaled the highest point and con-firmed that first impression. Fo r,swinging in a gentle curve to the westwas an unmistakable strand line, whichseemed to coincide in level with thewave-cut base of the hill which hadfirst excited our curiosity.Now here was something to whetthe hun ting instinct for artifacts. Th edrizzle had stopped and upon my re-turn to the car, we decided to examinethe beach areas.We checked our altitude. The playaregistered 900 plus feet. We headedfor the beach area. From here, it ap-peared to be a man-made embank-ment. Some soft sand held us upawhile but we made it through to thetop of the emb ankm ent. There thealtimeter registered 940 feet. The

beach surface was desert mosaic, suchas is often found near limestone out-crops. The principal vegetation wasthe creosote bush. Mohave cactus(Echino cactus Polycephalus) grew onthe hills.It took time to adjust our eyes forsearching out stone-age implements

Ground Sloth. One of the most recent of the prehistoric animals known tohave lived in the Mohave desert country. These clumsy creatures walkedon the outer edge of their feet and knuckles and moved about with ashuffling gait. They were vegetarians.

1-2 D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


13/44


14/44

View from the north of the ancient Soda Lake playa. The car in the lowerright corner is facing the two "fishing holes" described in this story.

Our major finds of Stone Age im-plements were restricted to the levelof approximately 945 feet althoughlevels down to 935 plus feet yieldedsome artifacts. Shorelines which wereestablished at 946 and 937 feet markthe levels where beginning and cessa-tion of overflow occurred. We visitedancient camp and possible fishing sitesfrom the northern tip of Silver DryLake to the south end of Soda DryLake. These camps or villages com-pletely ringed the ancient shore linesof Pleistocene Lake Mohave. Alwaysat the same level of 945 feet the oldcamp sites were confirmed by findingflint chips and finished stone imple-ments. We found artifacts, which inmany cases exactly duplicate the Euro-pean cultures classified as Mousterian,Aurignacian, Solutrean and Magda-lenian. Ruth Coger found a reamer,or drill, which is almost an exactcounterpart of one illustrated in Os-borne's "Men of the Old Stone Age."Those people who l ived here 5000years before the Pyramids in Egyptwere built, had a wide variety of stoneimplements. Many people today con-sider the marrow inside a bone as adelicacy. And so it was with theseearly people. In splitting the bones ofthe horse, the sloth and the camel,they used massive stone cleavers. Onesuch cleaver we found measured a full12 inches in length!Their weapons were the atlatl andthe spear. The atlatl was a flat, slender,flexible piece of hard wood, the pur-pose of which was to act as a lever toextend the arm during the cast. With

this device, ancient men could launcha weapon larger than an arrow butsmaller than a han d spear. Theynotched out a groove in one end whichterminated with a small tang flush withthe surface. Sharp, scraper gravers

were used in this operation and to cupthe end of the shaft to receive the tangof the atlatl.Straight willow shafts were usedwith the atlatl and as hand spears.Those early hunters very ingeniouslyused notched stones or spoke-shavesto loosen the bark and to scrape theshafts smooth. With these weaponsthey hunted camels, horses, deer, pec-caries, sloths and saber-toothed cats.Stone knives were used to skin thegame and to cut up the meat. Thoseskins which were used for clothing,footwear and sleeping robes theyscraped free of fatty tissue with stonescrapers. Some of the scrapers wereflat, others keeled, but both types re-quired great skill to keep the line offlaking straight. A workman in aslaughter house was once given oneof these scrapers to use. The tool wasrather scornfully received, but upontrial the stone scraper was found to beadmirably adapted to the task.

Stone awls or perforators were usedto pierce hides for lashings of sinew.In this way stone age men tailoredskins to fit their bodies. They cut theirhair, a lock at a time, with the aid oftwo stones; one a chopping block, theother a small, dainty chopper. Theywore beautiful stone crescents, slungwith sinew around the neck and rest-ing on the chest. Some of these bar -baric ornaments were of obsidian,others were made from red and yellowjasper.

Ruth and Neva established a veryinteresting site. Here in contrast toother areas, was one upon which noflint chips were found. Yet knives andscrapers, broken and whole, werefound in abundance. It manifestly wasnot a spot where stone implementswere fashioned. The site was in the

lee of a large hill and must have beena favorite "fishing hole."All of the major sites around LakeMohave were given a thorough searchwhen Neva, Ruth and I led the Arche-ological Survey Association over thearea. Approximately 60 members in-cluding faculty personnel of the Univer-sity of Southern California and staffmembers of the Southwest Museum,Los Angeles, made up the group. Weworked for two days and found manyinteresting implements. Some of theparty whose vacations coincided withthis very successful field trip stayed onfor a week.

If we accept the geologic and arche-ologic facts as observed, it would beentirely reasonable to assume that apeople lived here in large numbers atabout the same time as did Cro-Mag-non man in Europe. The implementsshow decided parallels. It is quite truethat all the artifacts in the illustrationswere surface finds, yet they were as-sociated with one constant level; theshore line of an ancient lake.During the 1951 meeting of theSouthwestern Anthropological Associa-tion at the University of Southern Cali-fornia, this important lake site wasdiscussed. Dr. Ernst Antevs of Globe,Arizona, placed the age of the stoneimplements left by man along theshores of Lake M ohave at 8000 to 9000years. He used the measurement ofradioactive carbon with a Geiger coun-ter in his analysis. This informationwas supplemented by a knowledge ofthe geology and climate of that period.After the first important discoveriesat old Lake Mohave we began to workupstream. During the 1949 season weexplored the headwaters of the MohaveRiver. Between Hesperia and the SanBernardino Mountains the river is abroad dry wash which narrows downat the foothills. Its head wa ters are thestreams and creeks below lakes Arrow-head and Gregory. Here is the sourceof the famed upside-down river.

In the spring, this country is a fairyland of desert beauty . Wildflowers,even in the dry years, are present.Graceful, slender yuccas fill the valleysand top the mesas. Nearer the moun-tains, Spanish Bayonet predominates.A little higher up wild lilac grows pro-fusely.Over the centuries, the river hasworked slowly, through meanders andundercutting, to develop a broad, deepvalley. High up, on the second visibleterrace, we found ancient stone imple-ments. The best site found was ap-proximately one-half mile from thepresent dry wash and 90 feet above it.One particularly fine hide scraper wasfound.

At several places above Victorville14 D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


15/44

By March we had worked down

surface. In some sectors , as

It was near here that Jack Davy

Between Oro Grande and Helen-the river has been cutting away

Neva and I drove out to camp Ir-

he basin which once was Manix Lake. deep dry outlet wash meanders fromhe southwest corner of Coyote Lakeowards the old Manix basin. Coyoteake during late Pleistocene days wasartially maintained by its own hugerainage area. During flood seasons,he low divide was inundated, makinga connection between Manix and Coy-ote Lakes.Many pleasant days were spent inexploring at Coyote Lake. Village siteadjoined village site, almost completelyringing the shores of the old lake. Theyyielded implements which varied fromMohave and Pinto types to recent Sho-shonean. The older pieces resembledthe pieces we had found at Lake Mo-have and at all the other sites alongthe river, right into Death Valley.

