197701 Desert Magazine 1977 January

8/14/2019 197701 Desert Magazine 1977 January

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JANUARY, 1977 75c

M A G A Z I N E OF T H E S O U T H W E S T


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Gomevisit

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W ILLIAM and JOY KNYVETTCo-Publishers/ E ditorsGEORGE BRAGA, Art DirectorMARY FRANCES STRONG, Field Trip EditorF. A. BARNES, Utah Associate EditorGLENN VARGAS, Lapidary EditorK. L. BOYNTON, NaturalistMARVEL BARRETT, Circulation ManagerColor SeparationsbyHenry Color ServiceLithographedbyWolfer Printing Company, Inc.Available in MicrofilmbyXerox University Microfilms

Davit.Volume 40, Number 1

MAGAZINE

JANUARY 1977

CONTENTS

THE COVER:"Golden Memories," anoriginal 24"x30" oil paint-ed especially for Desert'scover by Leo Nowak, ofRidgecrest, California.

F E A T UHOW TO PREVENT A SPIDER BITE 8

THE HASSAYAMPA BOX 10MURPHY'S, CALIFORNIA 14

THE PRAIRIE RATTLER CLAN 16

THE ABCs OF ANZA-BORREGO 20

PALM OASES OF THE CALIFORNIA DESERTS 24

BREYFOCLE AND THE BIG SMOKY VALLEY 28

SILVER LAKE COUNTRY 32

ANCIENT FOOD FOR MODERN TABLES 36

R E SHerbert L. Stahnke, Ph.D.

John SouthworthHoward Neal

K. L. Boynton

Bill Jennings

Dick Bloomquist

Harold O. Weight

Mary Frances Strong

Lucile Weight

D E P A R T M E N T SA PEEK IN THE PUBLISHER'S POKE

NEW BOOKS FOR DESERT READERS

RAMBLING ON ROCKS

TRADING POST

BOOKS OF THE WEST

CALENDAR OF WESTERN EVENTS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

46

4042444646

William Knyvett

Book Reviews

Glenn and Martha Vargas

Classified Listings

Mail Order Items

Club Activities

Readers' Comments

E D I T O R I A L AND CIRCULATION OFFICE S : 74-425 H ighway 111,Palm Desert, California 92260. Telephone Area Code 714346-8144. NATIONALA D V E R T I S I N G O F F I C E S : JEPublishers' Representative, 8732 Sunset Blvd., LosAngeles, California 90069. Telephone Area Code 213659-3810. Listedin Standard Rate andData. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Uni ted States, Canada andMexico; 1year , $6.00; 2 years, $11.00; 3 years, $16.00. Other foreignsubscribers add$1.00 U. S.currency foreach year. See Subscription Order Form in this issue. Allow five weeks for change ofaddress andsend both newan d oldaddresses with zipcodes. DESERT Magazine ispublished monthly. Second class postage paid at Palm Desert, California andat additionalmailing offices under ActofMarch 3, 1879. Contents copyrighted 1976 byDE S E RT Magaz ine andpermission toreproduce anyorall contents must besecured in writing. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed andstamped envelope.


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B A C K I S S U E SA TAL O WP R I C

196911 issuesonlyFeb.-Dec.

Complete'66, '67, '68' 7 0 , ' 7 1 , ' 7 2 , ' 7 3VolumesSAOO

"Rain Barre l"Assorted Issues1959 to 1965

Mail a l l orders to:DESERT Magaz ineBox 1318Palm Desert, Calif . 92260

A P e e ki n th eP u b l i s h e r sP o k e

S W E mentioned in our Decembercolumn, we have planned some newfeatures for 1977 that will lead you to

new desert adventures. We are going tostart with Dick Bloomquist 's invitat ion totake you to 40 native palm oases of theCalifornia Deserts. I 'm sure that whenyou read his introduction in this issue,you will not want to miss a single oneand wil l be planning many enjoyableoutings for the future.

For you "lost mine buffs," a specialfeature in this issue is Harold Weight 'slatest theory on Breyfogle's lost ledge,and he'll really keep you on your toes.After reading the article, it may seemappropriate to you, also that the Tono-pah Times-Bonanza newspaper of No-vember 19th carried an article that theSmoky Valley Mining Company is plan-ning to market approximately 100,000ounces of gold-silver ore annuallyandthat 's a real bonanza!

Our naturalist, K. L. Boynton hasgreeted 1977 with the Prairie RattlerClan, and Mary Frances Strong has afascinating f ield tr ip in the area aroundthe southern end of Death Valley.

Lucile We igh t starts 1977 off w ith oneof her articles on the native foods of theIndians. We have had many, many re-quests for information on this subject.Bill Jennings extolls on the ABCs of Cali-fornia's great Anza-Borrego Desert StatePark, H erbe rt Stahnke cautions us on thespider bite, John Southworth leads us tothe Hassaympa Box in Arizona andHoward Neal's "Desert Ghost" for themonth is Murphy's, Cal i fornia.

As we celebrate our 40th year of publi-cation, we wish all of our readers andadvertisers a most prosperous 1977.

A n z aG o n q u e r st h e D e s e r tCommissioned by James S. CopleyWritten by Richard F. Pourade

, :


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T h e F i r s t a n d O n l yA l l C o lo c B o o k o nT u r q u o i s eBy OSCAR T .BR AN SON

This Book Is AMust For AnyonePossessingEven One PieceOf TurquoiseJewelry

The TruthAbout TreatedOr StabilizedTurquoiseWhat It IsHow It Is Done

BeautifulIllustrationsIn AccurateColor Can HelpYou Identify theTurquoise In YourJewelryPictures ofTurquoise from 43Localities fromU. S. A nd AroundThe Wo rld.Photography ByRay M anley Studios SECOND PRINTING

68 Pages62 Full Color Pages100 Color Plates9"x12" Perfect BoundPlease add 50c On EachOrder For Packing And Postage

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For the outdoor enthus ias t ,and those who l ike to f lavorthei r life with the unusual

ROUGHING IT EASY by Dian Thomas, putsthe fun back into camping with easy andeconomical ways to prepare foods, equip acampsite and organize a camping trip. Pa-perback, 203 pages, $5.95.AMER ICAN INDIAN FOOD AND LORE byCarolyn Neithammer. Original Indian plantsused for foods, m edicinal purposes, etc., de-scribed, plus unusual recipes. Large format,91 pages, profusely illustrate d, $4.95.DUTCH OVEN COOK BOOK by Don Holm.Mew and exciting culinary adventures inDutch Oven cooking. Heavy paperback, 106pages, $4.95.ARIZONA COOK BOOK by Al and MildredFischer. Unusual recipes for Indian cooking,Mexican dishes, Western spec ialties. Uniquecollection. Paperback, 142 pages, $3.00.

CACTUS COOK BOOK compiled by Joyce L.Tate. An excellent selection of recipes thatemphasize their edible or potable qualities.Also includes chapter on Food Preservation.Paperback, 127 pages, $2.00.SOURDOUGH COOKBOOK by Don andMyrtle Holm. How to make a sourdoughstarter and many dozens of sourdough re-cipes. Paperback, 136 pages, illus ., $3.95.CITRUS COOK BOOK by Glenda McGillis.An unusual and outstanding treasury ofcitrus cookery. Includes tips on freezing,juicing and shipping. Paperback, spiralbound, $2.00.CALIFORNIA COOK BOOK by Al and Mil-dred Fischer. Recipes divided into "EarlyCal i fornia," "Cal i fornia Frui ts," "Cal i forniaProducts," "Sea Foods" and "Wine Cook-i n g . " 400 more unique collections by theFischers. Paperback, 142 pages, $3.00.

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B o o k s f o rD e s e r tH e a d e r s

All books reviewed are availablethrough the Desert Magazine BookShop. Please add 50c per totalorder for handling and Californiaresidents must include 6% statesales tax .

48-page gallery of four-color photo-graphs to reveal fully the beauty of theGrand Canyon country and the thr i l l of aColorado River tr ip. Dr. Porter madeseveral r iver tr ips to gather the breath-taking i l lustrations for this book. Hisepilogue is a memorial to Glen Canyon,which today lies drowned and lost; it isalso a tribute to the river that still roarsthrough Marble and Grand Canyons.

Here is a book that captures thebeauty of canyon country, America'sproudest heritage, while providing therecord o f a jou rne y o f d iscoveryunequa led in the con t inen t 's longhistory.

Large 10"x14" format, hardcover ,or iginally pr iced at $30.00, the publish-er's close-out price is now only $9.98.

