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    .-. t h e O n l y S p e c i a l l y D e s i g n e d W e s t e r n M a g a z in e fa

    A provocative, informing and entertaining publication devoted to the West, ijiAtAJL~ is more thanpest a magazine it is a Way of Living you can share with friends and relatives both in the West andin the East. And what better time than Christmas to share this Way of Living with your friends.

    To make your Christmas richer, Desert Magazine's Book Order Department joins with its Sub-scription Department in a S p a t i a l d l d s t l M S %HtV an outstanding Western book withevery three Gift Subscriptions at a special reduced price. The book will be sent directly to youfor your own enjoyment or you may send it to a friend as a Gi f t . See page 7 for Book Reviews.

    l a s t i n g C h r i s t m a s # i f t s ! lI Three Subscriptions | | Three Subscriptions 1 | Three Subscriptions |H P L U i 3 3| ! P L U S T)I ire^ THE DESERT IS YOURS ft ; NORTH AMERICAN DESERTS

    By Erie Stanley Gardner Ig $ By Edmund C. JaegerPLUS

    ON DESERT TRAILSBy Randa l l Henderson

    I Three Subscriptions PLUS

    OVEREIGNS OFTHE SAGBy Nell Murbarger

    A ll for Only $17.50 | I All for Only $15.95 | 1 All for Only $15.00 | 1 All for Only $16.00Special Offer Prohibits Billing Please Send Check or Money Order

    TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OFFER FILL OUT THEPREPAID CHRISTMAS ENVELOPE IN THIS ISSUE. BE SURE TO WRITE ON THEENVELOPE THE N A M E OF THE BOOK YOU W A N T . PUT YOUR NAME UNDER "DONOR" AND THERECIPIENTS NAMES UNDER "GIFTS."RETURN IMMEDIATELY AND THEBOOK WILL BE SENT DIRECTLY TO YOU AND BEAUTIFUL GIFT CARDS AND A YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION

    TO DESERT MAGAZINE TOYOUR FRIENDS.

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    CONTENTSVolume 27 Number 10

    November , 1964This Month's Cover

    Zabriskie Point by GARY MOORE4 Books forDesert R eaders6 Dichos

    By RICARDO CASTILLO8 TheG r u e s o m e Elncore

    By MYRTLE MYLES10 Rise and Fall of a Man N a m e dSmith

    By HARRY BARBER12 S ing ing Sands

    By DANIEL L. REARDON13 TheLazy Reptile

    By PETER ODENS15 TheC a s e of theOctagona l Co ins

    By DOROTHY ROBERTSON

    18 Ca tacombs of Cal icoBy ROYCE ROLLINS21 Desert Faces

    By IRENE BRENNAN22 Hel lo Death Val ley

    By MARION HARVEY26 They Chased theM o o n

    By LYMAN NASH29 Scenes Behind the S c e n e s

    By GARY MOORE

    33 D ea th Va l l ey PoemBy PAUL WILHELM34 TheYel low Aster

    By CARL MACUR36 Ballarat

    By LAMBERT FLORIN37 Monsters in Miniature

    By BOB and JAN YOUNG38 DESERT Cookery

    By LUCILLE CARLESON39 Desert Dispensary

    By SAMHICKS42 Letters from ourReaders43 Photo Contest

    V e p p & t w u M . . . f c t j & a c kDEATH VALLEY DAYS. Death Val ley , the beaut i fu l , spectacular andsomet imes deadly basin ly ing below sea level between Cal i fornia andN e v a d a , is featured in this issue. During the 1800's untold numbers ofprospectors and Easterners seeking gold and a new life in Californiaper i shed in a vain a t tempt to cross the burn ing , summer sands ofDeath Val ley . Today, however , the a r e a is a National Monument wi tha fascinating new museum, paved roads to scenic areas , hotels andmotels, and complete facilities for the t h o u s a n d s of tourists who visitt he a r ea du r ing the winter season.

    This special issue coincides with the 15th Annual '49er DeathVal ly Encampment , Novem ber 5-8, when more than 10,000 people fromall parts of the United States gather to ce leb ra t e and par t ic ipate in thespecial activit ies or just renew old a c q u a i n t a n c e s . In nearby Beat ty ,N e v a d a the t h r ee days of Nov. 6, 7 and 8 will be j ammed packed wi thevents a lso , including "The World 's Championship Wild Burro Race."NEW DEATH VALLEY WRITERS. During its 27 years, DESERTM a g a z i n e has car r i ed hundreds of stories on Death Va l l ey by nowcelebrated wr i ters such as Randal l Henderson, Nel l Murbarger , JohnHilton, L. Burr Beldon, Ed Ainsworth, Dr. Edmund Jaeger and others .Although these writers continue to contribute to DESERT, they are allpresent ly occupied wi th wr i t ing books, columns, paint ing or lecturing.A s a result, we are in t roducing some new Death Val ley authors who,in the y e a r s to come, will no doub t be busy wr i t ing books, columns,paint ing and lecturing. . .

    BYGONE BODIE BREATHS. Fol lowing ceremonies dur ing which the"Ghost Town of Bodie" was ded ica t ed as a National Historic Site andState Historical Landmark, California State off icials said the once-boom-ing gold mine communi ty of the mid 1800's will be kept "in a sta te ofstudied neglect ." By th is they mean that whereas neglected ghosttowns eventual ly fa l l apar t , Bodie 's weathered t imber and relics will/be maintained, but only in so far as they cont inue to look like a"ghost" town. Located 10 miles off U.S. H i g h w a y 395 between Br idge-port and Mono Lake, on the Cal i fornia-Nevada border , the a r e a iswell worth visi t ing.

    NOVEMBER CALENDAR. Last day of G e m s and Minerals Show atImperial , California, Nov. 1. Imper ia l Val ley Rodeo and Cattle Call atBrawley, Calif., Nov. 2-8. Death Va l l ey Encampment , Nov. 5-8. WildBurrow Race at Beat ty , Nevada, Nov. 6-8, with special events on the6th. Salton City 500 Mile Boat Race, Salton Sea, Calif., Nov. 6-8. Fiestad e la Cuadril l , Balboa Park, San Diego, Nov. 6-8. Phoenix Don 's ClubTrek to C a n y o n de Chel ly and Zuni Vi l lages. Nov. 6-8. Swiss BoysWrestling, Holtville, Calif., Nov. 7-8.Mission San Antonio de Pala F iesta ,Pa la , Calif. Nov. 7-8. Montebe l lo Annua l Gem and Mineral Show atNational Guard Armory, Montebel lo , Calif., Nov. 7-8.Twentyn ine Pa lmsA n n u a l Gem and Mineral Show, Hayes Audi tor ium, TwentyninePa lms , Calif., Nov. 14-15. Dune Bug gy Sho w at Brawley, Nov. 29. Imper-ial Valley Kennel Club Dog Show, Imperial , Nov. 29.

    DESERT is published monthly by Desert Magazine, Palm Desert, Colif. Second Class Postage paid at Palm Desert, Colit,, ond at additi onal mail ingoffices under Act of March 3, 1879. Titl e registered No, 358865 in U. S. Patent Offi ce, and content s copyright ed 1964 by Desert Magazine . Un-mujt be secured from the edit or in wr it ing. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $4.50 per year (12 iof address, ond be sure to send the old as well as new address. the U.S.; $5 elsewhere. Allo eks for change

    J A C K P E P P E R , Publisher C H O R A L P E P P E R , EditorElta ShivelyExecutive Secretary Al MerrymanStaff Artist Rose HollyCirculation M anager Marvel BarrettBusiness Manager

    Ad dres s C orres pondence To:Desert M agazine. P a lm D esert . Calif. 92260 Phon e: FI 6-81441QR4. / Tno /

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    B e d s f l o i ^ e s e b i f t e a eTHE STORY OF INYO by W. A. Chalfant. New5th print ing of authentic history of OwensValley. How L.A. got its water. . $5.95GHOSTS OF THE ADOBE WALLS by Nell Mur-barger. Chronicles of Arizona mining camps,army posts, ranches and amazing humancharacters. $7.50MASKED GODS by Frank Waters. Unique,autographed, numbered f irst edit ion of popu-lar book on Navajo and Pueblo ceremonial-ism _. $6.50COMSTOCK MINING AND MINERS by EliotLord. Reprints of 18EI3 edition of outstandinghistory of Virginia City. _ $8.50DESERT IS YOURS by Erie Stanley Gardner.Spirited account of adventures in the presentday American desert _ $7.50VOICE OF THE DESERT by Joseph WoodKrutch. Noted desert philosopher exploresthe variety of desert l i fe. ,$5.00T H E PLACE NO ONE! KNEW by Eliot Porter.72 beautiful color photos of Glen Canyonon the Colorado. $25.00TIME AND THE RIVER FLOWING, GRANDCANYON by Francois Leydet. Latest in SierraClub Exhibit-Format Series. Price until Christ-mas $20.00

    MANY OTHERS. Write for complete list.Postage prepaid if payment enclosed withorder. In Calif, add 4% sales tax.P I N O N B O O K S T O R E206 North Main St. Bishop, CaliforniaIn the Heart of the Eastern High Sierras

    Give an interesting giftGive DESERTonly |4.50 a year

    GHOST TOWNSAND GOLDLEARN ABOUT THE COLORFUL GHOSTTOWNS OF THE WEST - DIRECTORY C O N -TAINS INFORMATION O N OVER 34 0 GHOSTTOWNS FEATURING PICTURES, MAPS, PLUSINSTRUCTIONS O N PANNI NG GOLD.PRICE!: $1.00WRITE TO :

    PIERCE PUBLISHING COMPANYDEPARTMENT RB O X 2312CHEYENNE!, W Y O M I N G

    Order aF R E EDesert-Southwest Book Catalog

    More than 75 Southwestern titles. His-tory, lost mines, Indian lore, adventure,gunmen, nature subjects, art of the area,guide books, travel, ghost towns, desertlegends.For your free Desert-Southwest BookCatalog, send your name and address to:D e s e r t - S o u t h w e s t B o o k S t o r eP . O . Box 757 Palm Desert, California

    DESERT BONANZABy Marcia Rittenhouse W ynnThis new, enlarged edition of oneof the desert's best selling books in-cludes double its former number ofphotos and a new folding map withinset of an old detail map of Mojavemines.Little has been written of the greatMojave Desert. The author grew upin the Randsburg boom period, whichshe faithfully records, but her livelynarrative extends back to the begin-ning of Death Valley history as well.

