While in San Bernardino he died. His relatives sold the remaining ore, which yielded $7200. They tried to find the claim but failed.
Shorty Harris heard of it months afterward and looked up Joe Button. With his own burros, Joe’s pack horses, and an Indian known as Ignacio, he set out. Cloudbursts had washed out the previous trails, filled gulches, levelled hills and so transformed the country that the Indian was unable to find any trace of his previous course; gave up the hunt and turned back.
Shorty cached his supplies and with the meager description Joe could give him, searched for weeks. At last he came upon a camp where he discovered a collection of pamphlets dealing with the occult, but no trails. It was apparent that these had been destroyed by floods and for two months Shorty searched for the diggings. A brush pile aroused his suspicions and removing it, he found the hole. “The ore had Uncle Sam’s eagle all over it,” Shorty said, “and the world was mine.”
“I returned to my camp, started spending the money. A million dollars for a rest home for old worn-out prospectors. Fifty thousand a year for all my pals....”
Shorty ate his supper, spread his blankets and went to sleep with his dream. In the middle of the night he awoke. Something was running over his blanket. He raised up and in the moonlight recognized the only thing on earth he was afraid of—the “hydrophobic skunk.”
“I started packing right now,” Shorty said, “and walked out. There’s a mine there and whoever wants it can have it. I don’t.”
THE LOST CANYON has some evidence of reality. Jack Allen, a miner and prospector of almost superhuman endurance, got drunk at Skidoo and filled with remorse and shame the morning after, decided to leave and seek a job at the Keane Wonder Mine, about 40 miles northeast across Death Valley. To save distance, Allen took a short cut over Sheep Mountain and in going through a canyon he picked up a piece of quartz and seeing a fleck of color, he broke it. Excited by its apparent richness he filled his pockets, noted his bearings and went on his way. When he reached the Keane Wonder he took the ore to Joe McGilliland, the company’s assayer, who became more excited than the finder. “I’ll put it in the button for half,” Joe said.
Allen agreed. The assay showed values as high as $20,000 to the ton. He closed his office and ran out to find Jack working in the mine. “Chuck this job,” he cried. “Go back to that claim quick as you can. Get your monuments up and record the notices.”
Jack Allen bought a burro, loaded his supplies and went back only to discover that a cloudburst had destroyed all his landmarks.
Both Shorty Harris and “Bob” Eichbaum, who established Stove Pipe Wells resort, considered this the best chance among all the legends of lost mines. It is wild, rough, and largely virgin country and because of that the hardiest prospectors always passed it by.
THE LOST JOHNNIE. An Indian known as Johnnie used to come into York’s store at Ballarat about once a month with gold in bullion form. He would sell it to York or trade it for supplies. Frequently he had credits amounting to a thousand or more dollars.
Other Indians soon learned of Johnnie’s mine and would trail him when he left town, but none were able to outsmart him. That it was near Arastre Spring was generally believed. Upon one occasion Johnnie was seen leaving the old arastre and disappear in the canyon. Immediately evidence that the arastre had been used within the hour was discovered. For years no prospector worked in that region without keeping his eyes peeled for Johnnie’s bonanza.
The first search for gold in Death Valley country was in Panamint Valley.
From the summit of the Slate Range on the road from Trona, one comes suddenly upon an enchanting and unforgettable view of the Panamint. If you are one who thrills at breath taking scenery you will not speak. You will stand and look and think. Your thoughts will be of dead worlds; of the silence spread like a shroud over all that you see.
Below, a yellow road twists in and out of hidden dry washes, around jutting hills to end in the green mesquite that hides the ghost town of Ballarat. There the Panamint lifts two miles—its gored sides a riot of pastelled colors.
If you have coached yourself with trivia of history it will require imagination’s aid to accept the fact that from this wasteland came fortunes and industries of world-wide fame. From New York to San Francisco on envied social thrones, sit the children and grandchildren of those who with pick and shovel, here dug the family fortune in ragged overalls.
Only recently a descendant of one of these, living in a city far removed, informed me her mansion was for sale, “because the neighborhood is being ruined....” A sheep herder newly rich on war profits, was moving in.
Eleven miles north of Ballarat, Surprise Canyon, which leads to Panamint City, opens on a broad, alluvial fan that tilts sharply to the valley floor.
In April, 1873, W. T. Henderson, whose first trip into Death Valley country was made to find the Lost Gunsight, came again with R. B. Stewart and R. C. Jacobs. In Surprise Canyon they discovered silver which ran as high as $4000 a ton and filed more than 80 location notices.
Henderson was an adventurer of uncertain character who had roamed western deserts like a nomad. During the Indian war that threatened extermination of the white settlers in Inyo county, Thieving Charlie, a Piute, was induced by outnumbered whites to approach his warring tribesmen under a flag of truce and succeeded in getting eleven of them to return with him to Camp Independence for a peace talk. Henderson, with two companions waylaid and murdered them.