DOWN THE COLORADOJohn Wesley PowellDiary of the First T r ipThrough the Grand CanyonPhotographs and Epilogueby Eliot Porter

One hundred years ago, ten men infour boats swept down the raging Colo-rado River on the first tr ip through theGrand Canyon. Major John WesleyPowell led the epic journey, over rapidsconsidered impassable, to chart the un-explored r iver and its surrounding can-yons. On August 30, 1869, 13 weeks af-ter the expedition left Green River Sta-t ion in Wyoming Terr i tory, the one-armed Major, with only two boats andsix survivors, emerged form the canyonto find men searching for their remains.

Down the Colorado contains JohnWesley Powell 's dramatic journal of1 8 6 9 , edited and introduced by Don D.Fowler, and it is as exciting today as itwas when portions first appeared inScribner's Magazine ninety-five yearsa g o . Drawings and photographs, thework of Powell 's contemporaries, en-hance the text.

Eliot Porter, America's foremost pho-tographer of nature, has contr ibuted a

THE AMERICAN WESTA Natural HistoryBy Ann and Myron Sutton

Here is a first-h and , information-pack-ed description of the natural wonders,animal life and plant life of the 15 majornatural areas of the West. It is also anexpert explanation of how these areascame to be geologically what they are.

Together with a magnificent collectionof pictures and maps it makes clear toanyone interested in wildl i fe, naturalAmerica and particular ly the Land of theBig Sky just why certain forests, ani-mals, flowers, r ivers, deserts and cavesare where they are.Beginning with the r ich l i fe of thegreat Southwestern deserts and pla-teaus, the authors moveeven as dotens of thousands of tourists everyyear up through the Grand Canyoncountry, the lesser canyonlands, thehigh wilderness areas of the Southernand Middle Rockies, :he basin and rangeprovince and into the high Sierras. Theythen explore the Pacific beaches andtidepools, the volcano country of theCascades, the Olympic rain forest, theglaciers of the Northern Rockies, the

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B a d l a n d s , th e w i J c b of w n t n n C a n a d aand finally, that last frontier, Alaska.

Its pictures, too, are not just pretty"scenics" but selected to give maximuminformation about specific land forma-t ions, about animals from wolves to but-terfl ies and about plants from redwoodsto lichens.

I t i s f in a l l y a h is to ry o f m an 'sexploration and use of these incalculableriches, of what is being done to preservet hem, and a plea for the preservation ofthe unspoiled beauty of the wildlandsand their promise of serenity. It is a booknot only for the student of western geo-logy and ecology, but also a guide for thevisitor and naturalist, and a series ofp leasan t jou rneys fo r the a rmcha i rtraveler.

Among the 50 photographers repre-sented in the book are such masters oftheir craft as Ansel Adams, Eliot Porter,Phil ip Hyde, Don Worth, Josef Muenchand Bil l Ratcl i ffe.

Large format, hardcover, 194 i l lustra-tions, including 71 in color and 16 mapsand drawings, 256 pages, or iginally pub-lished at $25.00, now only $12.98.

THE WESTERNERSBy Dee Brown

In The Westerners Dee Brown fol lowsthe frontiersmen into our heroic West.His earliest guides are the Spaniards,the first Europeans to explore theAmerican Southwest in the 16th century.But from here, instead of wr it ing anotherchronological history of the opening ofAmer ica 's West, Mr . Brown te l ls thestory through the experiences of a fewinfluential or representative Westerners people l ike Jedediah Strong Smith,Susan Magoffin, Brigham Young andSit t ing Bul l .

It is pr im ari ly a story of movementofthe early explorers, of the trappers andfur traders, of the Fortyniners, of thebuilders and operators of stagecoach andmail services, telegraphs and railroads,and of course of the Indians they pushedDesert /Januarv 1977

before them. It is ak o a talo ofMany of the explorers were motivated bygreed rather than adventure and theland developers imagined that Indianland was theirs for the taking.

There were those who were on fr ien dlyterms with the Indians. George Catl in,for instance, whose paintings of Indianlife provide some of the 32 color and 120black and white illustrations in this book.

Hardcover, lavishly i l lustrated, 288pages, o r ig ina l l y p r iced a t $17 .95 ,Publisher's close-out price now only$7.98.

GENUINEDOMESTICATEDGOLDEN CH IA SEEDS( S A L V I A C O L U M B A R I A E )

Sufficient for four 50-foot rows. Completeinstructions. Packet: $2.30.

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STOTI PIPE 1& 3LS T I 1 U HDeath Valley, California 92328 Dial operator for Stove Pipe W ells Toll Station #1HELLDORADOS, GHOSTS ANDCAMPS OF THE OLDSOUTHWEST

by Norman D. WeisCome w ith N orman D. Weis on a 7,000-mile tour of the O ld Southw est. Seethe weathered ruins of 67 ghost towns and abandoned mining camps some famous, others l i tt le known, and one never before mentioned inwr i t ten h istory.A l ively, humorous text and 285 stunning black-and-white photos recallthe roar ing t imes when miners dug for go l d , silver, or coal in California,Ar izona, Nevada, New Mexico, and the southern por t ions of Coloradoand Utah.

Approximate ly 320 pages, 6 x 9 , 285 photograph s, c lo th $9.95The CAXTON PRINTERS, Ltd.Box 700

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The black widow spider with her tell-tale marking.Photo by Robert H. Wright, Tucson, Arizona.

H o w TO PREVENTA SpidER BJTE

by HERBERT L. STAHN KE, Ph.D.Em eritus P rofessor and D irectorP.A.R.L., Zoology Department,Arizona State University,Tempe, Arizona.

T HE OLD t ruism, "an ounce of pre-vention is worth a pound of cure" isvery apropos as far as spider bite orscorpion sting, etc., is concerned. Pro-tection by prevention can be achieved byeradication or control of the spider popu-lat ion within and immediately aroundyour home, and your own behavior.

Eradication or control can be accom-p l i shed t h rough t he f o l l ow ing f ou rmethods:

1. Cultural control .This consists of de-stroying the spider hiding and breedingplaces,which are essentially the same forscorpions. Piles of old lumber, bricksand trash in general should be either car-ried away or removed as far away aspossible from human dw ell ings. Garagesor other rooms that are used for catch-alls, or even orderly storage, serve ashiding and breeding places; especially ifthese are not disturbed for months.

Good housekeep ing d iscourages abuild-up of a spider populat ion. Otherhiding places are the backs of pianos,davenports and on the underside of sel-dom-used chairs, in clothes closets,under sink cabinets, etc. In general, re-latively dark undisturbed niches. Blackwidows and recluse spiders have beenfound in all of the above places. Theseanimals do not thrive in an active house-hold in which the status quo of furn iture ,storage places, etc., is frequently dis-turbed.

2. Biological control. In this approachthe enemies of the spiders are encour-Desert/Janua ry 1977


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aged. Sun scorpions (solpugids) all ofwhich are not poisonous and the pray-ing mantis are very helpful, as are alsomost lizards and birds. Since cats de-stroy l izards and birds, they indirectlyencourage the build-up of the arachnidand insect pests.

3. Mechanical control. Spiders andother vermin are prevented from thr iv-ing in the home by various mechanicaldevices. The slipper, subsequently re-placed by the flay-swatter, is perhapsthe oldest form of mechanical control.Often the el imination of one gravid fe-male spider prevents the production ofseveral hundred spiderl ings. Good win-dow screening and tight f i tt ing windowsand doors are very im portan t. If you cansee daylight around the perimeter ofyour outside doors or windows, spidersand scorpions can, and do, enter. For theaverage householder, this is the mostimportan t area to check. Proper weather-stripping will take care of this and shouldbe provided by the builder of any newhome.

4. Chemical contro l. Spiders and othervermin , in this procedure, are ki l led bymeans of chemicals. This should be thelast approach and should be confined toindoor application. If used outdoors toki l l spiders, the chemical might provefatal to praying mantis, sun spiders andTwo natural spider enemies: A prayingmantis [above] by Dick Randall; [Right]the solpugid, by Robert H. Wright.Deser t /Januar 1 fl77 o

other highly beneficial insects or arach-nids as well as the extremely beneficiallizards. The aerosol insecticides sold instores can be sprayed in crevices, underchairs, behind pianos and other similarhiding places. They are also effective instorage areas, if sprayed so that some-what of a fog is produced. These spraysare not harmful through contact by dogsand other household pets.