East of Barstow, the Mohave madewide meanders before flowing intoManix Lake. Some of the old river

A cross section of the projectile points found around the old shore lines ofthe playas on the Mohave desert.banks are now removed several milesfrom the present dry river bed. Nottoo far from Newberry we found avery extensive river bank site! It wassimilar in conformation to the sitesalong the new dry river bed in PintoBasin ninety-five miles to the south-east. Here again, the age-worn stoneimplements were the same as we hadfound two years before at Lake Mo-have.Manix Lake was a fluctuating bodyof water .formed by the ou tward ad-vancement of the Mohave River fromthe San Bernardino Mountains. Studyshows that three lakes existed at sep-arate times and at different levels. Thefirst was formed prior to the Tiogaage, and the second during that age.The third lake was caused by a tem-porary obstruction in Afton Gorge.Fossil remains of mammals, birds, mol-luscs and fish were found in these oldlake beds. The Las Vegas highwaytraverses the green clays of the lastformed lake. Farther east the highwayclimbs and crosses one of the barsformed by the first lake, which wasabout nine miles long, 3V2 wide andover 200 feet deep.In 1951 we discovered more evi-dence of stone age man north of LakeMohave, where the Amargosa joinsthe Mohave. In Death Valley, manystone implements were found at defi-nite water levels. Here too, is the 40foot long desert water hole which con-tains Ice Age Fish. Strange survivorsof an age 11,000 years removed arepresent in its waters. The area is nowprotected as a part of Death ValleyNational Monument.In all, the Mohave River drainage

area was a populous place in late Plei-stocene days. It supported a tremen-dous population as is evidenced bythe number of sites found along theriver banks and on the lake shores.The correlation of implements foundon these sites indicates they were allfashioned in the same style and atapproximately the same time. If therailroad towns are not included, thepopulation along the river is far lesstoday than it was in those early days.Through the centuries, the climatehas slowly changed. Dry years becamemo re and more frequent. Wild lifewas reduced by these changes as wellas through the survival struggle. Someof the tribes moved on in search ofbetter country and in pursuit of game.Those who remained were the Sho-shone, the Paiute, the Chemehuevi andothers as the white man found themduring the early exploration of Cali-fornia. FRAGRANT DESERT FLOWERB L O O M S O NL Y AT NI G H TOne of the most beautiful of desertflowers is the waxy white blossom ofReina de la Nochethe night bloom-ing cereus.The pointed-petaled flowercolor-less except for a slight tint of creamywhite in the centerlasts only onenight. As the first heat of the morningsun touches it, the fragrant aroma dis-appears, and the blossom dies. Sincepollination must be done in the shorttime the bloom is open, nature en-dowed the cereus with a white flowerand a pervading odor to attract insectsat night Arizona Republic.

S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2 15


16/44

Sierra Club members at the summit of Rabbit Peak, in Southern California's SantaRosa Mountains. Assistant Leader John Delmonte, in parka and muffler, standsalone on rock in center of picture.We Climbed Rabbit PeakA slow, steady pace with frequent short rests that is Bill Hender-son's formula for the strenuous climb to Rabbit Peak, in the Santa RosaMo untains a bo ve Southern California's Borrego Desert. With Bill astheir leader, 23 Sierra Club members reached the peak's windy summiton e cold w eek en d last Decem ber. Louise Werner writes of the fun an dthrills of a Sierra Club hike and gives Desert Magazine readers helpful

suggestions for planning their own desert mountain recreation.By LOUISE T. WERNERPhotographs by the Author

UR C AR AVANan a rmy weap-ons carrier and four town cars stopped one chilly Saturdaymorning last December on the Bor-rego Desert near the eastern tip ofSout he rn C a l i fo rn i a ' s San t a R osaMounta ins .This was Pegleg Smith countrythe region where the fabled three hillstopped with nuggets of black gold aresaid to be located.But we had not come to search forPegleg's gold. We planned to explorea new route to the too of Rabbit Peak.

There were 25 in our party, members ofthe Desert Peaks section of the SierraClub of California. We seek the topsof desert mountains because we findthere a vast and friendly solitude. Oc-casionally we feel the need of suchsolitude as an antidote for city living.From our cars we could see theroute we would follow on the skylineto the easta ridge beginning on thedesert floor at an elevation of 1500feet, and rising gradually to the sum-mit 6650 feet above."According to the map," said Bill

Henderson, trip leader, "the distanceis about 10 miles in an airline. We'lltry to stay on the backbone of theridge all the way."We had driven about 10 miles north-east from Borrego postoffice, passingClark's Dry Lake and continuing in apair of sandy ruts that climbed thebajada toward the base of the SantaRosa Range.Near our parking place Bill Hender-son, a graduate student at U.C.L.A.and Assistant Leader John Delmonte,a plastics manufacturer of Glendale,California, found the neck of a brokenolla and some pottery sherds. Thiswas once the range of desert Indians.We weighed our packs with a scale

Bill carries in his weapons carrier.Weights ranged from 25 to 57 pounds.The heavier loads belonged to gallanthusbands who had lightened the packsof their wives.16 D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


17/44

The line of backpackers strungalong, past graceful ocotillo with leavesof a lovely autumn red and up thebackbone of the ridge, among deer-horn, beavertail, barrel and chollacacti and little seashells lying amongthe rocks. The creosote bushes werewaxy green and agave lifted tall stalksall around. Two of them displayedtheir yellow blossoms out of season.The vegetation obviously had enjoyedthe early fall rains.

The climb was gradual, and thewide-open view from the backbone ofthe ridge almost made us forget theweight of our packs. On the left, weoverlooked Clark's Dry Lake and onthe right, a deep gulley that separatedus from another spur of the ridge.Ahead was interminable upness.After four and a half hours ofbackpacking, including a lunch stopand several generous rest stops, wereached a little plateau . Bill said, "Wemight as well camp here." We hadcome a good three and a half miles,and had gained about 2000 feet ofelevation.We were happy to drop the packs.A minimum pack for such a trip con-tains sleeping bag, food for one din-ner, two lunches and one breakfast, acooking utensil, cup and spoon,sweater and parka, flashlight, matches,lip salve, dark glasses, and a gallon ofwater. Most of us added a nylonground cloth. Camera fans, of course,added camera equipment. John car-ried first aid.