He had been a member of the posse organized by Harry Love to shoot on sight California’s most famous bandit—Joaquin Murietta and boasted that he fired the bullet which killed the glamorous Joaquin. It was he who cut off and pickled the bandit’s head as evidence to get the reward. At the same time he pickled the hand of Three Fingered Jack Garcia, Joaquin’s chief lieutenant, and the bloodiest monster the West ever saw. Garcia had an odd habit of cutting off the ears of his victims and stringing them for a saddle ornament. The slaying of Joaquin was not a pretty adventure and as the details came out, Henderson renounced the honor.
The grewsome vouchers which obtained the reward became the attraction for the morbid on a San Francisco street and there above the din of traffic one heard a spieler chant the thrills it gave “for only two measly bits....” The exhibit was destroyed in the San Francisco fire and earthquake of 1906.
In his book, “On the Old West Coast” Major Horace Bell states that Henderson confided to him there was never a day nor night that Joaquin Murietta did not come to him and though headless, would demand the return of his head; that Henderson was never frightened by the apparition, which would vanish after Henderson explained why he couldn’t return the head and his excuse for cutting it off.
Bell quotes Henderson: “I would never have cut Joaquin’s head off except for the excitement of the chase and the orders of Harry Love.”
To give credence to the ghost story he says of Henderson, “He was for several years my neighbor and a more genial and generous fellow I never met....” Major Bell, it is known, was not always strictly factual.
Following the Surprise Canyon strike, Panamint City was quickly built and quickly filled with thugs who lived by their guns; gamblers and painted girls who lived by their wits.
An engaging sidewalk promoter known as E. P. Raines, who possessed a good front and gall in abundance, but no money, assured the owners of the Panamint claims that he could raise the capital necessary for development. He set out for the city, registered at the leading hotel, attached the title of Colonel to his name; exchanged a worthless check for $25 and made for the barroom. It was no mere coincidence that Mr. Raines before ordering his drink, parked himself alongside a group of the town’s richest citizens and began to toy with an incredibly rich sample of ore. It was natural that members of the group should notice it. Particularly the multimillionaire, Senator John P. Jones, Nevada silver king.
Soon the charming crook was the life of the party. His $25 spent, he actually borrowed $1000 from Jones. Having drunk his guests under the table, Mr. Raines went forth for further celebration and landed broke in the hoosegow. Hearing of his misadventure, his new friends promptly went to his rescue. “... Outrage ... biggest night this town ever had....”
To make amends for the city’s inhospitable blunder, Raines was taken to his hostelry, given a champagne bracer and made the honor guest at breakfast. “Where’s the Senator?” he asked. Informed that Senator Jones had taken a train for Washington, Raines quickened “Why, he was expecting me to go with him....” He jumped up, fumbled through his pockets in a pretended search for money. “Heavens—my purse is gone!” Instantly a half dozen hands reached for the hip and Mr. Raines was on his way.
It required but a few moments to get $15,000 from the Senator and his partner, Senator William R. Stewart, for the Panamint claims. He also sold Jones the idea of a railroad from a seaport at Los Angeles to his mines and this was partially built. The project ended in Cajon Pass. The scars of the tunnel started may still be seen.
Jones and Stewart organized the Panamint Mining Company with a capital of $2,000,000. Other claims were bought but immediate development was delayed by difficulties in obtaining title because many of the owners were outlaws, difficult to find. A few were located in the penitentiary and there received payment. For some of the claims the promoters paid $350,000.
On June 29, 1875, the first mill began to crush ore from the Jacobs Wonder mine. Panamint City became one of the toughest and most colorful camps of the West. It was strung for a mile up and down narrow Surprise Canyon. It was believed that here was a mass of silver greater than that on the Comstock and shares were active on the markets.
The most pretentious saloon in the town was that of Dave Nagle, who later as the bodyguard of U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, killed Judge David Terry, distinguished jurist, but stormy petrel of California Vigilante days. Judge Terry had represented, then married his client, the Rose of Sharon—Sarah Althea Hill—in her suit to determine whether she was wife or mistress of Senator Sharon, Comstock millionaire. Feuding had resulted with Field, the trial judge. Meeting in a railroad dining room, Judge Terry slapped Justice Field’s face and Nagle promptly killed Terry.
Poker at Panamint City was never a piker’s game. Bets of $10,000 on two pair attracted but little comment. Gunning was regarded as a minor nuisance, but funerals worried the town’s butcher. He had the only wagon that had survived the steep canyon road into the camp. “I bought it,” he complained, “to haul fresh meat, but since there’s no hearse I never know when I’ll have to unload a quarter of beef to haul a stiff to Sourdough Canyon.”