Your behavior is your best protection.W hen all is said and done, absolute,permanent eradication of spiders cannotbe accomplished. Therefore, prevention

of spider bite rests on the principle of" the surviva l o f the f i t test ." To be f i tone must be alert and follow two modesof behavior:

1. Never place your fingers or barefeet where your eyes cannot see. For ex-ample, a spider may be hiding on theunderside of a chair, board, rock, news-paper or magazine. When your grasp theobject by placing your fingers under it.you inadvertently press the spider. Itreacts in self-defense by biting you.

2. If you feel something crawling onyour bare skin, DO NOT SWAT IT, butbrush it off. Remember that the " fangs"(chelicera) are on the underside of thespider. W hen you strike it even thoughthe blow would kill itthe action helpsdrive the fangs into the flesh. For exam-ple, a man , while r id ing his bicycle, acci-dentally drove through a large number of"parachuting black widow spiderl ings.They crawled over his face and neck. Hisraction was to swat wherever he feltthem crawling. During the action he wasbitten by about eight or ten of the spider-lings. This resulted in a three-day pain-fu l hospi ta l "vacat ion."

Most spiders are beneficial and inter-esting creatures. Learn of their ways andadjust your behavior accordingly. To beafraid of them is the worst possible be-hav io r and even tua l l y w i l l l ead totrou ble. Ca pture one in a jar. Feed it in-sects and watch its behavior. Your fas-cination wil l overcome your "unholy"fears.


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The HassayampaW OR MA NY obvious and goodF reasons, W ickenburg now wants to be known as the duderanch capital of Arizon a. For yearsit was just a m ining camp at the farend of the " Vu lture Roa d," at aplace chosen for available m illwater on the Hassayampa River, atypical desert rive r which is mostlysand. Just south of town low hillsbring water to the surface andcottonwoods to the banks of theusually dusty desert wash . Hereare many cool and interestingdiversions for the desert traveler,with parking and picnic tablesprovided with in sight of themodern highway, combined U.S.60 and 89, to Phoenix.

This is all enjoyable enough butthe real attraction is off thehighway north of town in anisolated area reached only by d irtroads and short w alks at a placecalled " Th e Bo x." Here, much as asub-m iniature Grand Canyon, the10

Boxby

JOHNSOUTHWORTH

Hassayampa has cut its way downthrough a hard geologic form ationrising slowly from below in a failedattemp t to block the flow of water.The cut at its deepest is perhaps200 feet through a hard cementedconglomerate of old streamgravels, dark stained by invadingmanganese solutions. A t itsnarrowest it is perhaps 40 feet wideand half as deep for a su rprisinglystraight half mile or more.Water perpetually flows in the

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.

Box and shade is always availableunder the vertical, sometimesoverhanging rock faces. Even onthe hottest desert days natural aircond itioning makes a mile or sobarefoot walk through the watervery attractive. A quiet walkermight even be accompanied foreand aft, at a discrete d istance ofcourse, by one or two large wh itewading birds.A few range cattle have it goodin the Box. Stands of water grassand even water cress abound earlyin the year. A rider checking stockmight visit or a dune buggy mightmome ntarily disturb the silence,but mostly visitors w ill have theplace to themselves for hours at at ime.The Box is a good place to relax,regain perspective and recoveryour cool. It is a place l ittlechanged by the hand of m an. The

Hassayampa drains a very largearea and heavy rain in the

mountains is not unknown. Atthese times the Box is no place forhumans. It runs wild with perhaps15 feet of churning water thatscours walls and bedrock,removing all debris and each timeleaving a fresh bed of clean, coolsand. Thus the canyon pe riodicallyrenews itself, returning each cycleto a condition much as it was beforethe first human visited it . The onlypermanent changes are a watergauging station and scars ofwartime manganese miningoperations.

The Box is not at all difficu lt toreach with a standard car bu t donot attemp t to go into the riverbottom with any equipment thatwon 't float. Although much of thebottoms appears compact andsolid, standard Jeeps occasionallybog down in local soft spots andeven the human foot finds areaswhere speed is the natural reactionto that sink ing feeling. Of course


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A S p e c i a lG u i d e b o o kO f f e r i n g !Great reading about theWest fromthe pens of such authors asRuss Leadabran d, Choral Pepp er,Marjorie Camphouse and theSociety ofAmerican Travel Writers.Informative little books that will makeyour future trips more enjoyable.W ell illustrated, paperback.Supplies arel imited.

Explor ing Calif. Byways Exploring Calif. Byways Exploring Calif. Byways#11 In andaround #111 Desert Country #IV Mountain CountryLos Angeles

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Sketchbook

Guidebook to theColorado Desertof CaliforniaGuidebook to theMountains of San Diegoand Orange Counties

Guidebook to theMissions of California

Exploring theUnspoiled Exploring the Unspoiled

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West Vol.1Wyoming , M ontana,Brit ish Columbia,Alaska, Utah, Calif .,Colorado, Idaho,Nevada

West Vo l . 2New Mexico, Arizona,Mexico, Oregon,Washington, Alaska,Hawai i , California

Exploring HistoricCalifornia

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Desert Magazine Book ShopBox 1318,Palm Desert, California 9 22 60 Baja California


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the human foot is advised toremain on high groun d.All the off-pavement roadsshown on the map are good deserttracks w hich see a grader once in awhile. The two river crossingsbelow the Box are graveled andmaintained as long as no waterflows. The upper road is in and outof washes with some minor roughspots and steep pitches wheretrailers are not recommended.Campers and standard cars re quireonly normal rough countryprecautions.The lower road past the oldmanganese m ill is substan tiallylevel all the way but requires along, hot wa lk up the sandy wash tothe best part of the Box. C arrywater and do n't take the car intothe wash above the mil l , inviting asthe road m ight look. There is no

stopping or tu rnin g back once youare committed to the sand.The upper road is long, dry andhilly but puts you within a fewhundred feet of the mostinteresting scenery. In fact, w ithsome minor disregard for your car,you can drive righ t down into theBox on a rocky road to a goodturnaround and campsite within afew yards of the river. A gain , don'tbe tempted to take your vehicledown that last pitch into the water.It is a long walk out. You won't ber iding.Today, the Hassayampa Box is aserene, inviting place just w aitingfor your visit. Take a lunch andfriends and enjoy the utterrelaxation of a fine Arizona daywith water and shade and all thenatural air conditioning you canever use.

D e a t h V a l l e yJ u n c t i o nStay at the historicAMARGOSA HOTELThis lovely 50-year-old hotel isbeing restored. 20 rooms openyear 'round. All carpeted. Allbeautifully furnished. Electricheat and air conditioning. Makethe Amargosa Hotel your head-quarte rs while in the Death IValley area.Telephone Death Valley Junc-tion #1 for information or reser-vations.

Visit Marta Becket's famousAMARGOSA OPERA HOUSE.You've read about this beautifuland unique attraction in Desertand National Geographic. SeeMar ta Becket ' s p rogram ofdance-mimes. See her fabulousmurals inside the Opera House.I Performances Friday, Saturdayand Monday Through April.ill Saturd ays only in May, Septem-V ber. 8:15; doors open at 7:45.llliTelephone Death Valley Junc-JJjjtion #8 for reservations. Tours|jf|welcomed.P P

The General Store, Filling Sta-tion and Pottery Shop are open.RV Park coming. Space avail-Lable for developm ent.

For further information aboutDEATH VALLEY JUNCTIONplease write:Death Valley Junction, Inc.P.O. Box 675Death Valley Junction,California 92328

""% /Kf(Hiff'fff 'f'J

M


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G H O S T S by HOWARD NEALM u r p h y ' s , C a l i f o r n i aMurphy's could be called the "classic" ofall of the Ca lifornia gold rush com munities. C ertainlyit is one of the best preserved of the old Mother Lodetowns. Rich placer gold first attracted Daniel andJohn Murphy to the valley that cradles the townbearing their name. Their arriva l was in July of 1848,early in the rush to the streams and rivers of theMother Lode. The gold from those streams, that built

so many California settlements, established a sub-stantial town of brick, wood and stone at Murphy's.As the placer gold disappeared, the "BigTrees of Calaveras" sustained Murphy's as thegateway to that impressive grove of giant Sequoias.Many important and famous people stopped inMurphy's, in the 1800s, on their way to see what isnow Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Such names asMark Twain, Horatio Alger, J. P. Morgan and U.S.Grant can still be seen on the old register of theMurphy's Hotel.Today, Murphy's not only retains its charmand beauty, but as a "ve ry much al ive " Mother Lodetown it provides the visitor with as generous ahelping of California history as can be found.Murphy's is located on California Highway4 , nine miles northeast of Angels Camp and Califor-nia Highway 49.