    One colorful incident she recalls isthe day a nude woman came to callon her mother. It seems that thecaller, who lived with a saloon owner,grew lonely for feminine companion-ship, and having noted the author'smother going about her business inRandsburg, decided this was just thesort of friend she'd like to have. Togive herself courage before makingthe formal call, she imbibed a joltin excess and enthusiastically skippedoff without her clothes. But she didremember to protect her hair with ascarf!Humorous occurences and the fan-tastic characters who participated inthem contribute greatly to the earlyhistory of Randsburg and Johannes-burg. Mrs. Wynn has rememberedthem all.Published by the Arthur H. ClarkCompany, this hardcover book con-sists of 275 pages and may be orderedfrom the DESERT Magazine BookOrder Department for $8.75, includ-ing postage.A RANGE GUIDE T O MINES ANDMINERALSBy Jay Ellis RansomSome of the best prospecting, theauthor claims, is in abandoned miningdistricts where valuable mineral oresare present and man is absent. Thesehe enumerates, from the largest to thesmallest, in addition to specificallylocating them as to state, county,township and geologic range. All U.S.states are covered.

    For easy identification, the bookprovides a listing of 400 mineral spe-cies with comprehensive descriptions.Directions are given on assembly,care, preservation and cleaning ofmineral collections, as well as propertools and equipment for field work.

    Then, once you've found your nug-gets, the author proceeds to tell youhow to stake a claim, examine yourore deposit, and how to develop pitsand shafts and stockpile your ore.This is a valuable book for week-end and hobby prospectors. It in-cludes information in regard to re-searching old mines, acquiring geo-logical mining reports and maps, andeven covers SCUBA diving for un-derwater gold and mineral huntingwith a black light.Published by Harper and Row, itis hardcover with 305 pages and goodillustrations. May be ordered fromDESERT Magazine Book Order De-

    partment for $6.25, including postage.

    THE LONG WALKBy L. R. BaileyAlthough brief accounts of theNavajo Wars have been written, forthe first time we have a full accountof the complicated factors that led tothe tragic attempt to end the Navajodepredations and slave raids againstthe Pueblo Indians and white men

    of New Mexico and Arizona.Only one chapter of The LongWalk is devoted to the actual en-forced emigration of the Navajo fromthe lands they had made their own innorthern Arizona and New Mexicoto the flat alkaline-impregnatedlands of the Bosque Redondo. Th eearlier chapters of background ma-terial are very necessary to an under-standing of this forced exodus, stillreferred to by the Navajo as the"long walk." What an epic eccountof bureaucratic bungling the wholestory is!As a result of painstaking research,young Bailey is able to narrate in ex-cellent detail the hopeless and pa-thetic plight of the Navajo at BosqueRedondo and Brigadier - General.James H. Carleton's well-meaning andtenacious attempts to settle the semi-nomadic Navajo into a grandiose,pueblo-like community to which hewas totally unsuited. Even more hope-less were the superhuman strugglesof the Navajo, through forced labor,to grow corn, wheat, and other food

    plants in a soil and a climate un-suited to that type of agriculture.Eventually sickness, misery, and

    4 / Desert Magazine / November, 1964

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    y S T M S N A N D Y O R D E R f O R M - W t b A N N U A L R O U N D U PWESTERN CHRISTMAS CARDSI N UU C O L O RJust mosei^irV over...

    Just m oseyin' overto wist y all MerryChristmas and a Happy New Year

    The Story ol Christmas in Sign LanguageMay the Spirit of Christmas abide with youthroughout the Coming Year

    H o w d y . . . f r o m the two of us!With BestWishes at Christmas and through all theNew Year

    Christmas Morning on the D e s e r t -Ma yevery happiness beyours at Christmas and1 throughout the NewYear

    C o w b o y ' sC h r i s t m a sP r a y e r

    Christmas ChoresChristmas Greetings andBest Wshes for all the Year

    Cowboy's Christmas PrayerThis fa-mous 26 line prayer isinside the card naddition to a greeting

    Seasons GreetingsWith Best Wishes atChristmas and Happiness through all the

    i Coming YearChristmas VisitorsMay the meaningof theSeason be deeper, its friendships strongerand its hopes brighter, etc.

    Christmas HandoutsGreeting is a warmand friendly 6 ine descriptive western verse Headin' West to Laramie- Best Wishes fora Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

    All new and different for 1964. Beautiful full-color reproductions oforiginal paintings by topwestern arti stsfeatur ing Lorenz and including Kleiber, Fogg, Hilton, Lowdermi lk, Echohawk,Harman, etc. Finest quality, heavy-grade paper single folds to 4 3/*" x63/4" with matching whiteenvelopes. We always include a few extra envelopes with each order. Cards can be ordered withor without your name custom printed in red to match greetings. These exclusive cards availableby mail only. Your order carefully filled and shipped wit hin 24 hours right up 'til Christmas.H O W TOO R D E R : Write quantity of each card you want inbox below illustration.Cards may be assorted atno extra cost. Order all ofone kind oras many ofeach as desired.Circle total quanti ty and cost on price list. You may order by letter or ill out coupon and mailthis entire page with cash, check, ormoney order to:

    T h e L A Z Y R L R A N C H Box 1500Boulder, Colo.

    tree inthe West-Best Wishes athnstmas and Happiness through all the| Coming YearA Christmas KindnessGreeting is abeau-t i fu l 4 l ine western verse

    Thfnkin' of you at Christmas Best Wishesfor the Holidays and Happiness throughoutI the New Year

    Candles ol he L o r d - M a y the Peace andHappiness of the Christmas Season abidewith you through all the Coming Year

    " . . . (air and open lace olh e a v e n . . ."May every happiness beyours at Christmasand throughout the New YearWinter FriendsA friendly wish for aMerryChristmas and a Happy New Year

    GREETINGS FROM OUR OUTFIT TO YOURSGreetings from our outfit toyoursWithBest Wishes for Christmas and all the NewYear

    Spurs an1 Pine-Merry Christmas andHappy New Year

    Roadrunning SantaMerry Christmas anda Happy New Year ristmas Thanks-Inside is asentimentale western Christmas verse in additiono the greeting

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    D E A T H V A L L E YI N COLOR

    Your Pictorial Guide, Death Valley. 48 naturalcolor scenes of main scenic and historicalattractions. Maps showing where to go; whatto see. The dramatic story of this spectacularland. Travel information. Only 75c.Note Stationery. 10 notes, each with a dif fer -ent natural color scene of Death Valley orsurrounding desert. Envelopes. Gold box. Forthose who like to share the beauty of thedesert when they write a f r iendly note. Athoughtful g i f t . Only $1.00.Color Slides. Sets of 35mm slides of DeathValley scenery, animals, f lowers. Set of 4slides $1.00. Send 25c for sample slide ofValley and list of :>ets available.

    Buy these and other quality color pro-ducts by CHRIS CARDS at stores in andnear Death Valley, or send mail order toCHRIS CAR DSP.O. Box 5454, China Lake, California(Include 4% on California Orders.Postage Prepaid. Satisfaction Guaranteed)

    A U T H O R S !If you have completed a book-length manu-script, you may be interested in our specialpublishing plan. Under this program, manylawyers, executives, teachers, scholars andeven housewives have seen their work pub-lished, promoted and marketed on a digni-fied, professional basis. All subjects con-sidered non-fiction, fiction, poetry, etc.Send for our free 40-page illustrated bro-chure today. Ask for Booklet, D.

    VANTAGE PRES S . INC.120 W. 31st St., NewYork 1, N.Y.In Calif.: 6253 H o l l y w o o d B lv d . , L.A.I n W a s h . , D.C.: 1010 V e r m o n t Ave., N.W.

    MODERNMINERALPROCESSINGFLOWSHEETSOver 100 flowsheets-data on over 200 importantmineralsmill design;., metallurgical summaries.A one-volume encyclcpedia! Year's most usefulbook! Available in two editions: Deluxe edition$10.00; student's edition $6.60 per copy (plus post-a g e ) . Unconditional money-back guarantee. Booksent postpaid anywhere in the world, if paymentaccompanies order. Mail order to:Technical Publ icat ion D e p t . DMDenver Equipment Co.1400 - 17th St., Dunver, Colorado 80217

    CALIFORNIAG H O ST T O W N G U I D ENew guide to over 100California ghost townsUnique and authentic guide to over 100ghost towns in California's deserts and moun-tains with complete directions on how toreach them. Shows you the way to little-known and intrigue filled towns that providehours of interest for those seeking buriedtreasures, old guns, western relics, purplebottles aged by the sun, and antique objects.Satisfaction guaranteed or money back.