Panamint City attained an estimated population of 3,000. Harris and Rhine, merchants, having the only safe in the town permitted patrons to deposit money for safe keeping and often had large sums. On one occasion they had the $10,000 payroll of the Hemlock mine.
A clerk arriving early at the store, suddenly faced two gentlemen who directed him to open the safe and pass out the money. “Just as well count it as you fork it over,” one ordered. The clerk had counted $4000 when he was told to stop. “This’ll do for the present,” the spokesman said. “We’ll come back and get the rest.”
“Yeh,” added his partner. “Too damned many thugs in this town.”
They sallied forth on a spending spree. The down-and-out along the mile-long street received generous portions of the loot and a widow whose husband had been killed in a mine explosion, received $500.
These bandits, Small and McDonald, thereafter became incredibly popular and the legend follows that what they stole from those who had, they shared with those who hadn’t.
Wells-Fargo and Company offered a reward of $1000 for their capture, but their arrest was never accomplished. Invariably they were apprised of the approach of pursuers and simply retired to some convenient canyon. The bandits further endeared themselves to the citizenry when Stewart and Jones arranged for the importation of a hundred Chinese laborers.
This aroused the ire of the white miners and a meeting was called to protest. “This is a white man’s town,” was the cry of labor.
Small and McDonald agreed. “Just leave it to us,” they told the leaders. “No use in a lotta fellows getting hurt.” They stationed themselves at the mouth of the canyon and when the coolies arrived, a sudden volley from the bandits’ six-guns brought the caravan to a halt. The frightened Chinamen leaped from the hacks and fled in panic across the desert and Panamint remained a white man’s town.
Engaged at work around their hideout, Hungry Bill stopped to beg for food. They told the Indian to wait until they finished their task. His sullen impatience angered Small who booted him down the trail. Hungry Bill left cursing and told a prospector whom he met that he would return shortly with his tribesmen and assassinate the entire population.
Panamint City was warned but Small and McDonald declared that since they had started the trouble, they alone should end it. Accordingly, they set out for Hungry Bill’s ranch to stop the attack before it started. But near Hungry Bill’s stone corral they were ambushed by the Indians. The bandits shot their way into the corral and barricading themselves, killed and wounded about half of the renegades, after which the remainder fled.
Panamint City harbored a hoard of unsung assassins who merely lay in wait, shot the unwary victim down, took his poke, rolled the body into a ravine, went up town to spend the money.
One killer who came decided to dominate the field and with that in view he set forth to establish himself quickly as a gunman not to be trifled with. He chose to display his prowess upon an inoffensive, quiet faro dealer known as Jimmy Bruce, who, it was easy to see, “was just a chicken-livered punk.” The publicity of a well-done murder in such a setting would give prestige.
Armed with two guns, the bully contrived to start an argument with Bruce. The indoor white of the gambler seemed to grow whiter as the rage of his towering tormenter reached the climax. The players moved out of range. The bartenders ducked under the counter. Patrons helpless to intervene, fled from the kill.
A shot rang out. Cautiously, the bartenders lifted their heads. On the floor lay the bad man. Mr. Bruce was calmly lighting a cigar.
There was consternation among the killers. They swore vengeance. After five of them had fallen before Bruce’s gun, he was let alone.
The silent faro dealer, it was learned too late, was surpassingly quick on the trigger.
A spot somewhat distant from the regular cemetery was chosen for the burial place and it became known as Jim Bruce’s private graveyard.
Remi Nadeau, a French Canadian, was the first to haul freight into Panamint City. Nadeau was a genius of transportation. There was no country too rough, too remote, too wild for him. He came to Los Angeles in 1861 from Utah and teamed as far east as Montana.
The Cerro Gordo mine, on the eastern side of Owens Lake in Inyo County began to ship ore in 1869 and Nadeau obtained a contract to haul the ore to Wilmington where it was shipped by boat to San Francisco. He soon had to increase his equipment to 32 teams, using more than 500 animals. For his return trip he bought such commodities as he could peddle or leave for sale at stations he built along the route.
In 1872, the contract having expired, Judson and Belshaw, owners of the mine, received a lower bid and Nadeau was left with 500 horses on his hands and heavily in debt. He wanted to dispose of his outfit for the benefit of his creditors but they had confidence in him and persuaded him to “carry on.” Borax discovered in Nevada saved him. Meanwhile the lower bidder on the Cerro Gordo job proved unsatisfactory and Judson and Belshaw asked Nadeau to take the old job back. But now Nadeau informed them they would have to buy a half interest in his outfit and advance $150,000 to construct relay stations at Mud Springs, Mojave, Lang’s Springs, Red Rock, Little Lake, Cartago, and other points. They gladly agreed.
Shortly after Nadeau began hauling across the desert, he picked up a man suffering from gunshot and crazed from thirst. Taking the victim to his nearest station, he left instructions that he be cared for.