Left: The First Congregational Church of M urphy 'swas built in 1895. It replaced a church stru cture built in 1853,and it is an excellent example of New England a rchitecture transplantedto California. Upper Right: Murphy's Elementary School is theoldest continuously used elementary school building in California.It was completed in 1860. Other intere sting buildingsin Murph y's include the I.O.O.F. Hall and the Murph y's Ho tel.Right: The Compere B uilding was bu ilt in the late 1850s.It is typical of many of the origin al stone structures s till standing and still in usein Murphy's. Once a general merchandise store,it is now a private residence.14 Desert/Janu ary 1977


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Des ert/ Januaru 1Q77


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THE PRAIRIEby K. L. BOYNTON

1976H

O MATTER what the location in theWest, it seems that a prairie rattleror one of his cousins or aunts is to be

found. At home in practically every kindof habitat from the flat plains to 11,000feet up in the mountains from Canada toMexico, this Crotalis viridis clan is prob-ably the most highly adaptable branch ofthe ratt lesnake family.

These snakes come in assorted sizesfrom the midgets of around two feet tobig individuals over five feet. Colorwisethey show local variations on the maintheme of brown or black blotches on the

back with that l ight streak running fromthe eye corner to behind the jaw, whichis the clan identification mark.This prairie rattler clan is a big onewith subspecies holding forth in the var-ious sections of the Southwest and theGreat Basin. They dress for the mostpart in shades and tones exceedinglywell correlated with the environment.Take for instance Crotalus viridis nun-t/'us, the Hopi ratt ler. He dwells in thePainted Desert and is tastefully done inappropriate reddish tones. C.v.oregan-us , the northern pacific rattler, is quitedark, almost black, but so is the Arizonarattler, C.v. cereberus. Cousin abyssus,a l i t t le job residing in the Grand Canyon ,is t inted a matching pink and yellowish-red. Dressed also in accordance with hisscenery is the big Great Basin rattler,C.v. lutosus, whose l ight brownish-greycoloration blends in to the somber mono-tones of soil and sagebrush so character-istic of this high latitude desert region.

As everybody knows, life in the desertis no beer-and-skittles for plant oranimal . Snakes, being reptiles, have theadded disadvantage of being unable tomaintain their own body temp erature, asdo mammals and birds. They are conse-quently at the mercy of their surround-ings as their body temperatures arelargely determined by that of the groundand air. With a set-up l ike this, there ismore involved than just survival when itis too hot or too cold. A ratt ler 'smuscular activity is severely affected bycold temp erature. A t a body temperatureof 48.2 F. he may still be able to defendhimself and to crawl off slowly, but be-low 46.4 F. the chances are he just can'tmuster up enough steam.

Interesting to report, however, is thefact that the muscles that work the rattle

The Great Basin rattler(crotalis viridis lutosus), is a subspecieof the prairie rattler. Photo byJohns Harrington, Los Angeles, Calif.16 Desert/January 1977


17/48

are apparently adapted to funct ion over awider range in body temperature thanother skeletal muscles. Zoologists L. E.Chadwick and H. Rahn, checking up onrattler sound effects, found that even at37.4 F., the rattle can still work but thatits frequency increases with the increasein body temperature up to 104 F. And,since the body temperature of a ratt le-snake in the field is usually not lowerthan about 63 F., there is normallyplenty of chance to work the old rattleeff icient ly.

Having been around since the Pleisto-cene days some million years ago, rat-t lers have learned a thing or two thathelp maintain a working temperature, asbiologist Lawrence Klauber points out inhis monumental work on ratt lesnakes.

%

One of these, excellent for producing aneeded wa rm - up , is bask ing ly ingabout in the sunshine and soaking up itsheat and from the warming ground andair. Digest ion, which quits when thesnake is too cold, gets going again with abasking warm-up. Muscular eff iciency isstepped-up all over, and the snake'sgeneral alertness increased. This age-oldhabit of basking greatly extends theseason of possible activity, for fairly coolweather at night can be endured whenthe sun's warmth is adequate in the day.Only when cold weather is deep and pro-longed must the snakes close up shopentirely. They may then hibernate inburrows of rodents, or they may congre-gate in astonishing numbers in a rockyden.

One such hibernating headquarterswas discovered in Tooele County, Utah,some years ago by Nathan Reiser andJohn Vasquez one fine sunny day inAp r i l . Quite unsuspecting they steppedonto the cobblestones of the den andfound themselves surrounded by ratt le-snakes, buzzers all going. The "discov-e r e r s " undoubtedly broke all worldbroad-jump and sp rint records in d epart-ing hence, and the ratt lers sett led downagain to their basking in the spring sun-shine according to ancestral practice.

Word was immediately bruited aroundand biologists zeroed in to find what allthis denning was about. From the workof many, part icularly Angus Woodbury,some very solid facts emerged. It seemsthat at least six different kinds of snakesused this communal den and returnedthere year after year to hibernate. Pa-pers were writ ten and reported in a bigsymposium . This was just the beginnin g,for inve stigations of such dens have beengoing on ever since.

This albino prairie rattlesnake(crotalis viridis v.) is in the processof swallowing a mouse.

Photo by Robert H. White,Tucson, Ariz.


18/48

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A snake's reason for denning is ob-vious eno ugh for such rocky places of-fer excellent retreats, their crevices lead-ing down far below the surface where thewinter temperatures are warm er. Herethe snakes pass the cold months safely inhibernation. With the advent of warmerweather, a temperature of about 60 F.apparently stimulating them to activityas Zoologis t Basil Velas' s tudy show ed,the snakes come out. They bask duringthe sunny hours to br ing up their chi l ly(48 to 50 F.) body tempe ratur e. E ventu -al ly, when warm weather arr ives forgood, they disperse, going about theirsummer business.

The big numbe r of snakes using such aden shows that they must come from allaround and maybe from some distance.So the big qu estions have to be: W heredo they al l come from? H ow do they fin da den in the fall? Whe re do they go whenthey emerge in the spring? And how dothey know the way back when fall comesonce more?

Zoologist Harold Hirth picked theGreat Basin rattlesnake (C.v. lutosus, re -member) from this Tooele den roll call asa candidate that might possibly answersome of the questions. He put up a wirescreen at the mouth of the den andcaught the snakes during the ir incomingtrek in September and October. Hemarked 10 adults for identif ication, putthem into separate bags, and cartedthem away to various compass and dis-tance points from the den. Releasingthem, he beetled back himself to watchfor their return, i f any.

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was back at the wire screen only 90minutes later. With a score such as thislady rolled up, the Great Basin rattler isobviously a very good homer. Even someof the snakes, tested more than once andreleased at different compass points,made it back each time.

Do the snakes come to this winter dendirectly from their summer locations, orby a circuitous route? Are there leaderswho lay down scent trails? If so, how dothe leaders know where the den is? Arethere scent trai ls funnell ing into the denfrom all directions? Hirth had some 11hatchlings in his fall entrees, all of whomarrived long after the adults and juven-iles had already entered. They probablyfollowed a scent t ra i l . Or, is somethingbesides scent involved? Zoologist HobertLandreth, for instance, has found thatthe big western diamondback, a differ-ent species of rattler, can use solar cuesin or ienting himself.Hirth again on the job, this t ime withRobert Pendleton, Arthur King andThomas D owna rd, checked up on the rat-tlers as they emerged from the den in thespr ing, hoping to find out where theywent for the summer and what they didthat might clue a directional relation-ship with the den. They marked thesnakes with radioactive tags, no smallj o b . The doughty scientists, reachingaround a lead-brick wall assembled onthe tai l gate of the truck, worked withmirrors to attach the radioactive tag, thesnake candidate being held fairly well inclamps. Then they released the snakes.Some 56 percent were recaptured atleast once during the summer, locatedby picking up the signals, and they weremostly within 3000 to 4000 feet from thed e n . Apparently well adapted to desertheat, the rattlers were above ground 80percent of the time, the body tempera-ture of one female found coiled under asagebrush being a com fortable 9.8 de-grees lower than that of the air.

Hirth et al came to the conclusion thatthe snakes wandered about for the mainpart, apparently without a home rangewith which they might become famil iarand hence use as a help in getting backto the den in the fa l l . Which, of course,they did, knowing exactly how, even ifthe scientists sti l l didn't.