    Order Now! Only $1.95A. L. ABBOTTDept. D-lll1 5 1 3 W e s t R o mne y a D r i v e A n a h e i m , Calif.

    death finally convinced the bureau-cratic powers that the Navajos mustbe allowed to return to thevery landsfrom which they hadbeen so ruthless-ly driven.L. R. Bailey has made a most valu-able contribution to the historicalliterature of theSouthwest. There aremany fine books about the Navajo,but this is the first one to present anadequate and well-annotated accountof what is without doubt the mostsignificant chapter in the history ofthis great tribe. Notes at the end ofeach chapter make for easier readingand ready reference.Published by Westernlore Press,the volume is 252 pages, illustratedwith photographs, hard cover. Price$7.95. Reviewed by Harry James.

    CHANGING ADDRESS?New postal regulations make it importantthat you send your change-of-address noticeto us prompt ly . And please remember to listyour old address as wel l as your new andyour Zip Code.DESERT Magazine-Palm Desert, Calif. 92260

    1200 BOTTLES PRICEDBy Joh n C. TibbittsThis price guide, catalogue andclassification system comprised by Mr.Tibbitts, first president of the An-tique Bottle Collectors' Association,is an attempt to stabilize prices andestablish fair comparative value fora fast-growing, newhobby.

    Other good bottle books describepopular and rare examples popularlyfound in Western ghost towns. Thiswell-illustrated, paperback, 164-pagebook is no exception. However, inaddition to fine photo illustrationsand helpful editorial comments, itspractical system for classification andcurrent retail price list fill an impor-tant gap for both professional andamateur collectors. May be orderedfrom DESERT Magazine Book De-partment for $4.25.

    SPICE YDURSPANISH WITH

    DICHDSBy Ricardo Castillo

    "Dichos" are the pungent Spanishproverbs which add so much colorand logic to the conversation andthinking of our Mexican neighbors."El dinero se paga, pero el favorn o . "You can payback themoney, butnot the favor.

    "Todas las cosas se parecen a sudueno."All things look like their owner."Mas te vale causar temor, quelastima."It is better to cause fear than pity."Donde no hay voluntad no hayfuerza."W here there is no will, there isis no strength."Es mejor ser cabeza de raton,que cola de leon."It is better to be a mouse's headthan a lion's tail."N o por mucho madrugar, aman-ece mas temprano."By getting up earlier, the sunwon't come up any sooner.

    D e a t h V a l l e y B o o k sPublished by the Death Valley '49ers.

    A ll are durable paperback on slick stock.A NATURALIST'S DEATH VALLEY (RevisedEdition) By Edmund C. Jaeger, ScD. _ $1.50MANLY AND DEATH VALLEY. Symbols ofDestiny, by Ardis Manly Walker . __ $1.25GOODBYE, DEATH VALLEY! the Story of theJayhawker Party, by L. Burr Belden $1.25CAMELS AND SURVEYORS IN DEATH VAL-LEY by Arthur Woodw ard $2.00

    DESERT Magazine Book Dept.PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIAA dd 25c for postage andhandling.Check or Money Order Only.

    B A L D N E S S : IS T N E C E S S A R Y ?By Katherine PughA New, yet Practical Approach to Loss of HairThe Nutritional Approach $4 .0 0Hard cover Nearly 200 Pages Highly Illustrated.Written as information only, and no claims are made.Profusely Documented.MAILING SERVICES, INC.1524 Brook Road, Richmond, VirginiaSorry, No C.O.D. Not Responsible for Cash. If Desire Book Insured, Add 10cExtra. Not Responsible for Books after they have been Placed in the Mails.

    6 / Desert Magazine! / November, 1964

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    Bods Jtdby Horace Par-Second edit ion of this well- i l lustrated andis enlarged considerably. Topsit is equally recommendedin an area that was crossedKit Carson, the Mormon Battalian, '49ers,the Jack-Mai l , Butterfield Stage, and today's adven-139 pages, cardboard cover.May be ordered from DESERT Magazine

    by Edmund C. Jaeger.of this authoritative, best sellinga key to aid in ident i f icat ion andof name changes. This books is a " m u s t "and botanists. Well i l lustrateda text understandable by amateurs, DESERTit. 322 pages, hard-by Stanford University Press.r fro m DESERT Mag azine Book Dep t.

    AND HIDDEN TREASURES by Le-Author i tat ive and exact accountsand fascinating data about a lostof go ld in California, buried Aztec ingotof coins, and all sorts of excit-for treasure seekers. Hardcover, $4.00.by Thomas Penfield. Facts are siftedfor over 100 lost mines. Mappedand i l lustration add interest. $3.95.

    BY Harry C. James. Herethe real story about the almost forgotten tr ibethe mountains tower ing aboveas w e l l as its desert oasis. The fewof the tr ibe stil l own valu-the book is hardcover,and l imited to1250 copies. $7.50.

    OF THE GLORY TRAIL by Nell Mur-is a fast moving chronicle of Westernand bonanza. Rich in human interestas authentic history, this book coversof Nevada, western Utah and eastern291 pages. Price $6.75.by Don Ash-I l lus trated with a f ine collection of oldand throbbing with exc i t ing ta les ofan authentic ghostby one of Nevada's favor-346 pages. $7.50.

    TO COLORADO GHOST TOWNS byL. Brown. An i l lustrated, detailed, infor-of life in the mining camps deep inof theare includedexamples of the vigorous struggle for exist-in the mining camps of the West. 239end sheet map. Hard Cover.by Randall Henderson, foun-r and publisher of Desert Magazine for 23One of the f irst good writers to revealof the mysterious desert areas. Hen-his com-on the desert of yesterday and today,a MUST for those who really wantthe desert. 375 pages, i l lustrated.

    To Insure a RealM e r r y C h r is t m a sOrder these books by mail

    today from DESERT Magazine.See Information Below

    THE NORTH AMERICAN DESERTS by Edmund C.Jaeger. A long-time authority on all phases ofdesert areas and l i fe, Dr. Jaeger's book on theNorth American Deserts should be carriedwherever you t ravel. It not only describes eachof the individual desert areas, but has illus-trated sections on desert insects, reptiles, birds,mammals and plants. 315 pages, i l lustratedphotographs, l ine drawings and maps. HardCover. $5.95.GHOST TOWN TRAILS by Lambert Florin is th irdin a series that ranks among the best ghosttownbooks ever written. Excellent photos and storiescover an area that stretches across the entirewest from Alaska to New Mexico. Large format,192 pages. Hardcover. Price $12.50.PAINTERS OF THE DESERT by Ed Ainsworth. Abeautifully i l lustrated and well-wr i t ten roundupof 13 of the desert's outstanding artistsDixon,Forsythe, Swinnerton, Fechin, Eytel, Lauritz, Buff,Klinker, Perceval, Hilton, Proctor, McGrew, andBender. Folio size, gold-stamped hard cover.Full color reproductions. 125 pages. $11.00.CORTES, By Francisco Lopez de Gomara, secre-tary to the famous conqueror of Mexico. A v iv idnarration of the exploits of Herman Cortes whocombined diplomacy, cunning and mil i tary mightto overcome his adversaries. 480 pages, illus-t rated. Hard cover. $8.50.THE OREGON DESERT by E. R. Jackman andR. A. Long. This book is a hard one to def ine.A single paragraph may be a mixture of geo-logy, history, biography and rich desert lore.The only complete book about the Oregon desert,the material applies equally well to other des-erts of the West. The humor and fascinatinganecdotes coupled with factual background andunusual photos, including color, make it excel-lent reading material even for those who maynever visit Oregon. 407 pages, i l lustrated. HardCover. Third printing, $6.50.LOWER CALIFORNIA GUIDE BOOK by Gerhardand Gulick. The authors have revised the th irdedit ion to br ing it up to date. Veteran travelersin Baja California would not venture south ofthe border without this authoritative volume. Itcombines the fascinating history of every loca-t ion, whether it be a town, mission or aban-doned ranch, wi th detailed m ileage maps andlocations of gasoline supplies, water and otherneeded information on Baja. 243 pages withthree-color folding map, 16 detailed route maps,4 city maps, 22 i l lustrations. Hard cover. $6.50.

    MEET FLORA MEXICANA by Walter Pesman. Ab-solutely essential for travelers into Old Mexicoor Baja who want to know the names, uses andhabits of f lora that grows along roads andhighways. Wel l i l lus trated with l ively tex t . 278pages. Hard cover. $6.00.THE DESERT IS YOURS by Erie Stanley Gardner.In his latest book on the desert areas of theWest, the author again takes his reader withhim as he uses every means of transportation toexplore the wilderness areas and sift the factsand rumors about such famous legends as theLost Arch, Lost Dutchman and Lost Dutch Ovenmines. 256 pages, i l lustrated. Hard cover. $7.50.THE HIDDEN HEART OF BAJA by Erie StanleyGardner. The noted creator of the best-sellingmysteries of our t ime has written several bookson Baja California and the desert areas of theWest. With his talent of combining adventureand mystery with facts, the author takes youwi th him as he probes the mysteries of "TheHidden Heart of Baja" and tells how he dis-covered an archeological f ind of major impor-tance thus opening up a new concept regardingcave paintings. 256 pages, i l lustrated with colorphotos of Indian paintings. Hard cover. $7.50.THE DINOSAUR HUNTERS, Othneil C. Marshand Edward D. Cope, By Robert Plate. A dualbiography of the f irst dinosaur hunters whosebitter r ivalry split the scientif ic world for about25 years but whose exploi ts of the 1870s and1880s excited the publ ic imaginat ion and madedinosaurs a household word. Easy reading, thebook is packed with action result ing from theintense feud between Marsh and Cope, bothwealthy men who exhausted their fortunes inthe arduous hunt for the creatures of the past.281 pages. Hard Cover. $4.95.A SOUTHWESTERN UTOPIA By Thomas A. Rob-ertson. An American Colony in Mexico. Halfa century ago some 2000 Americans, pioneers,idealists and adventurers trekked into north-western Mexico intent on fo rming a cooperativecolony. The author (reared among the colonists)tells of the tr ials, failures and successes ofcolony life. This book, describing the peopleand life in Mexico's Sinaloa will be enjoyed bythose who dream escapist dreams. 266 pages.Hard cover. $5.95.THREE PATHS ALONG A RIVER By Tom Hudson.I l lustrated by Ralph Love. Once a r iver, theSan Luis Rey is now only an in termit tentstream. History marched beside the r iver, andin a sense the Valley of San Luis Rey cancalled the Gateway to Cali fornia. The earliestoverland travelers coming from Mexico andwest from the States traveled the Carrizo Cor-r idor leading inland through Temecula to theMission of San Gabr iel and the Pueblo of LosAngeles. The Butterfield Stage route crossedthe r iver near its headwaters . 245 page. Hardcover. $6.GHOSTS OF THE ADOBE WALLS by Nell Mur-barger, the well known " rov ing repor ter of thedesert." The author's just-published book is anintimate chronicle of Arizona's once-boomingmining towns, stage stations, army posts, mar-auding Indians and fantastic human characters.380 pages, i l lustrated. Hard Cover. $7.50.

    check or money order to DESERT MAGAZINE BOOK ORDER DEPARTMENT, Palm Desert, California 92260.25c for p o s t a g e and handling. California residents must add 4% s a l e s tax. P l e a s e do not ask to be bi l led.