Sometime afterward, one of Nadeau’s competitors whose trains had been held up several times by outlaws, wondered why none of Nadeau’s teams or stations had been molested. At the time, Nadeau himself didn’t know that the fellow whom he’d picked up on the desert was Tiburcio Vasquez, the bandit terror.
Vasquez naively condoned his banditry. It disgusted him at dances he said, to see the senoritas of his race favor the interloping Americans. He had a singular power over women. When Sheriff William Rowland effected his capture, women of Los Angeles filled his cell with flowers. He was hanged at San Jose.
Nadeau was now hauling ore from the Minnietta and the Modoc mines in the Argus Range on the west side of Panamint Valley. The Modoc was the property of George Hearst, the father of the publisher, William Randolph Hearst. These mines were directly across the valley from Panamint City and because of Nadeau’s record for building roads in places no other dared to go, Jones and Stewart engaged him to haul out of Surprise Canyon, which was barely wide enough in places for a burro with a pack.
On a hill, locally known as “Seventeen”—that being the per cent of grade, located on the old highway between Ballarat and Trona, one may see the dim outline of a road pitching down precipitously to the valley floor. This road was built by Nadeau and one marvels that anything short of steam power could move a load from bottom to top.
Acquiring a fortune, Nadeau built the first three-story building in Los Angeles and the Nadeau Hotel, long the city’s finest, retained favor among many wealthy pioneer patrons long after the more glamorous Angelus and Alexandria were built in the early 1900’s.
The first ore from the Panamint mines was shipped to England and because of its richness showed a profit, but difficulties arose in recovery processes which they did not know how to overcome. The mines would have paid fabulously under present day processes.
Finis was written to the story of Panamint after two hectic years and in 1877 Jones and Stewart had lost $2,000,000 and quit. It would be more factual to state that since they had received from the public $2,000,000 to put into it, who lost what is a guess.
The previous chapter records accepted history of the silver discovery at Panamint City. Indian George Hansen had another version which he told me at his ranch 11 miles north of Ballarat. It fits the period and the people then in the country.
George, when a youngster lived in the Coso Range. East of the Coso there was no white man for 100 miles and renegades fleeing from their crimes and deserters from the Union army sought hideouts in the Panamint. Thus George was employed as a guide by three outlaws to lead them to safe refuge.
George, a Shoshone, had both friends and relatives among the Shoshones and the Piutes and took the bandits into Surprise Canyon where a camp for the night was chosen. While staking out his pack animals, George discovered a ledge of silver ore. Breaking off a chunk, he stuck it into his pocket, saying nothing about it until they were out of the locality. Then he showed the specimen and to promote a deal, gave one of them a sample. They wanted to see the ledge but George refused to disclose it. Then George said the three fellows stepped aside and after talking in whispers told him they didn’t like the country and returning with him to the Coso Range, went on their way. Two or three months later they were back to bargain.
George had traded with the white man before. They had always given him a few dollars and a rosy promise. “Now me pretty foxy. So I say, ‘no want money. Maybe lose.’ Him say, ‘what hell you want?’
“‘Heap good job all time I live.’
“‘Okay,’ him say. ‘We give you job.’
“I show claim.” George paused, a look of smoldering hate in his dark eyes, then added: “I get job. Two weeks. Him say, ‘you fired.’ I get $50.”
All Indians and many of the old timers believe that the ledge George found was that for which Jones and Stewart paid $2,000,000.
George made another deal worthy of mention. The town of Trona on Searles’ Lake needed the water owned by George’s relative, Mabel, who herded 500 goats and sold them to butchers at Skidoo, Goldfield, and Rhyolite where they became veal steak or lamb chops. Trona offered $30 a month for the use of the water. Mabel consulted George as head man of the Shoshones and advised Trona that the sum would not be considered. It must pay $27.50 or do without. A superstition regarding numbers accounted for the price George fixed for the water.
My acquaintance with Indian George began on my first trip to Ballarat with Shorty Harris and was the result of a stomach ache Shorty had. I suggested a trip to a doctor at Trona instead.
“No, sir. I’ll see old Indian George. If these doctors knew as much as these old Indians, there wouldn’t be any cemeteries.”
I asked what evidence he had of George’s skill.
“Plenty. You know Sparkplug (Michael Sherlock)? He was in a bad way. Fred Gray put a mattress in his pickup, laid Sparkplug on it and hauled him over to Trona. Nurses took him inside. Doctor looked him over and came out and asked Fred if he knew where old Sparkplug wanted to be buried. ‘Why, Ballarat, I reckon,’ Fred said.
“Well, you take him back quick. He’ll be dead when you get there. Better hurry. He’ll spoil on you this hot weather.’