The social whirl, if that is what it canbe called in snake affairs, gets underwayin the spring. Zoologist Robert D. Al-dr idge wondered what actually started

18 Desert /January 1977


19/48

it , since thesnakes were so recently inhibernation. He collected a batch ofmales from a den near Mor iar i ty, NewMexico. Separating them into groups hekept them under different temperaturesand l ight conditions. After a lot of hardwork he learned: 1. Hibernat ing did notaffect themale reproductive cycle for in-dividuals kept active in the l ight but atlow temperatures showed the same con-di t ion: machinery ready, but spermmanufacture notstar ted. 2. What st imu-lated the production finally was not l ight,but temperature. A body temperature ofbetween 71.6 and 88 F. is necessary. Inthe field outMor ia r i ty way, these snakesbegin sunning themselves at the den sitein March, and whi le at that t ime thetemperature is too low, thecoming of thewarm er s pring days does the job. Appro-priate procedures are also going onamong the females, so by the t ime thesnakes are ready to disperse to summergrounds, the social whir l can get under-way. Thebusiness of communal denningmakes partner-finding easier.

Female rattlers in this prairie clangenerally have their f irst brood duringthe third year of l i fe. The southernspec ies every year the rea f te r , thenorthern a brood every two years. Rat-t lers are ovoviparous or l ive bearers, areproductive system whereby the eggsare not laid to be incubated by sun andground heat, but maintained in the fe-male's body. Here again snake bodytemperature is so important as it must besufficiently high for proper gestation.When the end of the period is reached(the number of days varying in reportsfrom 153 to 172) the female crawls into ahole or rock crevice anddeposits the eggcapsules. These are th in-wal led andmembranous. Coiled inside each is al i t t le rattler who promptly opens its wayout with its "egg t o o t h , " a very smallhard point in the upper jaw.

The hatchlings may be six to 12 incheslong, already equipped with fangs andvenom, but with only the fetal button atth e end of the ta i l , and hence withoutsound effects. Pugnacious, they vibratetheir tai ls anyhow, and obviously meanbusiness very wil l i ng and very able todefend themselves. This is fortunate forthey are on their own, there being nomaternal care. Any young that may befound in the same refuge with a femaleare recent hatch-ees not yet dispersedfrom the birth site.

Their main job is to grow.How successful this is depends on thefood supply and the length of the grow-ing season, the Great Basin rattlesnakeyoungsters not making as great gains astheir southern Pacific cousins who, in themilder cl imate may almost double theirlength in the f irst year. Biologist F. Hev-rend and A. Call found, moreover, thatthe growth pattern changes as thesnake-lets develop. A 16-inch male Great Basinrattler mayincrease 50percent in a year,but by the t ime he reaches 25 inches, thegrowth may be only eight percent. Fe-males do n't dothat wel l , the comparablesizes mak ing only a 32percent and threepercent gain respectively.

Born in August, usually, the rattlersmust somehow put on enough fat to seethem through the winter hibernation,and on small prey such as insects and iz-ards atthat, since they are so l i t t le them-selves. These menu items are best cap-tured in daytime when, alas, it is mostdangerous for the inexperienced youngto be out themselves. As they grow toadulthood they have the great snaketr ibe advantage of a big jaw gape, astretchy gullet and expansible sides,which enables them to eat very largeprey, rodents perhaps two-thirds of theirown body weight. This is a very goodmeal, another being necessary only after10 days to twoweeks, thanks to the slow-er-geared snake metabolism.Moisture needs fortunately are sup-plied by their prey, and the rattlers con-serve water by sitt ing in the shade, orgoing into a rodent hole when the tem-perature is too h igh . Too, excretion ofurine in the form of the chalky solid uricacid conserves water further, althoughmoisture is lost in feces and of course inrespiration and when they shed theirskins.

Being so highly adaptable to so manydifferent habitat conditions, and withthat know-how tucked in somewhere onhow to f ind comfortable hibernatingdens, the Crotalis viridis wil l morethan likely be around for a very longt ime. This is a good thin g too, for theserattlers, although not objects of tenderpassion on the part of human desertgoers, are still fine fellows for keepingdown prey populations andhelping keepenvironmental affairs in balance.

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20/48

The ABGsofAnxa-Borrego. . . The world's largest desert park

by BILL JENNINGS

I N Z A - B O R R E C O C O L O S S A L , t h eflo wo rld's largest desert park . . . the first of i ts type in the California statepark system . . . the superlatives go onand on. AB C stands for many th ings un -usual at this 520,000-acre wildernessparadise in southeastern California.

For one, AB C m eans a highly success-f u l , highly unusual g immick, the Anza-Borrego Committee, a cit izens groupattached to the Desert Protective Councilwhich is acquir ing pr ivately owned landwithin the park boundaries at no cost tothe taxpayersland to be added to thepark acreage.

For another, ABC stands for Anza-Borrego Cooperative, a loosely-knit coa-l i t ion of state agency, conservation andoff-road user groups working quietly to-gether sometimes, but usually separate-ly, to improve the park. Largest of theseis the Anza-Borrego Natural History As-sociation.

Pr imar i ly, though, ABC stands forAnza-Borrego Colossal, the world's larg-est state park in addition to being Cali-fornia's pioneer desert state recreationalfaci l i ty, established in 1933. The parkencompasses portions of three counties,San Diego, Riverside and Imperial, withelevations ranging from below sea levelto 6,000 feet. There are two improvedcampgrounds and 10 primitive areas de-signated for so-ca lled "be l l y " campingright on up to motor homes.

Relatively old i t may be, but Anza-Borrego also is among the most innova-tive of al l California state parks. The lat-est evidence of this is a major wilderness20

There are also 10 pr imitive camp-grounds, most of them accessible by con-ventional vehicles. Most of these campslack water and are equipped with pitto i le ts. Hardy "bel ly" campers maythrow down their sleeping bags else-where in the park, along establishedroad, but no ground fires are permittedanywhere in Anza-Borrego.

Some visitors approach Anza-Borregothrough Coyote Canyon, the 1774-1776route of J uan Bautista de Anza , C alifor-n i a ' s f i r s t o ve r l a n d co lo n i ze r . Th ecanyon bisects one of the major homeranges .of the Dese rt Bigh orn Sheep,largest natural ly occurr ing mammal inthe Colorado Desert. Because of thismagnificent animal's statewide protect-ed status and fears of a dec lining popula-t i on , Coyote Canyon is closed to allvisitors each summer. The rough Jeeproad bisects the sheeps' waterhole rou te.

The canyon also is part of a new wil-derness zone, roughly 125,000 acres,stretching from the Santa Rosa Moun-tains westerly to Sheep Canyon in thefoothi l ls of the rugged San Ysidro M oun -tains. Existing trai ls in this area are sti l lopen but no additional trai ls , particular lyfor motor vehicles wil l be established,Getty explained.

The northern extension of the park,nearly all in Riverside County, wasadded over the past few years in a seriesof land sales, from a pr ivate rancher, thelate Howard Bailey of Anza, the U.S.Bureau of Land Management and otherpublic agencies. The park, in companywith the Universi ty o f Cal i forn ia , BLM,

area established in the northern areas.Also, a new horseman's camp is nearingcompletion at histor ic Rancho de Anza inlower Coyote Canyon and the state's f irstoff-road vehicular recreation area is tak-ing shape near Ocotillo Wells along StateHighway 78 at the eastern boundary ofthe park. Perhaps another ABC could beAnza-Borrego Changing.

The most ambitious new project, nowanticipated in mid-1977, is a $600,000v i s i t o r ' s ce n te r . A s ta te g r a n t o f$400,000 is now being supplemented bythe natural history association, with a$200,000 fund drive just beginn ing. Thecenter wil l be located near the park'sprimary campgrounds and headquartersa mile west of the l i tt le town of BorregoSprings. It wil l house the park's growingcollection of histor ic and pre-ColumbianIndian arti facts gathered in the park areaas well as provide offices for the parkstaff now crammed in to " temporary"quarters perhaps better suited to be athree-stal l garage for compact cars.Office visitors have to thread their waythrough the motor pool and the backyard of Park Manager Maurice (Bud)Getty in order to pick up a map or inquireabout road conditions.

Most f irst- t ime park visitors sampleone of Anza-Borrego's two principalcampgrounds, Borrego Palm Canyonand Tamarisk Grove. There are 52 trai lerspaces at Palm Canyon and 25 at Tamar-isk . Reserva t ions a re recommendedduring the fall to spring season at thesetwo sites. Tap water and shade ramadasare available.

Desert/ January 1977


21/48

The majestic Bighornsheep are at home in theAnza-Borrego highlands.