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    Old Skidoo in its heyday.

    THE GRUESOME ENCOREby Myrtle Nyles

    SK I D O O C A M E to life because ofa log. When Harry Ramsey anda man called One-eye Thompsonlost their way on a road leading toth e new boom camp of Harr i sburg ,they stopped to rest against an out-cropping of rock. When the fog lifted,the rock turned out to be gold.T h i s was back in 1905. In decidingupon a name for the town that sprungu p , a numerologist associated a popu-lar expression of the day, 23-Skidoo,

    with the fact that a Rhyol i te mannamed Bob Montgomery had success-fully piped water from TelescopePeak 23miles away and suggested thename Skidoo. So it became.Oldt imers say the camp producedover a mill ion dollars worth of goldore between its discovery and its de-mise some 20 years later. Skidoo'schief claim to fame, however, was notits riches. Rather, it was an infamouslynching of a scoundrel named Joe

    Simpson in 1908.O n a tour to the ghost town ofSkidoo in 1962, wewere privileged to

    be accompanied by an 87-year-oldgent leman named George Cook. Theinterest ing thing about Mr. Cook wasthat it was he who pul led on therope at the lynching. His part icipa-tion had only recently been divulgedto a few intimate friendsafter allothers involved had passed on to theirrewards, or whatever."Joe Simson," Mr. Cook told us,' w a s a would-be vi l lain who had kill-ed a man at Keeler after shooting-up

    Jack Gun's Saloon in Independencethe preceding year. He'd somehowgotten off and drifted to Skidoowhere he became a partner wi th FredOakes in the Gold Seal Saloon.Across the street was Jim Arnold 'sSkidoo Trading Company."Arnol d was a friendly, well-likedm an and had always been on goodterms with Simpson, but Simpson be-

    The Mill at SkidooPhoto by Gary Moore

    8 / Desert Magaz:.ne / November, 1964

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    April

    o Trading Company. Appre-sheriff, but attle later Simpson found his wea-and returned to the store tot Jim Arnold. He then turnedcome to

    h escaped. Eventually Simpsons overpowered and placed underd in the deputy sheriff's cabin.

    Skidoo went wild with indigna-After Arnold's funeral, which

    of a rope andearest telephoneWhen Sheriff Nailor from In-a hazardous

    saved us $25,000!"But this wasn't the end. Severalir camerasJoe Simpson's body was obliginglyime from the

    In his private narrative of theever before related: "Joe was deadefore we got the rope around hisneck; he died of a heart attack (fromfright) and was already gone whenragged to the telephone pole scaf-fold."It was also he, George Cook con-fessed, who assisted Dr. Macdonald inemoving the head from Simpson'sorpse. The doctor, it seems, hadnce performed an operation onSimpson s nose and wanted to make

    a further medical study of the case.Going at night, they performed theseverence at the lonely prospect holewhere Simpson's body had been toss-ed. (No one in Skidoo would givehim a decent burial, so great was theindignation at his senseless crime).The skull was exhibited for a periodin a showcase at Wildrose, but laterdisappeared.The remainder of the skeleton re-isted oblivion, however. Years laterhen George Cook returned to Skidoo

    to work in the mill, an agitated pros-pector appeared one day to report aheadless skeleton of a man who'd evi-

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    dentally been murdered. BecauseCook was the only oldtimer aroundat the time, he was consulted. In-deed a crime had been committedsometime, he agreed, but of the de-tails he had conveniently forgotten.Last year George Cook passed away.Small in stature, religious, mild-tem-pered and giving to writing sentimen-tal verse, he was the antithesis of ourWestern idea of a vigilante. The role

    forced upon him by his acute angerover the murder of a friend botheredthis good man to the end of his days.His belief that Simpson did not ex-pire at his hand appeared to be areal comfort. And, perhaps he wasright. We cannot disagree, for GeorgeCook was there.Much interesting history is con-nected with the now defunct Skidoo.Following its early boom, the townwas deserted for a period, then, undernew management, the mine and millreopened during the 1930s and aperiod of production occured. Theold wild days never returned, how-ever, and its fame as a mining campstill rests upon the lynching incidentto which we add, "Joe Simpson didnot die because of a rope and a tele-phone pole. He died of a heartattack!" / / /

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    RISE and Fall of a man nameby Harry Barbein p H E AMB ITION of every mineris to find and develop a mine.Francis Marion Smith was noexception. Having acquired the pros-pecting mania early in life, the Fall of1872, found him in the wood campsabout 10 miles from Columbus, Ne-vada. Like thousands of others, hehad been engaged in teamingcon-tracting for the delivery of wood tothe mills and timber to the mines.His worldly goods consisted of severalwood ranches, a band of pack animalsand the usual variety of wildcatclaims.

    His lucky star twinkled the daya terrific earthquake shook Teel'sMarsh. From his cabin in the timberlands, Smith could see the Columbusmarsh, even then a modest producerof ulexite, and Teel's Marsh, glisten-ing like beds of snow in the desert.Accompanied by two of his woodchop-pers, he set out to examine cracks leftin Teel's Marsh by the quake. Test-ing proved them to be solid depositsof borax. So impressed was Smiththat he sent one of his men to Colum-bus to have a sample assayed whilehe remained to move provisions andpack animals from his wood camp tothe new location on the dry desertlake.Borax was then worth 30c a poundby the carload and 25c an ounce10 / Desert Magazine / November, 1964

    retail. The value of the deposit at-tracted squatters, but after appealingto courts, clearing up adverse claimsand buying out over 100 locators,Smith finally had his location secured.Uniting with his brother, he or-ganized a Chicago firm, erected asmall plant and went into production,hauling the borax by mule teams tothe nearest railroad. As soon as theprofits accumulated, he built a rail-road to connect his plan t with out-side transportation.Borax Smith, as he was known, pur-chased all of the existing claims filedby William T. Coleman, a prominentCalifornia businessman, on the rich-est field of borax yet discovered-hundreds of glistening, isolated acresin formidable Death Valley. With agrowing demand for borax and anapparently unlimited reserve of crude

    ore, a quick, sure way had to be foundto move the product out of DeathValley and across 165 barren miles ofCalifornia desert to the nearest rail-road junction at Mojave.Wagons pulled by multiple muleteams were not unknown, but untilJ. W. S. Perry, the local superintend-ent, and a young muleskinner namedEd Stiles set to work on the problem,a 12-mule team was the maxim um . Itwas Perry and Stiles who thought ofhitching two mule teams together toform a 100-foot long, 20-mule team.Perry designed wagons massive andsturdy enough to carry the borax andwithstand the rugged journey; Perry,

    S m i t htoo, laid out the route for the muleteams.

    The wagons were built in Mojavefor $900, had rear wheels 7 feet highand front wheels 5 feet high, eachwith steel tires 8 inches wide and oneinch thick. The hubs were 18 inchesin diameter and 22 inches in length.

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    The spokes, of split oak, measuredbVi inches wide at the hub . T he axle-trees were made of solid steel bars,3Vi inches square. The wagon bedswere 16 feet long, 4 feet wide and 6feet deep. Em pty, each wagon weigh-ed 7,800 pounds. Loaded with borax,it weighed 31,800 pou nds. Tw o suchloaded wagons, plus the water tank(which held 1,200 gallons and weigh-ed 9,600 pounds) made a total of73,200 pounds or 36V2 tons.