We had a scant hour of daylightleft. Th e men built fires with the plen-tiful agave windfalls, while the womenunpacked the food. On a desert climb,where there is little water enroute, ex-perienced climbers carry foods witha high liquid content. Dry foods arelighter to carry, but when you mustcarry every drop of your water on yourback, canned foods have an advantage.The Hendersons heated hamburgerswith chile beans; Jon Gardey and DickApel, two U. C. L. A. students,heated up a can of spaghetti and someVienna sausages. We had a can ofvegetable beef soup with a can ofcorned beef thrown in. A one-dishmeal like this, supplemented with acan of fruit and as much tea as thewater ration will allow, takes on aspecial flavor after being carried forseveral miles on one's back. The zestwith which climbers savor such a meal,eaten from a tin cup, is something

seldom experienced at a well-appointedtable with linen, silver and fine china.A red and gold sunset splashed thesky over Coyote Mountain as wecleared the rocks out of our bedsites.The moon came up, and little clusters

of lights twinkled in the Borrego Des-ert. No doubt some of the residentsthere saw our fires, 3500 feet abovethem on the ridge.We gathered 'round a big centralcampfire of dry agave for fellowship,and to sing such songs as: "All dayI've faced the barren waste, withouta taste of water." Lea der Bill an-nounced reveille would be at 2:30a.m. "It takes a 15-hour day to climbfrom here to the summit and backhere again, to pick up our packs andreturn to the cars," he said.It was a cold weekend on the ridge,and some of us were none too warmin a minimum sleeping bag. The windtore at the ground cloth . Ordina rily

we enjoy gazing up at the unbelievablybright desert stars, for a while beforegoing to sleep. But high on the ridgeof Rabbit Peak, we pulled the groundcloth over our faces and burroweddeep in our sleeping bags.At 2:3 0 a.m., Bill sound ed off. Th ecamp came to life, and somebodystarted the fire. At three we weregathered round the flames, muffled inall the clothes we had. Those w ho hadconsidered long woolen underwearworth its weight in a pack were themost comfortable.It felt good to be moving up towardthe crest on the ridge above camp. Wecould see its outline in the moonlight.The wind whooshed about our parkahoods, making conversation a lost ef-

Bill Hende rson, Leader of the Rabbit Peak climb, found the skeleton of abighorn sheep. The animals are protected in the Santa Rosa gam e refuge.

S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2 17


18/44

fort. M ost of us carried flashlights foremergency use, but Bill believes ahiker is better off if he cultivates hisnight vision; flashlights only confuse,especially if they are turned on andoff, on and off. It was surprising ho wmuch we could see, once our eyes be-came accustomed to the dark. Luckily,the cacti had thinned out.The higher we climbed up the ridge,the fiercer blew the wind. The skygreyed, and dark shadows of bushesand trees loomed ahead. A little laterwe recognized mountain mahogany,pinyon pines and juniper. A red streakappeared in the east and beneath itthe dull blue of the Salton Sea. Sun-rise was the signal for a breakfast stop.There we sat, looking down on theSalton Sea over 5000 feet below us,enjoying the warmth of a fire and ofthe sunshine and of hot coffee from abillycan. The canteens had ice, andthe hard-boiled eggs we had broughtfrom home had ice between the shellsand the cooked egg whites.

We looked down on the old stamp-ing grounds of that rugged individual-ist, Fig Tree John. Before the turnof the century, and before the Colo-rado River broke through and formedthe Salton Sea, Fig Tree John, a Ca-huilla Indian, lived with his family ina wattled jacala hut made of arrowweed and mudat a spring near thisedge of the Salton Sea. Around hisspring he had a number of Black Mis-sion Fig trees, the only fig trees in thatpart of the country. He roamed theSanta Rosa Mountains in search of

pinyon nuts, seeds, roots, mescal, rab-bits, coyote and bighorn sheep.Into this primitive environment camewhite men settling on the edge of theSalton Sea and planting date gardens.Fig Tree John put a barbed wire fencearound his Spring and a row of mes-quite poles along what he consideredhis boundary line. His tribe submittedto the white man. Not Fig Tree John.He turned against his own people.He displayed, threateningly, an an-cient 44-40 model 63 Winchester car-bine. It gave him a bad reputation.Occasionally a white man missed atool, a bucket or a piece of harness.It was easy to blame Fig Tree John.Sometimes the missing article was seenin Fig Tree's possession. To Fig TreeJohn that was nothing when comparedto the way the white man had comeinto the valley and taken the land ofhis people.There are a few white people alivetoday who knew Fig Tree well enoughto see another side of him. Nina PaulShumway and Leland Yost, in an arti-cle in the January, 1941, Desert Mag-azine, tell how Fig Tree used to visitat their ranches near Oasis. He wouldbring a watermelon, for instance, andpresent it with an air of ceremony, asif he were bringing a precious gift.After this gesture of generosity hewould indicate that he would like somecoffee or sugar in return. As he grewolder, he would sometimes come with-out anything to offer and would simplyask for the sugar or coffee. H e usuallygot it. His favorite dainties werecorned beef and canned peaches.

Fig Tree John had a faded bluearmy uniform, a tall silk top hat anda cane, and he always donned thisoutfit on festive occasions. No oneknew how he obtained it, but it madehim a character, a role he seemed toenjoy.Fig Tree John is said to have oncesaved the life of a youth who had losthis burros, and came crawling, halfdead, to his spring. He nursed the ladfor a week and then took him to Meccaon horseback. Eventually, the 44-40model 63 Winchester carbine wasfound to be unloaded and minus cer-tain essential shooting parts.Undoubtedly the difference betweenFig Tree John and his Cahuilla broth-ers who bowed to the inevitable, wasa rock-bottom individualism that wouldnot let him conform to pattern. Itmade enemies. It made him lonely.But nobody remembers the names ofthe docile Cahuillas, while Fig TreeJohn has become a legend. He diedin 1927 at the purported age of 135years.The Fig Tree John story intersectsthe Pegleg Smith saga at one point.After the death of the original Pegleg,a San Jose rancher, said to be a per-sonal friend of the one-legged miner,made camp one day at SeventeenPalms. This is within 15 miles of FigTree's spring. The rancher broughtwith him a 16-year-old boy. On thesecond morning, he left the camp incharge of the boy, saying he would beback in about four hours. Three dayslater he had not returned, so the boyreported him missing. San Diego

18 D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


19/44


20/44


21/44

L i f e o n t h e D e s e r tBy PAUL WILHELMThousand Palms, Cal i fornia

Old Johann struck pay orebut the bonanzahe found eventually was in saving a friend's life.This story was one of the entries in Desert's Life-on-the-Desert contest in 1951.