This ram wasphotographed byGeorge Service of

Palm Desert, California.the Forest Service and Riverside Countyparks depa rtm ent, now has a lock on thevast Santa Rosa Mountains bighornrange. These agencies, combined withthe Santa Rosa Indian Reservation,assure conversationists that the endan-

gered bighorns will be protected frompoaching and encroaching land develop-ments.

Anza-Borrego Cooperation is readilyapparent in the common cause amongthese groups and the California Depart-

ment of Fish and Came, responsible forthe sheep's safety under an 1873 lawthat made the majestic animals the f irstfully protected wildlife species in thestate. Nature Conservancy, an interna-tional conservation group, has assisted

Desert /January 1977 21


22/48

This view [above] of Howard Bailey's former cattle line camp in upper CoyoteCanyon of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park shows the diversity of the huge recrea-tional and historical reserve. Area was recently added to the park by the Anza cattle-man's sale at less than half the appraisal price for more than 6,000acres of canyonand mountain land. Be low: San ta Catarina Springs, one of the campsites for the firstAnza exploration expedition from Sonora to California. The site in lower CoyoteCanyon, or Collins Valley, overlooks the Lower Willows, one of the largest springsin the Colorado Desert.

f ish and game and park agents with landpurchases in the sheep ranges. To date,more than 100,000 acres of bigh orn habi-tat are included in the state game refugeor otherwise protected private develop-ment .

All animal and plant species are pro-tected in the state park by law, but en-forcem ent is a coope ra t ive v entu reamong park personnel and their muchmore numerous guests. Getty figuresconservation is ahead so far, and is quickto praise off-road ve hicle users as well ast he m ore o r t hodox p rese rva t i on i s tgroups.

Off-road clubs have contributed sever-al thousand man hours in the past year toreopen vital back country roads, campingand other recreationsl facilit ies and,most part icularly, the famous GhostMountain home of the late MarshalSouth and his fam ily in the southern p arkof the park.

Yaquitepec, as the adobe and stoneretreat is known, has been preserved bymembers of the O range County Chapterof Associated Blazers of California. Astory detailing the restoration will beforthcoming in a future issue of Desert.

Members of a San Diego and OcotilloWells-based off-road vehicle clubLosPretots spent a weekend after lastSeptember's hurricane storms repair ingthe route through Split Mountain intothe Fish Creek district of the park. Theroute is used by many conventional carsand therefore their volunteer effortscould not be considered self-serving.

"Members (of the club) did not needto do this to get through," noted PaulScheussler, park ranger patrol supervi-sor. "They could drive around it in theirvehicles. They worked to open it for thepublic in passenger cars."

Anza-Borrego Cooperat ion. A newoff-road vehicle area, soon to cover14,000 acres, is being prepared in thearea north and east of Ocotillo Wells. Itsprosaic official name is the OcotilloWells State Recreational Vehicle Area.Advocates are already calling it theWindy Morton Off-Road Area to recallthe late Walter Windy Morton, pioneer-ing Ocoti llo W ells off-road park develop-er and rescue aid to hundreds of strand-ed motorists, including the writer of thisstory. The new area is a first for Califor-nia state parks.

Anza-Borrego was established in 1933and originally included only federal and2 2 D e s e r t /J a n u a r 1 97 7


23/48

Architect's drawing of the newVisitor's Center to be b uilt

at a cost of $600,000. It willhouse the Park's collection of

historic and pre-ColumbianIndian artifacts.

state-owned lands north of State High-way 78. The Anza section, all south ofHighway 78, was added in 1941 and se-parately designated unti l after WorldWar I I .

Getty alone among present park per-sonnel comes close to spanning the di-verse history of the 43-year-old park. Hewas originally assigned as a ranger in1959, returned as naturalist in 1965 andbecame manager in 1972. His philosophyof administrat ion is simple:

" I believe parks are forever, w ith peo-ple's he lp ," he told an interviewer short-ly after returning as park ranger in July,1972.

Parks are forever, and Anza-Borregoreflects that philosophy by constantgrowth , in size and diversity.

Apparently many visitors agreed. Theall-t ime attendance mark, set from July1, 1972, to June 3 0, 1973, was 1,123,262persons. One major reason had been anoutstanding wildf lower season in thespring of 1973.

Another reason for continuing heavyattendance is the incredible diversity ofthe park. It is home to more than 300species of animal life, exclusive ot in-sects. Plant varieties number more than500. More l ife forms are being discover-ed each year.

The park is a giant research laboratoryfor many types of scientists, includingseveral who live in or near the park.Perhaps the best known of these isGeorge Mil ler of Canebrake who con-ducts c lasses in paleontology andgeology at Borrego Springs and alsoteaches at Imperial Valley College.

Since 1964 more than 300 ecologicaland geological areas have been recog-nized and included in the registry of na-t ional natural landmarks. Anza-Borregomade the list early in 1975 and three of

El Vado, the ford, is one ofseveral historic sites in Anza-Borrego

Desert State Park marked by abronze plaque, ironically, seldom seen

by park visitors because access isrestricted by private land.

its trails, used since 1772, have beenplaced on the National Register of His-toric Places. Oldest of these,used byLieutenant Pedro Fages in 1772, entersthe park from the Cuyamaca Mountainsto the west. The second, through CoyoteCanyon, was the Anza exploration routeused originally in 1774.

The most famous is the Southern Emi-grant Tra i l , one of the major accessroutes to the California gold fields in

1849. It also was a military trail beforeand during the Civil W ar and the Apachecampaign of Arizona until the late 1870s.

Old trails, abundant resources recog-nized nationally may be a matter of pres-tige for the park, but the average visitoris more concerned that Anza-Borregoyear-round camping and sightseeing po-tential unmatched in any other state parkof Southern California.

Anza-Borrego Colossal indeed!


24/48

ndmusest h e

OttUAby DICK BLOOMQUIST

Desert/ January 1977


25/48

Crapev/ne Canyonis typical of thequiet beauty tobe found inremote desertcanyons.Photo byGeorge Service,Palm Desert,California.

T HROUGH THE pages of th is maga-gazine we shall be takin g a journey , ajourney to many a hidden desertplace where birdsong and the rust l ing ofthe wind punctuate a deep silence.Sunshot canyons, sandy washes, andrough-hewn hil ls and mountains wil l beour companions along the t ra i l . We shal lbe roaming the Colorado Desert ofsoutheastern California and, on threesort ies, the more northerly Mojave.

Our goal wil l be the oases of wildpalms which, for the most part, l ie en-scounced in remote washes and canyonsalong the borderlands of the CoachellaValley , the Salton Sea and the An za Bor-rego country. Seeps, springs, and evenrunning streams wil l enliven many ofthese oases. Wi ldf lowers and wi ld l i fe,blue skies, history, prehistory, legend,and the lure of far horizons wil l worktheir magic, too. And now, while thestorms of winter break over much of theland, come with me on this leisurelyjourney into the warmth of the peacefuldesert.Desert /January 1977 25


26/48

More than two thousand species ofpalms are found on this planet, everycontinent except Antarct ica support ingnative stands. Palms grow wild in Brazil,Argent ina, Mexico, the United States,I taly, Greece, Afr ica, India, Malaysia,China, Korea, Japan, Australia, NewZealand, the South Sea region, andmany other lands. Palm fossils havebeen recovered from Cretaceous rocks120,000,000 years old. Most palms favortropical or subtropical cl imes, but some,including our lone California desertspecies, can survive freezing tempera-tures. On the Atlant ic seaboard of theUnited States, palms extend into NorthCarolina; in the Pacific states they reachtheir farthest north in California's Mo-jave Desert.

Usually, when palms are mentioned,we think of faraway places steeped in ro-manceof Hawaiian black sand beachesor timeless Saharan oases. But theAmerican West also has its own grovesof native palms, each with its specialaura and allure. Only one species is

found in these oases of the desert So uth-west. Botanists know it as the Californiafan palm, (Washingtonia filifera. (Thereare two species in the genus Washing-tonia, but the other, W. robusta , theMexican fan palm, grows only in north-western Mexico; it is taller and moreslender than W. filifera.) "Fan" r e f e r sto the shape of the leaves, Washingtoniahonors George Washington, and filifera("thread-bearing") describes the leafedges. Hermann Wendland, the Germanhorticulturist, gave the species its botan-ical name in 1879.