“Fred raced back, taking curves on Seventeen with two wheels hanging over the gorge, but he made it; stopped in front of Sparkplug’s shack, jumped out and called to me to bring a pick and shovel. Then he ran over to Bob Warnack’s shack for help to make a coffin. Indian George happened to ride by the pickup and saw Sparkplug’s feet sticking out. He crawled off his cayuse, took a look, lifted Sparkplug’s eyelids and leaving his horse ground-hitched, he went out in the brush and yanked up some roots here and there. Then he went up to Hungry Hattie’s and came back with a handful of chicken guts and rabbit pellets; brewed ’em in a tomato can and when he got through he funneled it down Sparkplug’s throat and in no time at all Sparkplug was up and packing his flivver to go prospecting. If you don’t believe me, there’s Sparkplug right over there tinkering with his car.”
George’s age has been a favorite topic of writers of Death Valley history for the last 30 years.
I stopped for water once at the little stream flumed out of Hall’s Canyon to supply the ranch. He was irrigating his alfalfa in a temperature of 122 degrees. I had brought him three or four dozen oranges and suggested that Mabel would like some of the fruit.
“Heavy work for a man of your age,” I said.
He bit into an orange, eating both peeling and pulp. “Me papoose. Me only 107 years old.”
There were less than a dozen oranges left when I began to cast about for a tactful way to preserve a few for Mabel. Seeing her chopping wood in the scorching sun I said, “I’ll bet Mabel would like an orange just now. Shall I call her?”
“No—no—” George grunted. “Oranges heap bad for squaw,” and speeding up his eating, he removed the last menace to Mabel.
Once George told me of watching the sufferings of the Jayhawkers and Bennett-Arcane party:
“Me little boy, first time I see white man. Whiskers make me think him devil. I run. I see some of Bennett party die. When all dead, we go down. First time Indians ever see flour. Squaws think it what make white men white and put it on their faces.”
I asked George why he didn’t go down and aid the whites. “Why?” he asked, “to get shot?”
“How many Shoshones are left?” I asked George.
He counted them on his fingers. “Nineteen. Soon, none.”
George died in 1944 and it is safe I believe, to say that for 110 years he had baffled every agency of death on America’s worst desert. Because his ranch was a landmark and the water that came from the mountains was good, it was a natural stopping place and he was known to thousands. Following a curious custom of Indians George adopted the Swedish name Hansen because it had euphony he liked.
The Panamint is the locale of the legend of Swamper Ike, first told I believe by Old Ranger over a nation-wide hookup, while he was M.C. of the program “Death Valley Days.”
A daring, but foolhardy youngster, with wife and baby, undertook to cross the range. Unacquainted with the country and scornful of its perils, he reached the crest, but there ran out of water. He left his wife and the baby on the trail, comfortably protected in the shade of a bluff and started down the Death Valley side of the range to find water.
After a thorough search of the canyons about, he climbed to a higher level, scanned the floor of the valley. Seeing a lake that reflected the peaks of the Funeral Range he made for it under a withering sun. He learned too late that it was a mirage and exhausted, started back only to be beaten down and die.
After waiting through a night of terror, the young mother prepared a comfortable place for her baby and went in search of her husband. She too saw the blue lake and made for it, saw it vanish as he had. Then she discovered his tracks and undertook to follow him, but she also was beaten down and fell dead within a few feet of his lifeless body.
A band of wandering Cocopah Indians crossing the range, found the baby. They took the child to their own habitation on the Colorado river and named him Joe Salsuepuedes, which is Indian for “Get-out-if-you-can.”
Joe grew up as Indian, burned dark by the desert sun. But he had an idea he wasn’t Indian. Learning that he was a foundling, picked up in the Panamint, he set out for Death Valley, possessed of a singular faith that somehow he would discover evidence that he was a white man.
He obtained a job as swamper for the Borax Company. When he gave his name the boss said, “Too many Joe’s working here. We’ll call you Ike.”
Early Indians, as you may see in Dead Man’s Canyon, the Valley of Fire, and numerous canyons in the western desert had a habit of scratching stories of adventure or signs to inform other Indians of unusual features of a locality on the canyon walls—often coloring the tracing with dyes from herbs or roots. Knowing this, Swamper Ike was always alert for these hieroglyphs on any boulder he passed or in any canyon he entered.
One day Swamper Ike went out to look for a piece of onyx that he could polish and give to the girl he loved. While seeking the onyx he noticed a flat slab of travertine and on it the picture story of “Get-out-if-you-can.”
Swamper Ike had justified his faith.
In the early 1890’s gold discovered on the west side of the Panamint in Pleasant Canyon caused the rush responsible for Ballarat. For more than 20 years the district had been combed by prospectors holed in at Post Office Spring, about one half mile south of the site upon which Ballarat was subsequently built. Here the government had a small army post and here soldiers, outlaws, and adventurers received their mail from a box wired in the crotch of a mesquite tree.
The Radcliffe, which was the discovery mine was a profitable producer. The timbers and machinery were hauled from Randsburg over the Slate Range and across Panamint Valley, to the mouth of the canyon. There, under the direction of Oscar Rogers, it was packed on burros and taken up the steep grade to the mine site.