    From 1883 to 1889, the 20-muleteams hauled borax out of DeathValley, over the steep PanamintMountains and across the desert tothe railroa d. Despite the heattemper-atures often rose to 130 degreestheteams pulled their heavy loads alongthe rough trails, traveling 15 to 18miles a day. It was a 20-day rou ndtrip. Springs of water were far apartand each journey was but a repeti-tion of hardship and adventure.Tragic tales are told of fights betweenteamsters and tramps of the road;of heat prostration and insanity fromthirst. During the six years they werein constant use, the 20-mule teamscarried 20 million pounds of boraxout of the valleya considerable tri-bute to the ingenuity of the designersand to the stamina of the teamsters,swampers and animals.Th e 20 - mule teams the dra-matic solution of a transportationproblemsoon became a world fa-mous symbol. Through hard workand a lively imagination, Borax Smith

    made his 20-Mule Team Borax ahousehold staple. One of his first ad-vertising booklets recommended a

    number of usesfor digestion, keep-ing milk fresh; as a complexion aid(Don't wash your face in ordinarylake water); for removing dandruff;and for bathing (use half a pound ofpowdered borax to the ordinary fam-ily bath of 12 gallons of water). Bor-ax was also "excellent for washingcarriages" and useful, it said, "in cur-ing epilepsy and bunions."To expand his borax business,Smith looked abroad for new mar-kets and in 1896 amalgamated witha British chemical firm to form Bor-ax Consolidated, Limited. Formationof the new company satisfied Smith'sneed for new outlets.The company continued to developthe colemanite properties in the Cali-co Mountains where a calcining plantand a railroadthe B orate & DaggettRRwere built, to make borax andcarry it down the mainline of theSanta Fe. Smith next turned back tothe colemanite deposits in the Funer-

    al Mountains n ear D eath Valley. Herehe built another calcining plant andtwo more railroadsthe narrow gaugeDeath Valley R.R. and the standardgauge Tono pah & Tidewater R . R.The D.V.R.R. carried ore from themines to the calciner at Death ValleyJunc tion; from there the T & T tookthe borax to the mainline of theSanta Fe at Ludlow.In 1910 Smith settled in Oakland,California. Th ere , investing hisprofits in public utilities, he broughtabout a merger of all street car lines

    in Alameda and Contra Costa coun-ties, which with the addition of theferry system from Oakland to SanFrancisco, became the key route sys-tem. He also opened up large tractsof land for residential and industrialuses in East Bay cities. Smith took anactive interest in sports and was adevotee of yachting. In 1906 he wonthe cup offered by King Edward VIIin the national race off Newport, R.I.In these new activities, he soon metfinancial disaster With heavy borrow-

    ing on short term notes and extendedlitigations his $20 million fortunedwindled into bankruptcy. Between1921 and 1925 he strove to recoupthrough the acquisition of a newlydiscovered deposit of colemanite inClark County, Nevada. Borax Smithwas believed to be on the way to newwealth at the time of his death inOakland on August 27, 1931.Today borates are used in hun-dreds of industrial applications rang-ing from nuclear shields to soaps andcosmetics. Borax has come a long way

    since a man named Smith wonderedwhat was in a crack made by a quake./ / /

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    FREE!Helpful brochurefor rock hobbyists!This new brochure,fresh off the presses, isa v a i l a b l e w i t h o u tcharge to rock hobby-ists and readers ofDesert Magazine. Spe-cial sections on sharp-ening, reversing andinstallation of diamondblades for better lapi-dary cutt ing . . . alsoincludes useful tips oncoolants, lubricants,speeds and feeds, andother suggestions onhow to get longer and better wear fromyour cutting equipment. Compact andeasy-reading, well-illustrated. Writetoday for your copy.

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    A STILL UNSOLVED mystery ofnature is the phenomenon of"singing" sands, "mus i c a l "sands, "humming" sands, and "bark-ing" sands.

    Marco Polo, in the 13th century,encountered them in the Great GobiDesert, but, not knowing the strangeinstrumental sounds he heard werecaused by sand, believed the desert tobe inhabited by spirits.According to another traveler whostudied singing sands in the ArabianDesert, the phenomenon appeared tobe of frequent occurrence, the musicvarying from the "high-pitched twang-

    ing of harp strings to the rumble ofdistant drums."Singing sands are also found amongthe dunes along the southern shore ofLake Michigan.In Churchill County, Nevada, about28 miles east of Fallon, there is a longshifting sand dune known as Sing-ing Mountain which occasionallyhums like telegraph wires. Musicalsand dunes in southern Californiagave rise to a legend that a monasterylies buried under the sand.Naturally, near the Great SaharaDesert, we would expect to find thestrange occurrence. In the westernSahara between Timbuktu (Tom-bouctou) in Mali and Morocco theyhave been found as well as in theregion west of the Nile. In SouthAfrica, singing hills have been ob-served west of the Langberg Moun-tain, near Griquatown. And downin South America, in Chile, there isthe Rumbling Mountain, to which theIndians give a wide berth.Most famous of singing sands ;s

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    Daniel L.REARDONand Palestine. When the sand is inmotion the sound commences with aweird, indescribable effect whichswells to a roar, then gradually rollsaway like the moaning of a far-offbell.

    The barking sands of the HawaiianIslands (Barking Sands) are betweenMakaha Point and Nohili Point onthe isle of Kauai. When clapped andrubbed together between the hands,they produce a sound like a barkingdog. The dunes here are of whitecoral sand with particles of shells andlava.Why certain sands emit such spookynoises has yet to be completely in-vestigated. Exhaustive studies havebeen made without definitive results.According to one scientist, sand singsonly when the grains are of a certainsize, uniformity, and shape. Anothertheory holds that dry sand under theinfluence of heat and friction hasresonance. Still another postulateselectrical influence.Where the singing sands are nearsalt water, the "Salt Water" schoolbelieves that the sound is due to athin layer of salt coating the grainswhich rasps when the sands are dis-turbed by persons walking or by thewind.The best explanation ascribes therare nature music to the moisturecontent of the sand. If the sand istoo wet or too dry, no concert. Butif the capillarity (attraction of mois-ture and sand) is just right so that thegrains of sand will rub against eachother when agitated, ah, then youhave Nature's Philharmonic, conduc-ted by Maestro Wind!But perhaps it is all just sympa-

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    12 / Desert Magazine) / November, 1964

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    Caliche dugout aDarwin miner ca lled "home:

    STORIES OF GOLDEN bullets, ofa murder for $8 and a lazy rattle-snake these were the tales wecarried away with us one morningafter a visit to Darwin, California,population 15.The story of this once boomingmining camp and the man after whomit was named goes back more than 100years. Even while the first gold rushwas in full swing, rumors of fabulouswealth began to be heard. Amongthose legendary mines were the LostGunsight M ine. When a group knownas the Jayhawkers crossed Death Val-ley in 1849 in their search for gold, aman named Towne stumbled on thetrail. His gunsight was knocked offand he began to look for it. Instead ,he found a piece of fabulously richsilver ore.Overtaking his comp anions, he triedto persudate them to return to thespot where he had found the rock, butinstead they hastened ahead. The y hadhad their difficultieshad lost twomen, destroyed their wagons and onthe weary trek across the burningsands, had resorted to their skinnyoxen for food. No, the Jayhawkers

    were in no mood to listen to Towne'srambling about a fabulously richmine. Later on, Towne tried to find

    the ore-bearing rock again, but invain.This was one of the stories Dr. Dar-win French, a popular physician ofOroville, California had been told.One day in March, 1860, he lockedup his office, gathered a group offriends and set out to find the LostGun sight M ine. For days, weeks andmonths the group traveled across thePanamint Range and into Death Val-ley looking for the skeletons of Fishand Isham, the two Jayhawkers whohad died on the trail, in order to re-trace their route. But they found noLost Gunsight Mine and returned

    home disappointed.Then, within a short time, a storyof golden bullets used by an Indiantribe was heard in the mining campsof California. The indomitable doctorset out to check the report. With eightcompanians he criss-crossed the Mo-have desert, exposing himself to In-dians in the vain hope that theymight shoot at him with golden bul-lets, but no Indian showed up near theDarwin French group. After stakinga claim to an antimony mine above

    Wildrose, Dr. French and his partyreturned home. Nevertheless, in 1874when mines were found in the area

    Z h eL a z y R e p t i l eo f ' D a r w i nb y P e t e r O d e n s

    in which he had traveled, his firstname was given to the town whichsprang up on the southern slopes ofthe Argus range, as well as to acanyon, a waterfall and a spring.Hundreds of men worked in themines and mills of Darwin, whichboasted of a weekly newspaper and afine school. It was a lawless, violentcamp. Over 100 men and womenburied in its cemetery died with theirboots on.Today, the town is all but deserted.Situated some six miles off StateRoute 190 which leads from the Pana-mints into Owens Valley, the road is

    graded and easy to travel. The oldpost office, long abandoned, stillstands and across the street from itis the first school house of Darwin, apopular subject for ghost town artists.Looking for someone who could tellus about the town, we knocked on thedoor of a charming cabin and met itsowners, Mr. and Mrs. Black, whocame to the area in 1906 driving amule-drawn wagon. We were hospit-ablv received by the retired coupleand Fox Black offered to take us tothe old cemetery."But we can't go in your car," hesaid. "Too low, you know. We'll take

    November, 1964 / Desert Magazine / 13

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    O C T A G O N A L C O I NBy DOROTHY ROBERTSONTHERE WILL always be incurableromantics seeking lost treasure.And why not? Didn't WayneWinters of Tucson, Arizona stumbleupon the Jesuit's fabulously richPlanchas de la Plata silver mine whilehunting javelina?

    In our own neighborhoodthePanamintsa story has been quietlycirculating about a lost cache of oc-tagonal gold pieces. Minted in 1851and 1852, these gold pieces are re-putedly worth ONE THOUSANDDOLLARS EACH! But the story washard to pin down . I have never seenit in print, yet some of our mostsolid citizens are prowling the Pana-mint country looking for clues.I first heard the story from DanThomas on the NOTS Base at ChinaLake. Dr. James Hemry, well-known

    Ridgecrest chiropractor, was my nextlead. Dr. Hemry is an ardent Sunday

    prospector and although he didn'tfind the lost gold pieces, he did lo-cate a rich deposit worked by an oldminer whom he grubstaked for a per-centage of the property. When Italked to Dr. Hemry, he substantiatedDan's story about the coins. Anotherlink came from Burdette Fox, son ofIndian Wells Valley pioneer, JoeFox. Burdette had known the orig-inal source of the story, a Mexi-can named Toski, and his version wasessentially the same as Dan's and Dr.Hemry's.