OLD Johann Samuelson, hardrockminer, once operated a gold mine high in thepiney peaks of the Little San Bernardinos ofSouthern California.Slim pockets and thin veins in two tunnels barelygave Johann enough gold to eke out a precarious living.The tunnels, located dangerously one above the other,ran straight into the mountain. Each of them was abouttwo hundred feet long.If Johann didn't daily climb the steep catwalk upthe sheer cliff wall and dig resolutely into loose quartzwhich lined the tunnel's partly-timbered walls, his wouldhave been a poor lot indeed. As it was, he barely madeenough to buy salt pork, bacon and lima beans; eventhen, neighbors were often obliged to come to his aid.Then a series of illnesses made old Johann an im-patient convalescent at my ranch for weeks at a time.Not that he wasn't hard as the rocks on his gold claimridges. But he'd comp lain, "Like the M exican 1 eat toomuch grease; it's bad for the liver and kidneys, but 1like it."The truth was, Johann, a stubborn old Swede, hadbecome afraid of the distance from help in case of asudden attack. But despite his growing fears he wouldn'tleave Hidden Gold Mine. You couldn't blame him.After ten years of drifting through a schist formationwith a foot wall of diorite granite he had plumbedwhat he believed to be the mother lode. In the contact itwas bluish quartz, less than fifteen feet wide in placesand rich in pockets that assayed, at the Garfield smelterin Utah, as high as $51.00 a ton."Bonanza it 'll be!" old Johann would holler fromhis bed at my ranch . "It' s in sight! I gotta keep digging!"I was as excited as the old hardrock er. Ha dn't Iseen the report of the assay from the Utah smelter?Against future attacks of illness we contrived a sys-tem of smoke signals between my ranch and his diggings.Each evening at six I would scan the northeast horizon.Smoke trailing above distant blue peaks was my cue.The signals worked. Once I believe they saved his lifewhen I rushed up there and took him to the Indiohospital. After that, his fear of isolation in those silentcanyons became an obsession; but he wouldn't give upnot old Johann.Then one November evening when I saw clouds ofsmoke billowing above Bighorn Peak I knew Johann'splight was urgent. Hurriedly I loaded my aged Stude-baker with vegetable greens, jars of fresh water and mymedicine kit and after an hour's drive up Twelve MileWash arrived at his diggings.It was the old complaints: jumpy kidneys, a sickstomach , lack of breath and he art palpitation. "I 'll getyou to the doctor in less than an hour," I told him.He sat up in bed. A lighted candle on a table casta dim glow into the corners of his shack. "N o do ctortoday!" he snorted. But his mouth was twisted in pain.In little gasps he said, "Just as I set off the last stick ofdynamitein a rich-looking pocketI felt the paingrab me in the middle of the back. But I stayed 'tilthe dynamite fumes were gone. When I went back intothe tunnel it was like I suspectedrich! A rich pocket!

Paul Wilhelm (left) and Johann Samuelson at1000 Palms oasis in October, 1939 . Photo wastaken just a month before the cave-in described inthis story.Richer'n all the others!" He drew a deep breath. "I 'vegot to open that pocket!" he shouted. "I need m oredynamite! I 've a hunch this is it!"The exhausted old hardrocker lay back in bed. Iarose from the nail keg, went to the sideboard and beganstirring up a salad of tom atoes and lettuce. "It's n o usetalking now and tiring yourself ou t," I cautio ned . "E atthis salad, take the medicine and get some sleep; we'lltalk about it in the morning." When I left him with thesalad and medicine he was an excited old miner.Sun-up, Johann woke me where I had rolled out mysleeping bag on the ground below his shack. "Ge t up ,"he roared, "and come on in for coffee!" I squinted upat him. There was his old familiar smile. The medicinehad worked. He was as well as the toughest Bighorn(Continued on next page)

S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2 21


22/44

that roamed his ridges. "Dynamite!Fuse! It's me for the hardware storeat Banning! Once through that bluishquartz " he snapped his fingers '"bonanza!"As I crawled out of my sleepingbag Johann admitted he hadn't slept awinkkept seeing pockets full of glit-tering nuggets."Up at the diggings," he warnedme, 'you drill a hole for a secondchargebut watch for falling rocks.That last blast liked to loosened upthat crumbly ceilingall shale, anddecomposed quartzyou gotta watchit."When the excited old mountain manhad left for the settlement in his 1924Dodge pickup, I ate breakfast, walkedup canyon, snaked my way along thecatwalk and entered the cool darknessof the lower tunnel. With a candle fora light, I began drilling into crumblingquartz at the tunnel heading. In anhour I had a neat hole almost com-pleted.After a short rest I made ready totackle the hole with the steel drill andthe doublejack when, from somewherehigh above me came a sharp, gratingsoundthen the ominous clatter of afalling rock reverberated through thesilent tunnel. I held the drill in mysweaty hand and looked around ap-prehensively. A faint glow of lightcame from the distant tunnel entrance.On sudden impulse I wanted to makea bolt for that light. My next reactionwas to stay where I was.The sound of grating rock on rockincreased to a roar. Shocks like earthtremors rocked me on my feet. To-ward the tunnel entrance I saw thebeginning of the cave-in.Then the whole mountain seemedto come tumbling in. Rocks and splin-tered timber spewed from the uppertunnel. Clouds of dust rushed like asolid wall toward me. The candlesputtered, went out. I was left in pitchdarkness, too paralyzed to realize thatI was hermetically sealed in that cliffof quartz.Acrid-smelling dust thickened; 1tried to light a match. The flameflickered, snuffed out. Slowly the seri-ousness of my predicament dawned.There on the tunnel floor, halfsmothered, I fought for my life, tryingto think clearly. As I lapsed into un-consciousness I was vaguely aware ofthe rhythmic click of pick on rocksomewhere in the distance.A few minutes later Johann hadholed through the debris and a littlefresh air soon revived me. Johann toldme what had happened. Half way toBanning he felt compelled as thoughby a physical force to turn backto the mine. As he approached thetunnel he looked up and saw dustboiling out of the entrance. He raced

with pick and shovel up the catwalk, big-hearted old hardrocker that he wasknowing I was in there somewhere. he told me, "It's bonanza enough thatUnfortunately, Johann Samuelson I obeyed that warning and turned backnever did find bonanza. But like the to the diggings."

gk The desert is a big worldand a very inter-U l J esting world to those who rise above their^ M l f c o w n personal problems and seek to knowwhat goes on about them. Books and travel are the doorways throughwhich one becomes acquainted with this desert worldand this Quiz isoffered each month as a test of the progress Desert Magazine readers aremaking in learning about this fascinating desert world. Twelve to 14correct answers is fair, 15 to 17 is good, 18 or better is equal to Grade Ain the school class room. The answers are on page 26.