Copperstain Joe, a noted half-breed Indian made the next strike. With a specimen, he went to Mojave where he showed it to Jim Cooper. For five dollars and a gallon of whiskey he led Cooper to the site.
But his deal with Cooper interested me less than the cunning of his burro, Slick. Copperstain strode into a hardware store and asked for a lock. “It’s for Slick’s chain. Picks a lock soon as I turn my back—dam’ him.”
The merchant showed him a lock of intricate mechanism, “He won’t pick this. Costs more, but worth it.”
“I don’t care what it costs,” Copperstain said and bought it. Later he looped the chain around the burro’s feet, fastened the links with the lock and tethered Slick to a stake. “That’ll hold you—” he said defiantly.
The next morning he was back in the store, belligerent. “Helluva lock you sold me. Slick picked it in no time.”
“Impossible.”
“The burro’s gone, ain’t he?” Copperstain bristled, and reaching into his pocket, produced the lock. “See that nail in the keyhole? I didn’t put it there. Slick just found a nail—that’s all.”
The future of Pleasant Canyon seemed assured and it was decided to move the two saloons and grocery to the flats below, where a town would have room to grow.
When citizens met to choose a name, George Riggins, a young Australian suggested the new town be given a name identified with gold the world over. Ballarat in his native country met the requirement and its name was adopted.
Shorty Harris discovered The Star, The Elephant, the World Beater, The St. Patrick. In Tuba, Jail, Surprise, and Goler Canyons more strikes were made. It is curious that none were made in Happy Canyon.
The production figures of early mines are rarely dependable and the yield is often confused with that obtained by swindlers from outright sale or stock promotion. My friend, Oscar Rogers, superintendent, told me the Radcliffe produced a net profit of approximately $500,000. Less authentic are figures attributed to the following:
The O. B. Joyful in Tuba Canyon, $250,000; The Gem in Jail Canyon, $150,000; and Shorty Harris’ World Beater, $200,000.
Among the noted of Ballarat residents was John LeMoyne, a Frenchman. He discovered a silver mine in Death Valley but the best service he gave the desert was a recipe for coffee. He walked into Ballarat one day and had lunch. The lady who owned the cafe asked if everything suited. “All but the coffee,” John said.
“How do you make your coffee?” she asked.
“Madame, there’s no trick about making good coffee. Plenty coffee. Dam’ little water.”
From one end of Death Valley country to the other, coffee is judged by John LeMoyne’s standard. You may not always get it, but mention it and the waiter will know.
For years LeMoyne held his silver claim in spite of offers far beyond its value, which he believed was $5,000,000. But once when the urge to return to his beloved France was strong and Goldfield, Tonopah, and Rhyolite excited the nation, he weakened and decided to accept an offer said to have been $200,000. “But,” he told the buyers, “it must be cash.”
After a huddle, John’s demand was met and a check offered. John brushed it aside. “But this eez not cash,” he complained. No, he wouldn’t go to town to get the cash. He had work to do. “You get eet.”
Disgusted, the buyers left and John LeMoyne continued to wear his rags, eat his beans, and dream of La Belle France.
A young Shoshone Indian came into Keeler excited as an Indian ever gets, looked up Shorty Harris and said: “Short Man, your friend go out. No come back. Maybe him sick.” It was midsummer, but LeMoyne had undertaken to reach his claim.
In the bottom of the valley, Shorty identified LeMoyne’s tracks by a peculiar hobnail which LeMoyne used in his shoes. He followed the tracks to Cottonwood Spring and there found an old French pistol which he knew had belonged to LeMoyne. Convinced he was on the right trail, he went on and after a mile or two met Death Valley Scotty.
“I know why you’re here,” Scotty said. “I’ve just found his body.”
LeMoyne was partially eaten by coyotes and nearby were his dead burros. Though tethered to the mesquite with slender cotton cords which they could easily have broken, the patient asses had elected to die beside him.
And there ended the dream of the glory trail back to the France he loved. Those who believe in the jinx will find something to sustain their faith in the record of John LeMoyne’s mine.
After LeMoyne’s death, Wild Bill Corcoran who had made and lost fortunes in the lush days of Rhyolite, set out from Owens Valley to relocate it. Never a ranting prohibitionist, Bill believed that the best remedy for snake bite was likker in the blood when the snake bit. When he reached Darwin he was not feeling well and stopped long enough for a nip with friends and to get a youngster to drive his car and help at the camp.
It was midsummer, with record temperature but Bill wanted John LeMoyne’s mine. Becoming worse in the valley he stopped in Emigrant Canyon and sent the boy back for a doctor. Bill crawled into an old shack under the hill. When the boy and the doctor came, they found Bill Corcoran on the floor, his hand stretched toward a bottle of bootleg liquor. His soul had gone over the hill.