    Substantially, the story is as fol-lows: In the late 1860s a Mexicanwagontrain through Death Valley wasambushed by renegade Indians. Alladults in the train were massacred,but a boy and his young sister weretaken captive to the renegade's secretcamp somewhere in the PanamintMoun tains . Fear of discovery causedthe Indians to throw gold pieces plun-dered from the wagons down a deepfissure in an enormous rock. This,

    the boy Toski w itnessed. Years later,during the rush of prospectors intothe area, the children overheard theIndians planning to kill them becausethey feared the children might re-member too much, talk to the whitemen, and incur revenge. The boytook his sister and fled to the distantTehachapi Mountains. After reach-ing manhood, Toski was never able toremember which of the many can-yons in the 49-mile-long Panamintsheld his family's fortune.

    After finally tying down this story,we were elated when George Suther-len of China Lake invited us to joina 4-wheel drive caravan to TuckiMo untain. As we rolled throughTrona, the potash town on the shoresof dry Searles Lake, I rememberedBurdette telling me that he hadworked with the old Mexican, Toski,right here in 1941.Midway through Panamint Valleywe came to a small sign pointing east

    November, 1964 / Desert Magazine / 15

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    A bighorn sheep leaped ahead of us.cally up and down bouldered washesand over crumbling boulders whereour vehicles canted at an alarmingdegree. Th is is a trail to be takenonly by experienced boondockers inhigh-centered vehicles. The narrow-canyoned country now opened itsrockstrewn flats with ragged cliffsthat seemed to lean over our headsCaves pocked the rocky ridges andstream-beds were deeply groovedthrough the rocky mass. Bunch grassand red-stemmed filaree rustled withWhispering Bells and Pepper-grass;blue, lavender and purple desertheliotrope contrasted with Dalea,brilliant yellow Panamint daisies andsweet evening primrose.

    Suddenly the lead Jeep stopped. Aherd of mountain sheep bounded outof view. My eyes assessed the possi-

    Photo by Tom Murraybilities of this Tucki heartland(Tucki means sheep in Indian ) asperhaps the secret camp. It was cer-tainly not accessible, it furnishedgame for food and, from the shoul-der of the mountain just underTucki's peak, it opened onto an un-obstructed view of the entire DeathValley!We parked our vehicles by theTucki Gold Mine and scattered toexplore. The Tucki Gold Mine wasoperated from the early 1900's until1938. Water had been piped all theway from springs on the west sideof Tucki, for the gold-bearing mat-erial was cyanided right on the prem-ises. This I could understand, forthat gouged trail up which we hadclimbed would have been a terrifichazard for ore wagons.

    My husband, Allan, and I separatedin order to cover more territory inthe short time we had. I heard some-one shout that he'd found a purplebottle, but we had more pressingbusiness on Tuck i. We hoped to findthe golden coins!There were so many fissuresthewhole region was one huge rockpilethat we hardly knew where to start.As Allan disappeared around a highridge, I started down Tucki Wash tosee if an Indian could reach DeathValley from this side. He could.Steep, almost sheer in places, it pro-vided perfect access and exit pointsfor marauding Indians, in additionto an excellent vantage point for spot-ting pioneers' wagons. Far belowalkali flats shimmered under a glar-ing sun and charcoal ribbons of high-way tied together the distant civiliza-tions of Furnace Creek Ranch, ParkHeadquarters, Furnace Creek Hoteland Stovepipe Wellsoutposts that

    make today's Death Valley less deadly.Allan came down the rise to joinme. "There isn't time to exploreproperly," he said "We'll have tocome back when we have a few days."And that's the way it always is withoctagonal coin hu nters. We keepcoming back to play the game of seekand findand what we find, evenwhen nothing tangible, is more valu-able than the golden coins we seek!Ill

    We crowded close to the pock-marked ridges.

    November, 1964 / Desert Magazine / 17

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    THE CATACOMBS OF CALICOBY ROYCE ROLLINSW HEN I WAS a child there wasa sign beside an offshoot ofthe Las Vegas - Los AngelesHighway that read "Calico." Noneof our family knew what or whereCalico was, bu t my ch ildish mi ndassociated it with calico cats, calicotea, and my own calico quilt backhome.

    This stretch of terrain has enchant-ed me ever since. On subsequenttrips I watched the old sign weatheraway and years later I saw it re-placed with a fresh one announcingWalter Knott 's restorat ion of theghost town.Today the town stands in bet tercondit ion than during i ts ghoulishoccupancy. A gene ral store, saloon,

    hotel , school house and other build-ings line the streets. Autos are pro-hibi ted, but t ransportat ion is pro-vided by a cable tram and the reacti-vated Calico-Odessa Railr oad . T h efamous Maggie Mine is open and vis-itors may explore some of the 35 milesof tunnels that brought forth as muchsilver as any single mine in Westernhistory.

    During a recent conversat ion withCalico manager Henry Fitzpatrick, welearned of a jeep trip inaugurated byprospector Cliff Zarley. Mr. Zarleyowns an onyx mine and for |5 perperson will transport you to the sitewhere you may collect as much as30 pou nds of prize onyx. Ticketsare sold at the Calico Leather shop,and, except for Mondays and Tues-days, trips leave every two hours fromthe first of October to June.

    It is difficult to restore a ghosttown and avoid com mercialism. Cal-ico is no exceptio n. Bu t the cou ntryarou nd i t remains unto uch ed. It wasour explorat ion of Mule, Phil l ips,and Odessa Canyons in the CalicoMountains that for us resurrected theexcitement of the past.

    Named for brilliant patches of red,green, blue and gold, the Calico hillsgave birth to a silver rush in the '80swhen a general store operator on theMojave River chased an Indian horsethief into their midst and noted likelysigns of ore. Darkness called off thepursuit , but months later LafayetteMecham recalled the incident and hismemory sparked the discovery of sil-ver.The most celebrated and beautifulof the Calico canyons, Odessa, maybe entered a short distance north of

    Desert prospector left jar of grease and fire set up forcamp 's next occupan t. The C alicos are honeycom bed with mines. Inside thedark tunnels it 's spooky and dangerous!

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    Dat/SCatrip of the

    month

    the entrance to the town of Calico.The sign post to it reads Doran Road.Near the mouth of the canyon thereis a road-closed sign. It's advisableto leave your car here. A short hikewill reveal why.Originally a mere crack in the can-yon's lava w alls, water eroded anopening that revealed a wealth ofsilver tucked into the mountains be-yond. Excited miners blasted a widerpassage so twisted and narrow that incertain spots its sides almost touchabove your head. But clearance isn'tthe greatest danger. High on thecanyon walls hangs the great OdessaMine that made millionaires of agentleman named John Daggett, whowound up as a Lt. Governor of Cali-fornia, and his partner W. S. Stow.This mountain is almost entirely gut-ted and what used to be inside of it

    The restoration of C alico is the finest of any ghost town in the W est.is now outsidethousands of tons ofgravel held aloft by a wooden retain-ing wall. In places the wood hasrotted and fallen away and slides ofgravel form thick layers between thecanyon walls. At any moment theslightest tremble of the earth, or eventhe crackle of a jet sm ashing the soundbarrier, could loosen the avalancheand send it pounding into the tightcanyon road. The re would be notime for escape.

    Safer, and actually more fun to ex-plore, is Mule Canyon and PhillipsDrive. The mouth of this canyon islocated in a dry lake called Mohavia

    by geologists because some of themost typical aspects of the ancientland mass are found near its center.Three-toed horses and prehistoriccamel roamed its verdant plains, untilancient upheavals changed the layof the land by throwing up moun-tain ranges which prevented silt frompassing to the Pacific. Th is accumu-lated into gravel beds thousands offeet deep. Then volcanos erupted andburied everythingforests of palms,yuccas and locustsunder a thicklayer of tuff. Kneaded together withlava and folded into multi-coloredstratas, this geological stew is calledthe Rosamond series and is one ofBill Wessel digs among debris in Tin Can Alley, hopingto find a purple bottle. Our only shade atop Mu le Canyon where we paused forlunch was under the canopy of Frank's Pullman Camper.

    " V *

    November, 1964 / Desert Maaazine / 19

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    / thought I could lick the world. Then rigor mortis set in.

    had any horsesense, I wouldn't be here

    Queen of the Line.

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    Golden badlands seenfrom Zabrinski Point.