1The horned toad's best natural defense is its Sharp teethColoration Speed Needle-like horns2If you were living on the desert and your soap supply ran out youwould find a very effective substitute inThe leaves of the creosotebush The roots of certain species of yucca The juice ofthe barrel cactus The pods of the Palo Verde tree3Fortification Hill is visible from Roosevelt dam Elephant

Butte dam ... Coolidge dam _ . Hoover dam4The beds in a Navajo hogan generally are ofPine needlesNavajo rugs on the floor.. _.. Sheepskins on the floor Roughhewn logs5Azurite is a mineral ofIron Zinc Copper Tin6Adolf Bandelier, author of The Delight Makers, was anArcheolo-gist A Mountain Man __.. A stage coach driver AnApache guide7Jacob's Lake is in Utah __. . Arizona New MexicoNevada8A wickiup is aType of Indian basket A primitive dwell-ing .... .-. Weapon used by prehistoric Indians Crude net forcatching fish9If you had been in Yuma, Arizona in late 1775 and a cavalcade ofhorsemen of Spanish descent passed that way, their leader wouldhave beenGeneral Kearny Father Kino Juan Bautistade Anza Coronado

10If the guide told you the great rock massif on the horizon was theGreat White Throne, you would know you were inGrand CanyonNational park Joshua Tree National monument...... . ZionNational park Chiricahua National monument11The Havasupai Indian reservation is inArizona UtahColorado^ __. California... ...12Stove Pipe Well hotel is inCedar City, Utah _. Death Val-ley Barstow, California.... Salt River Valley, Arizona13The Kaibab forest is on theNorth Rim of Grand Canyon TheWhite Mountains of Arizona The Panamint Mountains over-

looking Death Valley Charleston Mountains in Nevada14One of the following towns is not a Hopi Indian villageOraibiMoenkopi _ . Shungopovi Kayenta15The mines at Globe, Arizona, produce mostlyGold IronCopper __ . Lead16Riders of the Purple Sage was written byHarold Bell WrightZane Grey . Edwin Corle ... . J. B. Priestley17Chimayo weaving is done mostly byNavajo Indians Ameri-cans of Mexican descent . Hopi Indians .... . Yuma Indians18The Crossing of the Fathers on the Colorado was made by a partyof missionaries of whom the best known member is FatherFont . Father Garces Marcos de Niza Father Esca-lante ....19Harry Goulding is a Senator from New Mexico IndianTrader in Monument Valley . Author of well known westernbooks Cowboy artist20The Museum of Northern Arizona is in Prescott Hol-brook . Grand Canyon National Park ... Flagstaff

22 DESERT MAGA Z INE


23/44

P i c t u r e s o fT h e M o n th

lust before sunset, Weldon F. Healdof Portal, Arizona, photographed themile-high walls of the Grand Canyonat Lake M ead. The resulting composi-tion, with its dramatic lights and shad-o w s , was awarded first prize in DesertMagazine's photo contest. It was takenwith an FECA camera, Schneider lens,W ratten A filter, Supe r XX film at 1/100second, f. 4.5.

This Taos Indian refused to pose forVincent J. Mandese of Santa Barbara,California, but for 50 cents he permittedthe photographer to shoot while he wa sworking. Mandese used a Kodak Re-flex II cam era , Plus X film, 1/100 sec-ond at f. 11 for this study, second prizewinner in the July contest.

23


24/44

Park City, Utah . . .An experiment conducted jointlyduring the past 18 months by threemining companies in the Park Cityarea, exploring possible new orebodies,will be continued, Paul H. Hunt, vice-president of Park Utah Mining Com-pany, has announced. The companiesPark Utah, Silver King CoalitionMines Company and Daly MiningCompany reported $550,000 worthof ore had been recovered under thejoint exploration project. The easternthird of the area has been worked, andall indications point to the westerntwo-thirds being more productive inlead and zinc ores, Hunt said. MoabTimes-Independent.

Winnemu c c a , N evada . . .Opening of the Gold Prince claimat Seven Troughs is being planned bythe Wood River Minerals Company,according to Earl Tucker, superinten-dent . The ground is part of that pur-chased by the company from the oldNevada State Gold Mines Company.The location is about a mile south-west of the old tunnel portal. Tuckeran d his associates believe the forma-tion here is the apex of the 5100-footvein cut by the big tunnel when it wasdriven in 1930. When access roads arecompleted, a compressor, drills andother equipment will be moved in andthe tunnel started. Humboldt Star. Lovelock, Nevada . . .Shipments of iron ore from the area18 miles southeast of Lovelock havereached a daily total of 50 cars. Atleast half a dozen producers are oper-ating in the area. Leading shippersare Dodge Construct ion Company andMineral Materials Company, eachmoving about 20 cars a day. The factthat the properties are widely separ-ated indicates a large future supply.The ore is a mixture of hematite andmagnetite. Some of it runs as high as70 percent iron. Humboldt Star. Phoenix, Arizona . . .Arizona produced 45 percent of allcopper mined in the United States lastyear, more than anyother state. Pacedby its $200,000,000 copper produc-tion, the state's output of the fiveprincipal metalscopper, gold, silver,lead and zincrose to $236,000,000and broke a 35-year mining record.Graham County Guardian.

Tonopah, Nevada . . .Three drill cores at the SummitKing Mine are beginning to show"typical Tonopah quartz" carryingvalues in undetermined amounts, re-ports an official of the HomestakeMining Company, which is interestedin the venture. A fourth drill hole isnow being sunk, originating from the300 foot level. The holes are beingstruck off from the face of the driftand incline downward at between 45an d 55 degrees. Tonopah Times-Bonanza.Globe, Arizona . . .Henry V. Snell, 73,pioneer miningengineer of Globe, has returned tomake a survey of asbestos producersin Gila County. It was Snell who dis-covered and worked the Chrysotile,pioneer producer of the county's iron-free asbestos. The property recentlywas purchased by Western ChemicalCompany of Phoenix and LosAngeles.A 50-ton cruding plant has been built,an d the company will ship the proc-essed ore to Los Angeles for fiberizing. Arizona Republic.Salt Lake City, Utah . . .Three uranium ore processing millsan d two ore buying stations are nowlocated in Utah, and more are beingplanned, reported the raw materialssubcommittee of the joint Congres-sional committee on atomic energy.Two mills, owned by the commissionand operated through contractors, areat Monticello, San Juan County, andSalt Lake City. A third mill, smalland privately owned, is at Hite, Gar-field Co unty . This mill processes cop-per uranium ores. Thebuying stationsare at Marysvale, Paiute County, andThompson, Grand County, and athird is scheduled for early operationat Greenriver, Emory County. Wash-ington County News.Steamboat , Nevada . . .Resumption of production and in-stallation of a mill at an early date areplanned at Union lead mine at Steam-boat , Washoe County, by ImperialLead Mines, a California firm. Im-perial recently purchased the mineafter instituting suit against UnionLead and Smelting Company for ap-proximately $200,00 0 inclaimed debts.The Union was a substantial lead-zincproducer during World War II. Humboldt Star.