One after another, five others followed Bill to file on LeMoyne’s claim and each in turn joined Bill over the hill.
LeMoyne’s Christian name was Jean. His surname has been spelled both Lemoigne and Lemoine. The claim from which Indians had formerly taken lead was filed upon by LeMoyne in 1882.
Joe Gorsline, a graduate of Columbia, with a background of wealth, came to Ballarat during the rush, looked over the town. “Wouldn’t spend another day in this dump for all the gold in the mint,” he announced. He had a few drinks, heard a few yarns, eyed a few girls in the honkies. It was all new to Joe, but something about the informalities of life appealed to him and in a little while he was renamed Joe Goose.
Then the town’s constable shot its Judge and Ballarat chose him to succeed the deceased. Not liking the laws of the code, he made a batch of his own, which were never questioned. While watching the flow of time and liquor, he “went desert” and put aside the things that might have been for the more alluring things-as-they-are.
When Ballarat became a ghost town, Joe Gorsline took his body to the city, but his soul remained and years afterward when he died, a hearse came down the mountain and in it was Joe Gorsline, home again. He is buried in a little cemetery out on the flat and in the spring the golden sun cups, grow all around and you walk on them to get to his grave.
Adding a cultural touch to Ballarat was an English nobleman who “going desert” tossed his title out of the window, donned overalls and brogans and promptly earned the approving verdict, “An all right guy.” Soon he was drinking with the toper and dancing with the demimonde. Like others, he did his own cooking and washing. He lived in a ’dobe cabin which, because it was on the main street, had its window shades always down.
But there was one little custom of his British routine he never abandoned and this was discovered by accident. He stopped in John Lambert’s saloon one evening before going to his cabin for dinner. He left his watch on the bar and had gone before Lambert noticed it. An hour later Lambert, having an opportunity to get away, took the watch to the cabin. John thus reported what he saw: “He was eating his dinner and bigod—he had on a white shirt, wing collar, and swallow tail.”
Ballarat chuckled but no one suggested a lynching party. They knew how deep grow the roots in the soil one loves. “Maybe,” said Lambert, “that’s why John Bull always wins the last battle. They give up nothing.”
A familiar figure throughout Death Valley country was Johnny-Behind-the-Gun—small and wiry and as much a part of the land as the lizard. His moniker was acquired from his habit of settling disputes without cluttering up the courts. Johnny, whose name was Cyte, accounted for three or four sizable fortunes. Having sold a claim for $35,000 he once bought a saloon and gambling hall in Rhyolite, forswearing prospecting forever.
Johnny advertised his whiskey by drinking it and the squareness of his game, by sitting in it. One night the gentleman opposite was overwhelmed with luck and his pockets bulged with $30,000 of Johnny’s money. Having lost his last chip, Johnny said, “I’ll put up dis place. Ve play vun hand and quit.”
Johnny lost. He got up, reached for his hat. “Vell, my lucky friend, I’ll take a last drink mit you.” He tossed the liquor, lighted a cigar. “Goodnight, chentlemen,” he said. “I go find me anudder mine.”
Johnny had several claims near the Keane Wonder in the Funeral Mountains, held by a sufferance not uncommon among old timers, who respected a notice regardless of legal formalities.
Senator William M. Stewart, Nevada mining magnate, had employed Kyle Smith, a young mining engineer to go into the locality and see what he could find. Smith, a capable and likable chap, in working over the districts, located several claims open for filing by reason of Johnny’s failure to do his assessment work.
It is not altogether clear what happened between Johnny and Smith, but Smith’s body was found after it had lain in the desert sun all day. There being no witnesses the only fact produced by sheriff and coroner was that Smith was dead. Johnny went free. Other escapades with Johnny-Behind-the-Gun occurred with such frequency that he was finally removed from the desert for awhile as the guest of the state.
In a deal with Tom Kelly, Johnny was hesitant about signing some papers according to an understanding. His trigger quickness was explained to Kelly who was not impressed. He went to Johnny and asked him to sign up. Johnny refused. Kelly said calmly, “Johnny, do you see that telephone pole?”
“Yes, I see. Vot about?”
“If you don’t sign, you’re going to climb it.” Johnny signed. He put his gun away when he acquired a lodging house at Beatty, where he died in 1944.
Reminiscing one day in the old saloon he had owned, Chris Wichts slapped the bar: “I’ve taken as much as $65,000 over this old bar in one month.” He had none of it now but in a little cabin in Surprise Canyon with a stream running by his door, and a memory that retained only the laughs of his life, he didn’t need $65,000.
“A city fellow came into the cafe one day. Snooty sort. I told him we had some nice tender burro steaks. He flew off the handle. Said he wanted porterhouse or nothing. I served him. When he finished he apologized for being rude and said his porterhouse was good as he ever ate. I went into the kitchen and came back with a burro shank, shoved it in his face and said, ‘Mister, you ate the meat off this burro leg.’ I thought he’d murder me.”