The fan palm ranges over portions ofthe Colorado Desert of southeasternCalifornia, the extreme southern MojaveDesert in California, northern Baja Cali-fornia (Mexico), and western Arizona,where several small groups thrive in andnear Palm Canyon on the west side ofYuma County's Kofa Mountains. I t has,in addit ion, been widely planted as anornamental throughout the subtropicalregions of the world.

Over 100 palm groups (the total

Fan palmsfrequentlygrow withtheir feetin thewater.This groupshows afull-skirtedbeauty onthe rightan d af ire-ravagedtrunk stillalive onthe left.26

number is probably between 110 and120) containing 12,000 to 13,000 Wash-ingtonias have been discovered in theCalifornia deserts. The great majority ofthese oases are located along the west-ern edge of the Colorado Desert from theCoachella Valley to the Mexican line.Within this area the desert slopes of theSan Jacinto and Santa Rosa ranges nearPalm Springs and Palm Desert, togetherwith the Indio Hil ls to the northeast, holdthe heaviest concentrations. The rangesrunning southward from this region intoMexico also harbor sizeable palm popu-lations, and a few other groups may beseen in the southern Mojave Desert, theChuckawalla and Eagle Mountains, andnear the Salton Sea.

Most of the oases lie hidden away inrocky mountain canyons; some favorsandy arroyos in hills or badlands; onlyrarely does a grove such as Twen tyninePalms in Joshua Tree National Mounu-mentstand exposed amid f lat, opensurroundings. Sometimes, as in MurrayCanyon near Palm Springs, hundreds oftrees extend for a considerable distancealong a watercourse. More commonly,howe ver, an oasis consists of a relativelysmall number of palms gathered togeth-er in a close-set group in which the irre-gular spacing and unequal heights of thetrees combine to create a most pleasingpicture.

All the native groves in California liewithin 30 miles of the former beach lineof Lake Cahuil la, which dried up com-pletely five centuries ago. Born about900 A.D. on one of several occasionswhen the Colorado River flooded andshifted its course, this fresh-water seaonce stretched from the Coachella Valleyinto Mexico. Palms may have grownalong its 250-mile shore line. The salineSalton Sea, created by the floodingColorado in 1905-07 and kept full by i r r i -gation drainage, today occupies a smallportion of the ancient lake bed.

The most westerly stand of nativeWashingtonias in California is alongSnow Creek near Palm Springs; Andreasand Murray canyons, also near PalmSprings, are the westernmost groups tobe described in this series of articles.The most northerly native grove isTwentynine Palms in Joshua Tree Na-t ional Monument; the most easterly,Corn Spring in the Chuckawalla Moun-tains; and the most southerly, Pinto Can-yon just above the Mexican border in

Desert/January 1977


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southwesrern imperial County; nearbyJuniper Spring is the southernmost oasistreated here.Pa lm Canyon near Pa lm Spr ings

reigns supreme in number of trees, withover 3,000. Several locales, each with asingle Washingtonia, share the ti t le ofsmallest oas is; the ones we shall visit areLone Palm and Una Palma, both in theBorrego Badlands. At some 200 feet be-low sea level, Lone Palm also ranks asthe lowest oasis to be featured in thisseries. Although Dos Palmas, at anelevation of just u nder 3520 feet in theSanta Rosa Mountains, is commonlyranked as the loftiest oasis, this title is inreality held to the best of m y know-ledgeby Single Palm Spring in JoshuaTree National Monument. Crowing at3550 feet near Fortynine Palms, this loneWashingtonia probably stands on higherground than any of the other 12,000 to13,000 trees of its kind in the Californiadeserts.

Our present-day oases may be a resi-due from earl ier t imes when a wetter,more tropical cl imate moistened south-eastern California and adjacent regions.Even today the desert palm grows withits head in sunshine, its feet in water,that is, it must have moisture on or veryclose to the surface of the ground to sur-vive. The species tolerates alkali verywel l , often thr iv ing on water too brackishfor human use.

The graceful Washingtonia varies inheight from 20 to 70 feet. Ducts carryingwa te r a n d n u t r i e n ts a r e sca t te r e dth r o u g h o u t t h e u n b r a n ch e d , f l e x i b l etrunk, which ranges from one to threefeet in diameter. The fibrous trunk con-tains no growing layer (cambium) andther e fo re revea ls no annua l r in gs;growth takes place in the uppermostpar t , in a terminal bud or "ca bba ge"hidden in the center of the crown. Be-cause of the absence of annual ring s, it isimpossible to determine a fan palm'sexact age, but some veteran trees are es-timated to be at least 200 years old.Fallen trunks often exhibit large holesmarking the places where adult palmborer beetles [Dinapate Wrightii) haveemerged.

The large, much-divided, fan-shapedleaves are borne on three-to-six-foot-long leaf stalks studded with hookedspines. The living leaves crown the treewith sparkl ing green, and the droopingdead ones fashion the ground-length

This lonepalm in

Anza-Borregoshows acluster of

fruit hangingfrom the

crown andis a good

example oferosion

exposingits root

system.brown "ski r ts" which d ist inguish Wash-ingtonia from almost all other palmgenera. These dead leaves were used bythe Indians as thatch ing for the ir hu ts.Often l ightning fires or vandals burnaway the skirts, leaving the trunk black-ened and bare, but usually not killing thetree. Years ago the Indians fired thepalms, too, hoping to thereby increasethe supply of edible berries. The lack ofcambium and the scattered arrangementof the conducting tissues mentionedabove give the palm excellent resistanceto f i re . Ki l l ing the terminal "cabbage,"however, results in the death of the tree.

The fan palm blooms in late spring,bearing long panicles of small whitishblossoms. Each flower contains bothmale and female parts. The fruit, whichhangs in clusters from the tree crown insummer and early fa l l , is a blackishberry with thin sweet flesh around a veryhard bro wn seed about the size of a pea.The Indians ate the outer pulp and theseed, grinding the latter into meal. Coy-otes, which eat the fruit after it falls inautumn and later void the undigested

seeds elsewhere, have probably been in-strumental in enlarging the range of thismagnificent desert tree.

Below ground level the fan palm sendsout a dense but shallow mass of fibrousroots, each rootlet generally no morethan 3/4-inch thick. Erosion sometimesexposes a portion of this root system .

Now that the object of our quest hasbeen introduced, we are ready to beginour search for the palm oases of the Cali-fornia deserts. Of the 100-odd stands ofWashingtonias in the state's Coloradoand Mojave deserts, we'l l be visit ing 40of the most attractive and intr iguinggroups. We'll use passenger car, pickuptruck, and four-wheel-dr ive to approach,and in some cases to reach, the groves,but mainly we'l l be explor ing afoot. Ourtrail will take us from the CoachellaValley to the southern Mojave, then intothe Chuckawalla and Eagle ranges,around the northern end of the SaltonSea, and through the Anza-Borregocountry to the Mexican l ine.

The desert is waitin g. W e'l l get under-way next mon th.


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and theBig Smoky Valleyby HAROLD 0. WEIGHTi l l HERE IS Breyfogle's lost ledge?MM With Breyfogle and his gold in theI I very bone andmarrow of Death

Valley history and legend, there wouldseem only one answer. InDeath Valley,of course! Probably in the FuneralRangebut at east inthe Death Valleycountry. That's where Charles Breyfoglealways looked for it, and that's wheredozens ofLost Breyfogle versions placeit.

Only anumber ofold Nevadans, whoknew mining and thecountry, neveragree. Those whobelieved Breyfoglereally found and lost agolden ledge toldme itmust be at Round Mountain, abouthalf way up in the Big Smoky Valley and200 miles north of the Funerals. Thosewho claimed the "lost mine" was really

only afew rich samples Breyfogle usedto promote grubstakes were certainthose samples came from Birch CreekCanyon, behind thetown ofGenevaalso inBig Smoky Valley.

The BigSmoky, named byJohn C.Fremont when he traveled down throughit on his 1845 expedition, lies largely be-tween the Toiyabe Mountains, roughly

The BigSmoky, named byJohn C.Fremont when he traveled down throughit on his 1845 expedition, lies largely be-tween theToiyabe Mountains on thewest and the Toquimas onthe east. Itruns about 140 miles, roughly north andsouth, from apoint easterly across theToiyabes from Austin to apoint westerlyfrom Tonopah. Birch Creek Canyon is inthe Toiyabes' northern end.

Ranches were established inthe BigSmoky in1863, as aresult ofthe ReeseRiver silver rush. The old Overland Roadcrossed it afew miles north ofGeneva,and during the '60s the valley was ana-tural highway south toSilver Peak andthe Death Valley countrythe routeearly Breyfogle parties followed.