    D EATH VALLEY, isolated from theworld by mountain ranges and endlessmiles of barren land, is much the samenow as it was over 100 years ago when a grou pof pioneers arrived there one Christmas Eveby mistake. It was 1849, the year of the C ali-fornia Gold Rush . After finding a way ou t26 days later, miraculously, only one personhad lost his life. W he n safely on a passthrough the Panamint Mountains, one of thewomen turned and said, "Good bye, DeathValley." The name has stuck.People have called Death Valley manything s: vast, desolate, bleak, forbidden, stran ge,

    fantastic, compelling, weird, intriguing , beau -tiful, and the ultimate in desert scenery. Fromthe peaks of Dan te's View to the salt encrustedbadlands below sea level, there is an endlessview of multicolored and one-toned moun-tains, sand, gravel, volcanic rock, and an occa-sional deserted mining camp or ghost town.There are good black top roads now, im-proved dirt and gravel roads, walking andsaddle trails. There are five lodging places:the luxurious Furnace Creek Inn, the FurnaceCreek Ranch complex which includes cabins,

    a new motel, a trailer site, a camping site, res-taurant, theatre, recreation facilities, postoffice, museum and nearby Ranger Stationand golf course. There is a hotel in connectionwith Scotty's Castle, a hotel and motel unitsat Stove Pipe Wells, and one at Wild RoseStation. Only Wild Rose Station and Scotty'sCastle have been open in summer.The famed Borax companies, which be-gan in the 1880's, evoke pictures of 20-muleteams pulling high-wheeled creaking wagonsover agonizing miles of hot desert. But borax

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    Ruins at Rhyolite

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    mining in Death Valley was aban-doned early and moved to the highdesert of the Mojave, where borax isstill mined; not only because theMojave had a higher grade ore, butalso because it was just too hot below.Death Valley's temperature has beenas high as 134 in the shade.All-year accommodations may befound outside E'eath Valley at Pana-

    mint Springs and Shoshone in Cali-fornia and Beatty, Nevada. For thehardy, there are secondary campinggrounds at high elevations in thesummer. The desert is as treacher-ous today as it was when the pioneerscame through and summer travel inDeath Valley is not recommended.The winter visitor, too, can find him-self alone on des.erted roads which arenot patrolled all the time. The ParkSystem issues rules for the visitorwhich may save his life. The seasonis from October 15 to May 15, butthe Monument is open all year. ByApril or May, it is apt to be hotalready.Death Valley became a NationalMonument in 1933. Lying along theeastern edge of Southern Californiabordering Nevada, part of the Parkis in Nevada. The valley is 150 mileslong and ranges from 6 to 20 mileswide. In geological times, the Amar-gosa River (Bitter Waters) and theMojave River joined before theyreached Death Valley. Death Valleywas, and is, a natural trough, butthe Mojave River never reaches thevalley any more and the ArmagosaRiver seldom.Death Valley contains rocks of allthe great geological time divisionsand earth movements have been sogreat that rock masses form compli-cated patterns of crustal blocks, iso-

    Golden Canyon offers outstanding scenic splendor.

    Hot spring pool at Furnace Creek InnHorseback riders explore floor of Death Valley

    ' - - fl*i*^ite

    lated from one another by faulting,folding, tilting, and ancient lava flowand erosion. From the valley andvarious viewpoints a visitor can seethe rivers of sand and gravel calledfansthe alluvium which appears toflow onto the valley floor from nakedmountains.

    The Indians in the valley todayclaim to know nothing about the an-cient lake-dwellers believed to havelived in prehistoric times along therim of Lake Manly (now dry) . Th ePanamint Indians, an off-shoot of theShoshone Nation, drifted in s o m etime later, stayed, but made only abare living. They called the valleyTomesha, Ground Afire. Th eir sub-sistence consisted mostly of cactusseeds, grass seeds, mesquite beans, andpine nuts from the Pinon trees ofhigher elevations. A few Indianfamilies winter in Death Valley today,occupying adobe houses the FederalGovernment built for them near Fur-nace Creek Ranch. They no longerfollow the Indian rituals or customsand they are there for their own en-joyment.A brief resume of trips which may

    be taken on a three - day stay inDeath Valley are as follows. In addi-tion, there are a number of others.Rhyolite, Nevada (three hoursfrom Furnace Creek Center), wasabandoned 60 years ago and a moreforbidding looking ghost town wouldbe hard to find. All that is left areslabs of stone walls, an ugly Victorianrailroad station, the gate to the townand a house made of bottles. FromRhyolite the visitor can drive throughTitus Canyon and stop to exploreLeadville where a crafty speculator

    began a boom 40 years ago that burstwithin a year because the lead was lowgrade. It is reported that miners builthouses along the edge of the canyon,24 / Desert Magazine / November, 1964

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    by Lyman NashPALE SLIVER of moon rideshigh over the distant moun-tain. Th ere is a nip in the airand the prospector inches a littlecloser to the fire.

    ' I t won't be long now," he tellshimself, "not long at all and I'll beon Easy Street. Yes, sir, tom orrow orthe next day I'm sure to find thatledge of quartz."O u t of the rising smoke laughs theghost of fake Breyfogle, laughing ashe laughed through the smoke ofcountless fires on countless nights like

    this. But the prospector knows thatJake can't go on laughing forever. Sohe lights his battered corn cob pipeand dreams his golden dream.It was Breyfogle who first discover-ed the ledge, stumbled upon it in1862, qu ite by accident. He w asn'ttoo interested at the time, being moreconcerned with eluding Indians, find-ing water and getting back to civiliza-tion. Later, when he recovered fromhis ordeal, Breyfogle went back tostake his claim. Only the mine w asn'twhere he left it , or thought he left

    it , and no one has seen it since.Unti l he tripped over a fortune,Breyfogle's life never came under closescrut iny. Nobody cared much wherehe came from or what he did. He mayhave been a blacksmith or possibly aprospector, but by all accounts hewas a massive pillar of muscle with ashiny bald head and a pair of enor-mo us feet. In the summ er of 1862Breyfogle and two Irishmen, O'Ban-nion and McCleod, set out from LosAngeles to walk to a silver strikealong the Reese River, near Austin,Nevada .By late June the trio had crossedthe Mojave Desert and were coming

    down the Death Valley side of thePanamint Range . One night theycamped by a small waterhole over-looking the val ley's maw. The twoIrishmen sacked out close together,but Breyfogle spread his bedroll sev-eral hundred yards away, down theslope.

    Around midnight he was awakenedby a scream. A war party of Paiuteshad murdered his companions andwere rifling their bodies. Despite hishuge size Breyfogle wasn't a braveman, but he turned out to be an ex-ceedingly tough one. Crazed withfear, he grabbed his shoes and fledbarefoot down the mountain. Day-light found him on the floor of DeathValley.

    You no longer hear of people dyingthere, but Death Valley came by itsnam e rightly. In those days to crossit at any time was dan gero us. T ocross it during summer was suicide. Ifthe sun didn' t get you, thirst would,or maybe a sidewinder.Somehow Breyfogle made it. With-out a hat . W itho ut water. Alone.Reaching the foothills of the Fun-erals, he was sick from the sun and

    in an agony of thirst. T h en , high ona brooding slope, he saw three whitepatches. The white meant l imestone.Limestone meant water. He began tocl imb.Toil ing upward, half del irious, hecame to a ledge of pink quartz. Itwas mighty fine looking pink quartzso he lopped off a few chunks andwrapped them in a blue bandana .Finally he reached one of the whitepatches and found water. He drank,rested, filled his shoes and started on,still heading lor Austin. Coming to

    a young mesquite t ree, he ate someof i ts green beans and drank a shoe-ful of water. After that he blankedout .

    Days later they found Jake Brey-fogle struggling barefoot along theold Mormon Trai l , nearly dead fromexposure and out of his min d. T hetop of his bald head was blistered tothe bone, and his enormous feet re-sembled raw ham burg er. In his han dhe c lutched the blue bandana cram-med with the chunks of pink quartz.And the pink quartz was rot tenwith gold!It took Breyfogle a long time torecover his hea lth. His feet wereslow to heal and six months passedbefore hi s ba ld head once a g a i nshined like a waxed honeydew. Th enhe headed back to the Funerals to

    claim his fortune. In the Panam intshe located the skeletons of O'Bannionand McCleod. From there he re-traced his steps across Death Valley,saw the three white patches and start-ed towa rd them . Bu t the ledge ofpink quartz, worth a fortune to theton, had disappeared.Breyfogle looked for it the rest ofhis life and never found it. Neitherdid the thousands of others who fol-lowed in his wake. Men are stillhunt ing i t today.Now there are some who claim theLost Breyfogle is actually the Bull-frog mine at Rhyoli te , while othersmaintain i t is the Jumbo X at Gold-field. But a sample of gold heavyquartz, said to be Breyfogle's, is inthe courthouse at Austin, Nevada,and i t doesn' t match ei ther of thosetwo ores.The most popular theory is thatone of the violent thunderstorms thatoccasionally shake the area coveredthe ledge with tons of stone and dirt.Or perhaps Breylogle got mixed up

    on his bearings and the ledge is rightwhere it always was, the gold glintingin the sun, waiting to be rediscovered.Perhaps the prospector drawn up to26 / Desert Magazine / November, 1964

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    his fire is rightJake can't go onlaughing forever.Other ghosts dance above othercampfires. Not far away another pros-

    pector throws a blanket over Bessie,his burro, and returns to dream of amountain of silver.In a wagon train moving west wasan immigrant who had broken thesight from his gun. To replace it hedug a piece of malleable metal fromthe side of a hill, twisting it aroundthe barrel. When hereached thenextsettlement, he took the gun to a gun-smith, asking him to fashion the rawmetal into a proper sight."Why, this is pure silver," said theastounded gunsmith."I t is?" gulped the even more as-tounded immigrant. "Well, I ranacross a whole mountain of thestuff.""Where?""I don't know for sure. Back alongthe trail somewhere. Shouldn't betoo hard to find."It was harder than he thought.News of the silver mountain spreadlike wildfire, attracting prospectorslike moths to a candle. They werestill looking for it when JimMarshallpicked up an ounce of yellow dust atSutter's Mill andchanged thehistoryof the United States. As soon asallthe free gold had been looted from

    the streams andmountains, menoncemore started thinking of silver. Butno one ever found theLost Gunsight.Legends like these live in thesmoke

    of a thousand campfires. Hunkerdown by the embers after the beansare gone and the flames have burnedlow and the night wind murmurs inthe pines, andyou'll hear about theselost mines. About theChicken Crawmine in Nevada where nuggets werefound in chicken craws. About theBlue Bucket up in Oregon where chil-dren collected gold nuggets in a toyblue pail. Orwas it in Idaho? Where-ever it was, the mother lode stillwaits.Almost certainly you'll hear about

    White's Lost Cement Mine. Nobodyknows if White had a front handle tohis name or not, but in 1858 he ar-rived inHorse Head Gulch, Colorado,with a burro load of hard clay con-taining gold. The clay assayed at$15,000 to the ton.At gunpoint White was forced tolead therest of thecamp to thesourceof his clay. Instead, he led the campon a wild goose chase before he wasable to escape. Half the expeditionperished in a blizzard. Theother halfgave up in disgust.In 1861White showed up in SaltLake City with more of the "cement,"even richer in gold than the firstbatch. A few days later he and his

    burro walked out of town and dis-appeared forever. With himwent thesecret of his bonanza.And as the smoke curls upward

    you canalmost seePegleg Smith beck-oning you to come look for hismine,perhaps the most completely lost ofall. They called him Pegleg becauseone of his legs was sturdy oak and onit, in the year 1837, he was stumpingfrom Yuma, Arizona to LosAngeles.When he got there he was weighteddown by $10,000 in gold nuggets."Found 'em on three hills near theColorado River," he said. "The topsare loaded with gold. All you gottado is bend over and scoop it up.Those hills are easy to spot. They

    stand by themselves between Walker'sand Warner's Pass and are sort ofyellowish at the bottom andblack ontop. Youcan't miss em."But miss them youcould andmissthem he did. Pegleg's oaken limbpunched holes all over that countryand he never saw those hills again.About the time of the Gold Rush hedropped out of existence and hisminewas forgotten. But shortly after theCivil War another gent arrived inLos Angeles with .$7,000 in nuggetsand a story very similar to Pegleg's.