One day when Ballarat travel was heavy, a dapper passenger dropped off the stage, entered the saloon, bought a drink and paid for it with a $20 gold piece, getting $19.50 in change. When he’d gone, Shorty Harris standing by said: “Chris, that money doesn’t sound right.”
Chris examined it. The gold piece had been split, hollowed out and filled with alloy. Chris worried awhile, then brightened when he noticed his place was full of loafers playing solitaire; pulling at soggy pipes; waiting for a “live one.” “Boys,” said Chris, “old Whiskers ain’t getting much play. Let’s go down and see him.”
Whiskers was his competitor down the street.
A few moments later the bat-wing doors of Whiskers’ place flew open and Chris and his bums swarmed in. Chris laid an arm on the bar. “What’ll it be fellows?” Then he turned to the loafers along the walk “Line up, you guys and have a drink.”
They did and when the drinks were downed, Chris laid the phony gold piece on the bar, received his change and with his crowd returned to his bar. An hour later he was still laughing to himself over the trick he’d played on Whiskers when his own sawed-off doors flapped open and Whiskers barged in, followed by his own mob of moochers. Whiskers ordered for the house and laid down the $20. Chris gulped and gave the change.
That coin circulated in every store and saloon in Ballarat for more than a year. Everybody knew it was phony, but accepted it without question and came to regard it with something akin to affection. Then one day a gentleman in spats came along and the $20 gold piece left forever.
Billy Heider, a slim, genial fellow who had been a hat salesman in a smart toggery shop in Los Angeles came not for gold but to escape alimony. His easy smile masked a stubbornness that nothing could conquer. “... she got a smart lawyer and dated the Judge,” Billy said.
He hung his bench-made suit on a peg, slipped into overalls, cut off one sleeve of his tuxedo to cover a canteen, spread the rest on the floor beside his bed to step on in the morning and so—transition. Eventually he began to prospect, kept at it for 20 years; found nothing, but he beat alimony.
Usually mines were “salted” in shaft or tunnel to separate the sucker from his money, but it remained for a Ballarat woman to find a simpler way.
Michael Sherlock, known as Sparkplug, because of continual trouble with that feature of his automobile, gave me her formula: “She owned a claim in Pleasant Canyon that had a showing of gold. She wanted $10,000 for it. A rich auto dealer came along to look at it. He was worth at least $5,000,000. She told him to take his mining engineer and get his own samples and when he got back she’d have a chicken dinner waiting.
“They got the samples, came down, parked the car in front of her house, got their bellies full of chicken and went back to the city. A couple of days later the millionaire was back. Couldn’t get his money into her hands quick enough. Word went out there would be work enough for all comers and we figured on boom times. But he couldn’t find ore to match her samples.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“While he was eating chicken dinner that night, her Indian hired man went out to his auto and switched samples.”
I asked Sparkplug why he didn’t sue her.
“If you had $5,000,000 would you want the whole dam’ state laughing at you?”
Randsburg, which boomed in the early Eighties as a result of gold strikes in the Yellow Aster, the King Solomon, and later the Kelly silver mine, soon became one of the principal eastern gateways to the Panamint and to Death Valley by way of Granite Wells and Wingate Pass.
A curious story of a man haunted by his conscience is that of William Dooley and told to me by Dr. Samuel Slocum, who had come to Randsburg from Arizona after making a fortune in gold.
A howling blizzard had driven everyone from the streets and the campers in Fiddlers’ Gulch into Billy Hevron’s saloon. Dr. Slocum, lost in the blinding snow and stumbling along the street, felt with his hands for walls he couldn’t see, while a barroom noise guided him to the door.
At the bar he saw William Paddock, mining engineer. “Bill, you’re the man I’m looking for. I can’t find anyone who can tell me how to get to Goler Canyon in Panamint Valley. You’ve been there and I want you to draw me a map.”
Paddock, finishing a drink ordered one for Slocum and introduced him to a man at his side: “This is Mr. Dooley,” Paddock said, and the doctor saw a great hulk of a man with black whiskers, small eyes, and an uneasy look. Before a word was spoken Slocum sensed Dooley’s instant dislike of him.
Slocum ordered a round of drinks. Dooley refused and walked to the farther end of the bar.
Paddock followed Dooley after a moment, talked with him and returned to his drink. He said to Slocum: “I’m in a curious situation. I don’t know much about Dooley, but down in Mexico he saved my life. Now it’s my turn to save his. He just killed a man in Arizona and came here to hide out. I’m taking him to Goler Canyon soon as this blizzard is over. He thinks you are a deputy U. S. Marshal and claims that he has seen you before and that you are no doctor.”
“He may have seen me in Arizona at Gold Hill,” Slocum said.