Phoenix, Arizona . . .Arizona State Tax Commission hasset revaluation of mining companiesin Arizona at $195,840,892. This fig-ure is slightly lower than last year'svaluation for producing mining com-panies, $196,961,739. The drop isattributed to alterations in figures forthe Castle Dome Mine in Gila Countyan d the Eagle-Pitcher Mine. Yu maDaily Sun.Tonopah, Nevada . . .Smokey Valley district of NyeCounty, Nevada, is rapidly developinginto an important production centerfor tungsten and antimony, with allindications pointing to continuedgrowth in mining and milling activitythere. Largest single operation in thearea is the Round Mountain GoldDredging Corporation, where 80 menare employed. Last Chance MiningCompany is developing promising an-timony properties in Wall Canyon;Newmont Mining Corporat ion con-tinues to work the Bobby tungstenmine in Ophir Canyon, and the Smithbrothers and Barney O'Malia aresinking a shaft on the Commodoretungsten property in Smokey Valley. Pioche Record.Moab, Utah . . .Colvin Enterprises, presently en-gaged in drilling an oil test well atCrescent, have acquired a lease on agroup of copper claims in Salt Valleyand plan extensive mining operationsthere. A large volume of copper ore,also carrying values in silver, cobaltand nickel, has been located, and theoperators intend to start productionsoon, shipping the ore from Thomp-son. Mining Record.Washington, D. C. . . .The Atomic Energy Commissionhas authorized an independent ap-praisal of its uranium ore samplingprocedures on the Colorado Plateauin the Four Corners region by theColorado School of Mines ResearchFoundation. Complaints over the ac-curacy of uranium ore sampling at thecommission's plants had been made bythe Uranium Ore Producers Associa-tion.Salt Lake Tribune.Lovelock, Nevada . . .Gold-tin dredging operations atPlaceritos, 40 miles north of Lovelock,promises higher values than at firstexpected, reports V. C. Frazier, man-ager for Gold of Ophir Placers, Inc.Drilling has gone down to 27 feet withpay dirt found 6 to 18 feet in depth.Most of the pay gravel is in gulches. Mining Record.

24 DESERT MAGAZINE


25/44

to Parowan

\?LOST LEf D\I of ikt Santa Clara

L.1 to LasVegas

Lost Lead of theSanta Clara

By GEORGE GARDNERMap by Margare t Gerke

5FAR as I have been able toascertain, this is the whole his-tory of the Lost Lead silvermine. And I tell it to you just as Iheard it from an old cattleman turnedprospector whom I met on the riverbanks of the Santa Clara.We had just finished cooking supper.I handed the old timer his plate ofbeans, and he settled himself morecomfortably against the fallen log,stretched his legs to the warmth of thefire and began:"Three of us, to my knowledge,have actually stood at the site of theLost Lead. Jim Houdon was the first,and he actually got two loads of orefrom the mine. Robert Lloyd had afew samples. All I have is a walkingstick with a loop for a handle; a loop,that in its proper place would haveidentified the location of the lost mine."Jim Houdon, as I said, came uponit firstthat would have been about1852. He was in a wagon train passingthrough Utah on the old Spanish trail,headed for the gold fields of California.

Indians had been on their tail most ofthe way through the state, but there'dbeen little trouble except for the lossof a few horses and some cattle. How-ever, as the train passed down theSanta Clara Creek the Indians crowdedin closer and the captain of the trainordered a shorter, more compact line,and closer vigilance."The rear guard pressed closer tothe last two wagons as they slowed tocross the creek, and he swung his quirtin the air to speed up the wagons . Thisstartled the horses on the fore wagon,and they shied off the road . The hin dwagon wheel bumped up over a ledgeand slid down the rocks, scraping themclean, so that Jim Houdon in the lastwagon saw metal gleaming where theiron tire had scraped the bottom sec-tion of the ledge. He stopped histeam, paying no attention to the swear-ing guard, jumped to the ground, andwith a stone broke some chunks fromthe ledge. He threw these into hiswagon and started off again, lookingback to fix the location in his mind.

If it hadn't been for that cloud-burst, this lead mine might todaybe a big producer. Two differentmen found the rich vein, and itsapproximate location is wellknown, but the storm whichbrought an avalanche of rockand sand down the bed of theSanta Clara river changed thelandscape so much they werenever able to re-locate it."Along the creek bed were piles ofcoarse gravel and cobble stones. Thevein of ore he judged to be as high asa wagon wheelabout two feet wideat the top, wider at the bottom, andsloping toward the road. This wasimbedded in a ledge of rock higherthan the covered wagon, and aboutfive steps from the creek bed . To theleft, perhaps half a mile from the river

extended a long level ridge rising fiveor six hundred feet above the streambed."Well, Jim went on to Californiawith the train, this map firmly fixedin his mind, with the ore samples inhis wagon. When he took the ore tothe assayer's office it assayed rich inlead and silver. He didn't get backto the mine for several years, whatwith hunting for gold out there inCalifornia and not finding it. But hefinally made a stake working for fel-lows who did find gold, and when

the emigrants began bringing wordthat the Southern Utah Indians weremore friendly, he outfitted a muleteam with heavy bags for ore; shovel,pick, and bar for his mining, andheaded back toward the Santa Clara."He found the mine without muchtroublethe landmarks being just ashe remembered them. Didn't have anytrouble getting his ore back, and madea good sum on it, too, so it wasn't longuntil he headed back for another load.It was getting late in the spring, andthis time he found the water in thecreek higher. The mountain snow wasmelting fast, and the water had washedsand part way up the silver seam. Hebuilt a semi-circular dam of cedarboughs and sand to keep the waterback, and this made a convenient placeto stand while picking the ore fromthe ledge. The seam was wider, themetal more closely packed, and hehad to dig below the level of the sandto fill his bags."He had his packs on the mules allready to start back when he heard awagon coming up the rough road. He

decided to tear out the dam to let thecreek bury his find, so he dragged thecedar boughs from the stream andwatched the sand wash into the holeover the silver. By now he had thelandmarks firmly fixed in his mind.S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2 25


26/44

Then hemounted hishorse andtookhis packtrain across thesage brush toavoid thewagon on the road."Now this is where Robert Lloydcomes in. Hewas thesecond tofindthe lead, you'll remember. He wascoming along from St. George with hiswife andbaby. Going toPine Valley

for the summer. Hecame down alongthe river road just in time to see theminer dragging theboughs from thestream, then mount hishorse and leadhis packtrain off cross country. Thisin itself wassuspicious. Whyhadn' tth e man just followed the road? Be-sides pack mules weren't a frequentsight in that region. TheLloyds werecurious."Lloyd stopped his team at thecrossing. Wetboughs were lying oneither side of theledge, and a trail ofdamp sand ledfrom thestream to the

scrub cedars where the mules had beentied. Bits of ore still clung to thecrevice, larger pieces were near thewater level. He took a shovel fromhis wagon andreconstructed thedam,dug out thesand, andfound thethickvein of ore in thebottom of thehole." i t ' s a mine, ' hetold Eliza. T ho semules were packed with ore. '"You know how women are. ElizaLloyd said, 'Wehaven't anyright toit . Take thedam outagain, andlet'sgo. ' It waslate afternoon andprob-ably the baby was getting restless.