    He'd found thenuggets on three blackhills just west of the Colorado.So Pegleg beckons through thesmoke; and to the lonely prospector

    aivcr tfve ncvooiv xaiC l 6 C l O l GTNovember, 1964 / Desert Maomit io / 27

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    sitting by his fire, the riddle of thevanished hills will be solved tomorrowor the day after tomorrow.There are other ghosts appearing inthe smoke. There's Jesse Ewing upUtah way and Adams down in GrantCounty, New Mexico, both with for-tunes for the finding. Yes, the old-timers had a knack for losing mines.Some they even lost twice, like theLost Phantom in Colorado. When lastseen, in 1881, the ore assayed at morethan $40,000 per ton.Not that mine losing was a particu-larly difficult pastime . Most werelost when the West was still in itsbrawling infancy, unsurveyed andpretty largely unexp lored. If a manwandered too far from the beatentrails, he stood a good chance of beingskewered by an Indian spear, andmore than one partnership wasquickly and permanently dissolved

    Peralta organized a last great expedi-tion into what are now Arizona'sSuperstition Mountains. There were400 men and 600 pack animals. Forweeks ore was dug, smelted and castinto ingots. Finally the expeditionstarted homeward, to Sonora in OldMexico.Meanwhile, in the surroundinghills, the Apaches were massing, readyto wreak blood vengeance on theMexicans for violating the home ofthe Thunder Gods. As the heavilyladen pack train wound out of themountains, a shrieking army ofApaches swept down on it, killing themen and slaughtering the animals.Two small boys who had hidden ina bush were the only survivors.Years passed. The boys grew tomanhood and returned to work themine. It was then that bearded JacobWalz entered the scene. Crossing Ari-

    . ** '%Old grubstake prospector Pete Daily wandered DeathValley for o ver 30 years.

    with a ball of lead. So a man w asn'tapt to spend too much time studyinglandmarks.Across the West fires burn and theghosts come out, to mock and jeerand lure you on and on. But brightestof all, and laughing fit to kill, is theshade of Jacob Walz, the Dutchman.

    It wasn't his, mine to begin with.He stole it from two Mexicans whotook it from Don Miguel Peralta who,in turn, had taken it from theApaches. Don Miguel had been grow-ing rich on the mine for years whenthe United States acquired the terri-tory through the treaty of GuadalupeHidalgo.Knowing the gringos wouldn't tol-erate his working the mine, Senor

    zona, he was set upon by Indians andin fleeing discovered a trail windinghigh into the Superstitions.Walz followed the trail and even-tually came to where the two menwere working the old Peralta diggings.It was the richest ore he had ever seen,nuggets big as walnuts that shimmer-ed in the light of a lantern like mini-ature suns. Walz claimed the mineby shooting the Mexicans and obli-terating all traces of the entrance.

    He worked the m ine for fifteenyears in secret. During that time atleast eight men shadowed him intothe Superstitions and never came out.In 1884 "Snowbeard the Dutchman"lay dying in his shack on the outskirtsof Phoenix.

    "Under my bed, in a chest, you'llfind some nuggets and a map to themine," he gasped to a friend. "T hemine is near a sharp peak calledWeaver's Needle and close by is apalo verde tree."The friend searched for years andwas never able to' find the en tranceto the shaft. As time marched thelegend of the Lost Dutchman became

    deadlier and deadlier. Over 100 menhave met death hunting it, mostly bymu rder. The list is still growing.In 1931 Adolph Ruth arrived inArizona from Washington, D.C., witha map to the mine and bursting withconfidence. Six months later hisskull was found near Weaver's Needle,neatly punctured by a bullet. Th erest of his body was found a halfmile away with all his personal be-longings. The only thing missing wasthe map.James A. Cravey met a similar fate17 years later, but this time therewere two bullet holes. In October,1960, an Austrian exchange studentat the University of Arizona fellunder the fatal spell of the LostDutchman. A coroner's jury returneda verdict of "murder by a person orpersons unknown." And just last yeara Denver research chemist was killedby a .38 slug as he stood gazing up atWeaver's Needle.Who is responsible for the killingsnone can say. A fanatic? A maniac?Perhaps a man who has found thegold or expects to find it and wantsto be sure no one will beat him toit? All we know for sure is that thegold is there, hidden somewhere nearthat sharp peak in the SuperstitionMountains, less than 50 miles east ofPhoenix. Un til the mystery is solved,men will continue to be lured by itspromise of fabulous wealth, and prob-ably con tinue to die in the quest. Butto the lonely prospector, asleep afterthe ghosts have departed, that is allpar t of the golden dream. Gold never

    did come easy and never will.So, as the pale moon chuckles tothe grey dawn, he crawls from hisblanket and prepares for another day,a day that might put him on EasyStreet. It's a wonderful dream thatnever comes true. For it is not thegold that fascinates the prospector-it is finding the gold.That's why, should you ever makea sharp turn onto Easy Street, you'lllook in vain for prospectors. They'll

    be off chasing their lonesome dreams,with only the ghosts of Breyfogle,Pegleg and Jacob Walz to share theirsolitude. / / /28 / Desert Mag azine / N ovember, 1964

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    S C E N E S B E H I N D T H E S C E N E SI N D E A T H V A L L E Y

    b y G a r y M o o r eUNTIL ONLY a few years ago,death wasn't hard to find inDeath Valley. Too little water,too little experience, and too muchlust gave the valley its name.

    Changed today, Death Valley meansrenewed health for many people anda pleasurable vacation spot for desertexplorers.Our route through this intriguingcountry differed from the usual ones,as we traveled in 4-wheel drive ve-

    hicles that carried us to the scenes be-hind the scenes.Our back-country trek started atDeath Valley Junction, known as the"Gateway to Death Valley," and loca-

    ted 90 miles north of Baker, Califor-nia on Highway 127.At Death Valley Junction, we stop-ped to collect wood for our campfire.In spite of its reputation, autumnnights in Death Valley can be cold.Supplied with wood, we backtrackedsouth for approximately one and two-tenths miles. You have to keep youreyes open for the turnoff here as ithas been hidden by grading on theshoulder of the road. Even so, theroad is barely discernible and shouldnot be attempted in a passenger car.After one mile, we stopped to makeour first night's camp.Dawn came early and soon thecoffee was gone and we were off onthe second leg of our journey. Fivemiles on the trail brought us to theLila C. Mine. The town of Ryan wasonce located here, but later movedto its present location on the westside of Greenwater Mountain.The Lila C. Mine covered most ofthe mountain on which it was located

    both above and below ground withtunnels, tailings shafts, and buildings.A generous litter from bygone days-shovels, canteens, cooking utensils-remained undisturbed by modernrelic seekers and we left it as wefound it. In a dugout near the minewere found an egg carton dated 1920,a 1923 newspaper and a tobaccowrapper with a 1901 tax stamp.Exploration over, we journeyedwestward towards Greenwater Can-yon. Ta kin g a chance, we crossed

    Rare relic at Panamint City is this150-foot stack. Slowly crumbing, itwill not last much longer.November, 1964 / Desert Magazine / 29

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    DEATH VALLEY JCT.

    a rotted wooden bridge. Fortun-ately it held up better than it lookedlike it would. Alter two miles we en-tered Greenwater Canyon.Greenwater Canyon is about 11miles long and not the most scenicdrive, but interesting. An old railroad

    used this canyon at one time. Almostall signs of it are gone now, but aslight bit of roadbed is evident hereand there. There were other signs ofoccupation along the canyon, such asrock foundations and piles of rustycans.From the canyon, we proceeded in-to Greenwater Valley. Two milesbrought us to the main dirt roadleading from Highway 190into DeathValley. One-half mile north on themain road is a sign which reads"Water 5 Mi." with an arrow point-

    ing up a dirt road.This is also the road to the oldtown of Greenwater. Anxious to seewater flowing from the dry desertfloor, we postponed exploring the siteof the town and passed through it inthe direction of additional signs indi-cating the spring. This was a mistake.The road ended in a small box can-yon where another sign read "Water100 ft." After dashing up the gully,we found our spring dry as dust.Moral: when traveling in the desert,don't trust signs!From here we retraced our trailto Greenw ater. Like most miningtowns, it was born overnight and

    within a year had a population of2000. The proud possessor of a 100,-000 bank, two newspapers, and amagazine called the Death ValleyGhuckwalla, Greenwat