Didn't seem to be anyrecent pile ofstones laid that would indicate a loca-tion notice hadbeen planted, so itseemed kind of a fine point of ethics.Anyway Lloyd did as shesaid. Thenhe hesitated and argued a minute withhimself. Lone travelers weren't alwayssafe on theSpanish trail. If the manwho had left so furtively at the ap-proach of a wagon didn't come back,Lloyd wanted toknow how he couldfind the mine again. Felt he hadsortof asecond mortgage, if the first claim-ant didn't prove up his claim."He cl imbed upthe ledge overlook-ing the river and the road to fix thelocation firmly in his mind. Stackedsome fairly good sized boulders intoa pile for a marker , and for goodmeasure pulled down a good sizedwillow, bent it into a circle thesize ofhis hand andpulled the top throughto form aknot. While the road crossedthe creek many times along this sec-tion, hefelt that hehad this particularcrossing well in mind."Now either Houdon orLloyd couldhave returned andfound themine if

it hadn't been for the spring floodthat came down theSanta Clara.Twonights after Houdon and the Lloydsleft themine there was a cloudburstin the Pine Valley Mountains. Theflood tore up trees, piled high banks

of sand andgravel down the streambed, and sochanged thecourse of thecreek that when Jim Houden returnedfor histhird oreload hedespaired ofever finding themine, and returned toCalifornia. Hehad kind of a wander-lust in hisblood and went on toAus-tralia. Hewas outthere foryears."So, although the Lloyds didn'tknow it, their second mortgage to theclaim was now good. The farm workand thebaby took all their time thatlate spring and summer. Sometimesin the evening they talked of the mine.But that fall when they left Pine Val-ley to return to St. George for thewinter months they could scarcely rec-ognize the terrain. So changed wasthe river's course by the flood thatthey couldn't find any landmarks totell them at which crossing theminewas buried, and they found nothing

resembling theledge of the mine itselfthough Lloyd said they searched alloneday."When they got to St. George, thecounty seat, Lloyd had anassay madeof his ore samples, and when he foundhow rich they were in silver andleadhe searched the records at the courthouse, butcould find norecording ofa claim filed on theSanta Clara."He waited until the following springand then did some intense searchingfor themine; digging day after day atfirst one crossing and then another,

but he found no trace of either hisknotted willow or thestone cairn. Hethought perhaps Indians had cut hiswillow when they were gathering wil-lows forbasket making. Heknew thatthe rock cairn could have been washedaway orburied by theflood."Now I raninto Robert Lloyd overat Pinto sometime along in the '70s.Didn't exactly run into him either. Hestopped me on the street and askedme where I'dgotten my walking stick.I told him I'd cut it somewhere alongthe Santa Clara the time my horse had

shied at a jack rabbit andthrown meinto thecreek. Got a badwrench inmy knee, and saw this good stoutbranch with a knot onthe end toholdto , andthought it would make me agood cane to get about with. Thatleg always gave metrouble after that,so I kept onusing thecane."Lloyd became real excited andasked if I could tell him the exactcrossing where I'd found it."I said I guessed I could try if itwas real important."S o we found some shade and acouple of trees tolean against and hetoid me about themine. Later he andI went out tothe Santa Clara to try tofind thecrossing where oldNell threwme that day. Infact, we were out therehunting for it several times, but we

ha d noluck. Everything had changed."And believe it or not a fewyearsago I raninto JimHoudon. He wasback from Australia andcouldn't re-sist giving it one more try. We got tobe good friends after we had exchangedstories."The fire haddied down to redem-bers, and the old man got painfullyto hisfeet with thehelp of his stickwith its looped handle."I hope somebody finds that mine,and I believe they will some day," washis part ing remark.PREHISTORIC* INDIA NS ON CELIVED ATBANDELIER PARKNestled incanyon and mesa countryof the Pajarito Plateau 45miles northand west of Santa Fe, NewMexico,lies Bandelier National Monument,early habitat of the Pueblo Indian.The Monument was established in1916 and was named in honor ofAdol f B ande l i e r , Swi s s -Amer i canscholar whocarried on an extensivesurvey ofruins inthe region from 1880to 1886.The most accessible ruins ofBande-lier are in Frijoles Canyon. Tree-ringchronology and correlations of potterytypes indicate most of them were in-habited in the late prehistoric period,although a fewsmall ruins date backto the 12thcentury.Like other ancient pueblo andcliffdwellers, theFrijoles inhabitants werefarmers and grew corn, beans andpumpkins. Cotton cloth was found inthe caves, indicating they hadcottonand understood the use of the loom.A privately owned lodge in FrijolesCanyon furnishes meals andovernightaccommodations. TheNational ParkService maintains a large public camp-ground, museum, custodian andthreerangers who also act asguides duringthe tourist season. New Mexican.

A N S W E R S TODESERT QUIZQuestions are onpage221Coloration.2The roots of certain species ofyucca.3Hoover dam.4Sh eepskins on the floor.5Copper.6Archeologist.7Arizona.8A primitive dwelling.9Juan Bautista deAnza.10Zion National park.11Arizona.12Death Valley.13North rim ofGrand Canyon.14Kayenta.15Copper.

16Zane Grey.17Americans of Mexican descent.18Father Escalante.19Indian trader in Monument Val-ley.20Flagstaff.

26 DESERT MAGAZINE


27/44

. . .Morongo Valley, CaliforniaWe noted the inquiry from John R.

Desert.) Perhaps news of ourreaders.The Palm Wells Chamber of Com-

Beginning in 1950 with a handful

Our purpose is to promote and as-

Much has been accomplished in ay about Southern California. A

One of our completed projects

ive-acre leases as well as existing roadsWe are now working on a longange water plan whereby groups ofdjoining homesteaders may cooper-ate in laying a water line to connecttheir tracts with existing water mains.We also are making available to ourmembers, at no cost, the use of a watertrailer and a concrete mixer.Our most recent project is the in-stitution of a building fund campaign.Ground has been donated to us and wehope before too long to have our owncommunity building in which to holdmeetings, educational and recreationalactivities.Our regular meetings are held onthe first Saturday evening of eachmonth, with entertainment and a socialhour following the business session.The board of directors meets everytwo weeks.

View of "Gopher Gulch," ghost town an Arcadia, California, father andson are building in their back yard.The second annual Palm Wells Cac-tus Day will be held this year on Aug-ust 30. Besides a barbecue chickendinner, there will be both amateur andprofessional displays of cacti, prizes forthe most unusual cactus, displays ofdesert arts and crafts and speakers ofinterest to homesteaders.We are anticipating a wonderful get-together of jackrabbit homesteadersand cordially invite Desert Magazinereaders to join us on Cactus Day inPalm Wells. P A L M W E L L S

C H A M B E R O F C O M M E R C E Prickly Pear Cookery . . .Rocklin, CaliforniaDesert:May issue of Desert Magazine fea-tured a cover picture of tuna, the fruitof the prickly pear cactus.I have 12 large prickly pears grow-ing in my yard, and they bear an abun-dant crop of tuna. But most of thefruit goes to waste.I am a newcomer to California, andknow no way to use the fruit. Do youhave any recipes for tuna, such asjelly or preserves?MRS. C H A R L E S A . C O O KFor the October, 1945, issue ofDesert Magazine, Jerry Laudermilkwrote an article, "Mexicans Call itTuna," in which he described howto pick and despine the fruit andgave a number of recipes for itspreservation. Miel de Tuna, M elochaand Queso de Tuna are three honey-like products of different deg rees ofconsistency. Red tuna honey is gar-net-colored with a flavor somethinglike that of honey and molasses plusa trace of pickled bee ts. Yellow fruitmakes a deep orange product withthe combined flavors of honey andbutterscotch candy. Laudermilk alsotells how to eat the fresh fruit andhow to preserve it by drying. R. H.

Ghost Town Hobby . . .Arcadia, CaliforniaDesert:I am a 14 year old boy. My father,Dr. R. C . Hyder, and 1 have quite anunusual hobby. We are building aghost town in our back yard.To date, Gopher Gulch has a gen-eral store, jail, hotel, blacksmith shopand bank. We now are putting thefinishing touches on the office of ourpioneer town newspaper, the GopherGulch Gazette. All of the buildingsare large enough to stand in. Thegeneral store and hotel are combinedin a two-story building about 16 feethigh.

Our total investment in GopherGulch is less than $100.D A R R E L L H Y D E R Pay Streak Running Thin . . .Redondo Beach, CaliforniaDesert:The "In Memory" feature on pages22 and 23 of May Desert Magazinewas a swell idea, and we feel sure allthe old-timers whose headstones werepictured there would be well pleased,even the boys at Tom bstone. To beremembered is one of the basic desiresof the human heart.A short time ago, on a visit toJoshua Tree National Monument, westood beside the last resting place ofan old-timer. On the sand blanketcovering him were scattered 17 pen-nies, some of them the non-copperones issued during the war.We used to know many of the oldboys and their sentiment regarding the

base and precious metals. We can'tbut think this prospector of an earlierera would feel the traveling public oftoday, in its shining autos, is carryinga pretty narrow pay streak and runningnot very much to the pan.R . N . SHUARTS E P T E M B E R , 1 9 5 2 27


28/44

Bennetts Edges Badwater . . .Los Angeles, CaliforniaDesert:"Between You and Me" in the Julyissue of Desert Magazine reports thatthe closest postoffice to PanamintSprings, California, is Lone Pine, 55miles away. However, there is a post-office at Darwin, which is very close,and at Trona, less than 55 miles away.The Panamint Springs descriptivefolder designates the address as LonePine, which is logical as the resort ison the mail route out of that com-munity. That fact, however, does notmake Lone Pine the closest postoffice.In this same editorial, the elevationat Badwater is listed as 279.6. Thelatest survey, made quite a few yearsago, is 279.8. Yes, I know that we stillare using the old elevation on some ofour Automobile Club maps and thatthe sign the club erected at Badwaterreads 279.6.Actually, Badwater is no longer thelowest spot in the United States. Arecent survey discovered a placeIbelieve it is in the vicinity of BennettsWellwhere the elevation is 281.9feet below sea level. This will beshown on the new Bennetts WellQuadrangle map as 282 below.ARTHUR C. DAVISAutomobile Club of So. Calif. Bills Below the Border . . .Downey, CaliforniaDesert:On a recent visit to Baja California,I experienced difficulty in using Ameri-can ten and 20 dollar bills. Store clerks,gas station operators and other busi-nessmen were unwilling to accept billslarger than five dollars. They wereadamant even to the extern: of losinga sale.This information may save manyEnsenada- or Tijuana-bound travelerssome embarrassment.A. LA VIELLE LAWBAUGH

What's in a Name? . . .Washington, UtahDesert:When I was a lad, the Indians inthe southwestern corner of Utah werecalled "Shebits," not "Shivwits" as his-torians today designate this Paiutetribe. I first heard "Shivwits" used in1909, when I returned to the Utahdesert after a long absence. One dayI rode up to the Indian farm on theSanta Clara River and met the IndianBureau agent. He handed me his card,upon which was printed the modernword.On this same trip I had an experi-ence which may bear telling. Ridingup a narrow canyon, I overtook ateam and rack loaded with alfalfa hay.On top of the load, near the back,28

lolled an Indian. He wore shirt andoveralls, a battered straw hat andclenched a stalk of alfalfa between hiswhite teeth. I had a 3-A Kodak slungover my shoulder, and 1 thought hewould make an interesting camerastudy. Urging my horse until his headnuzzled the hay, I was polishing up mybest pidgin Indian, wondering if Icould make myself understood, whenin clear, excellent English, the Indiancalled down to me: "What kind of acamera do you have?" I was so sur-

prised I nearly fell off my horse! Ourensuing conversation developed thefact that he had attended Carlisle andhad spent his vacations taking postcard pictures of visitors to the Gettys-burg battlefield.The young man had taken the nameof Foster Charles. He was the sourceof much information about the Paiutes,but I never did ask him about the Shiv-wits business. He died in St. Georgeonly last year. RUFAS JOHNSON

OF DEATH VALLEYThree dignified looking stran-gers stopped their car in front ofthe Inferno store and entered thebuilding. The clerk was busysorting out beans which had fal-len into the sugar bin and HardRock Shorty was sitting in frontof the store's only window read-ing the headlines on a 3-month-old newspaper, the latest oneavailable in Death Valley."We wish to inquire about theroad to a certain colossal pit com-monly known as Ubehebe Cra-ter," explained one of the visitors."We are members of the Univer-sal 'Scientific Foundation of Bos-ton, and have been sent out tothis forsaken land to make a re-port on the probable origin ofthis so-called crater. We under-stand it is somewhere in the re-gion to the north of here.""Yep,

Documents

195209 Desert Magazine 1952 September