For more than acentury there havebeen mining excitements andminingoperations all upanddown the BigSmoky. Round Mountain, discoveredor rediscovered if it isthe Breyfoglein1906, has produced gold almost everyyear since, $8,000,000 before1940.Huge-scale placer operations are underway there today.

I first was introduced to Round Moun-tain as a possible Lost Breyfogle by Gene

:

. " ' ; " ' - ' / '

Old mll andbuildings on RoundMountain'ssouthwestern slope,where rich surfaceores originallywere discovered.28 Desert/ Januar 1977


29/48

Cold placeroperations continue

today on anenormous scale

at Round Mountain.[Note size oftrucks in pit. ]

and Leo Crutt in the ghost town of Raw-hide, Nevada, in 1946.

"They picked Breyfogle up in BigSmoky Valley, just beyond Round Moun-t a i n , " Gene said. "He was starved,thirsty and battered up. And in his handhe had a bandana loaded with gold ore.It isn't common sense he would haveheld onto that ore through hundreds ofmiles of wandering. Why, the bandanawould have been worn out!"

Leo agreed: "No man would have car-r ied the ore that far. He'd just passedRound Mountain, or maybe over theshoulder of i t. And the gold was r ightthere, r ight on the surface. The sun wasright and it gl i ttered in his eyes. So hepicked i t up."

A new Breyfogle theory ! I was soon onmy way to investigate Breyfogle's con-nections with Big Smoky Valley. My pre-l imina ry prospecting was done in the Re-corder 's office in Lander County court-house in Au sti n. Fi les of the Reese RiverReveille were there, as well as the re-gion's earl iest legal records.

A few writers about the lost ledgegave Breyfogle's f irst name as John,James, Louis or Herman. But most saidit was Jacob. J. Frank Dobie describedJacob as an enormous-footed, str ikinglybow- legged g iant "very near the brute,both physically and mentally." Search-ing the Reveille f i les from the beginning

3*2in May 1863, I found no Jacob Breyfogle

But there was a C. C. Breyfogle, andhe was hunting a lost ledge. Those in-it ials were famil iar to Bert Acree, Austinnative and Lander County Recordersince 1909, so we started thro ugh the oldrecord books.

C. C. Breyfogle had been active inmining in the Big Smoky Valley in the1860s, and in promoting the town ofGeneva there .

Each time I have written about theBreyfo gle, the story has differed to someextent through such research and helpfrom officials l ike Bert, from Nevada pio-neers, Breyfogle family members, theNevada State Historical Society, Nevadaand California state l ibrar ies, miners,prospectors and lost mine hunters.

This is my version as of 1976. CharlesC. Breyfogle, far from being "near thebr ut e, " was a Fortyniner and a Califor-nia and Nevada pioneer of intelligenceand abil i ty. Starting across the plainswith Brother Joshua D. in April 1849, hearr ived in Sacramento in August, 1849.A younger brother and four Breyfoglecousins also were in Gold Rush, Califor-nia, the other brother arr iving to huntgold in 1852. His name was Jacob. Hewas a blacksmith, which often is given asthe profession of the Breyfogle who lostthe ledge. Quite possibly he ended uphunting Brother Charles' lost gold, an d

thoroughly tangling up the Breyfoglelegend.

In December 1850, at the forks of theYuba, Charles left Joshua (and gold min -ing) to farm with a brother- in- law at SanJose. October 1854, he was elected As-sessor of Alameda County, and was re-elected in 1855 and 1856. In September1857 he was elected County Treasurer.He seemed well on the way to politicalimportance when, in August 1859, ashortage of $6500 was discovered in hisaccounts. He resigned, was t r i ed , an dwent to pr ison.

When Leland Stanford became Gov-enorof California in 1862, according to astory attr ibuted directly to him , a delega-tion asked a pardon for Breyfogle. An-other person in the office had taken themoney, they said. Breyfogle was guil tyonly of careless management. The dele-gation included a majority of the jurv in-volved, and the judge and prosecutingattorney. The pardon was granted.

This scandal and setback must havebeen the pr ime reason for Breyfogle'smove to Nevada. He was not in Nevada'sfirst directory, dated 1862, but neitherwas Austin. He was in the second, 1863:C. C. Breyfogle, resident of Austin, ad-dress Main Street; occupation, miner.Lander County records reveal many min-ing and real estate transactions byBreyfogle. As early as February 9, 1863,



30/48

he sold 200 feet in the Pacific Ledge for$500, which certainly makes him a ReeseRiver pioneer.June 20, 1863, Breyfogle sold 30 feet

on the Everett Ledge at Geneva for $500.Geneva, at the edge of the Big Smokysome 12 miles southeast across the Toi-

yabe Mounta ins from Aust in , was aproduct of the Reese River boom. It mayhave reached a peak population of 500.Thompson & West's History of Nevada,published in 1881, called it a "cit y ofgreat expectations," and explained whathappened to the expectations:

Above: Nevada'sBig Smoky Valley,looking up the valleyfrom near RoundMountain. This is thearea where Breyfogleis supposed to havebeen found, afterhis escape fromDeath Valley.Left: EdwardA. Michal, long-timeRound Mountainmill foreman, pointsout Los Gazabos veinon Round Mountain'ssouthwestern slope,where Breyfogle m ayhave found his gold.Photo taken in 7946.30

"In the hi l ls enclosing Birch Creekwere some large and apparently r ichveins of quartz, some of which were soldto New York capital ists, who expendedlarge sums of money in their develop-ment, but with unsatisfactory results.

"Geneva, in 1864, had some fine stonebuildings and numerous log and clothhouses, but the inhabitants long agofolded what tents they could, and thestone walls, the pretty vale, and thesparkl ing stream are left in their wi ld-ness. "

So they rem ain today, although someof the stone walls are becoming prettydiff icult to locate.

One of those fine stone buildings wasa 30x50 foot hotel, "now under thecharge of Mr . Breyfogle," the Reveillereported July 29, 1863, "who wil l spareno pains to render his patrons comfor-table and their stay in Smoky Valleypleasant." Breyfogle also had a new17x20 stone residence in Geneva, andmining and real estate interests. On thetown plat, dated December 1863, Brey-fogle was listed as one of Geneva's sevenpropr ie tors.

So here we find Charles C. Breyfogle,a leading citizen of Geneva, apparentlywell settled in a second career and near-ing old age by the standards of thoset imes. (The Breyfogle genealogy giveshis birthdate as 1808.) Less than twoyears later he was on his way to a sort ofimmorta l i ty as the " tou ch ed " lost minehunter, involved in a fanatic search thatwould last the rest of his lifeand al-most end it more than once.

What happened and why? Breyfoglemust have realized that in Geneva hehad picked a loser. Did he sell out suc-cessfully and leave, or did he leave be-cause he could not sell? Was the LostBreyfogle the cause or result of hisleaving?

Some of the Breyfogle legends say hisoriginal discovery was made in 1862, onhis first journey to the Reese River Dig-gings. I do not agree, and have found nocontemporary mention of the ledge be-fore 1865. Why would he have waited solong to try to relocate it? Some say hisfirst expedition from Nevada to DeathValley was in search of the Lost Gunsightsi lver of the Death Valley Fortyniners.Since he must have heard the story inSan Jose, this is possible.

At any rate, the January 30, 1864Reveille reported that B reyfogle and four



31/48

men had passed San Antonio, a newmining distr ict near the southern end ofthe Big Smoky Valley, "professing theirintention to go as far south as the Colo-rado River on a prospecting tour." Thenext month a Reveille correspondentment ioned new people, a Mr. and Mrs.Ransom, in charge of the Ceneva hotel.

Return of "s om e" of th is par ty of f ive,not mentioning Breyfogle, was reportedin the Reveille that March. They hadtraveled south to the Los Angeles-SaltLake r o a d , " s u f f e r i n g i n n u m e r a b l ehardships," fo l lowed i t to Los Angeles,and returned via San Francisco.

Breyfogle did return to Geneva afterthat tr ip, and must have intended tospend some time there, as on May 14,1864, he was elected president of theSmoky Val ley Min ing Distr ict . But if hedid not return with the others, and if heprospected his way back with new com-panions, we may have come to the timeand circumstances of the lost ledge dis-covery. A version of this discovery inwhich I place considerable credence, ex-cept i ts dating to the beginning of theReese River rush , was told to me by CarlStoddard in Reno in 1946. Stoddard wasa capable and respected mining engin-eer, and his story came directly fromJacob Gooding, who knew Breyfogle andhunted the lost ledge with him. Roughly,this is what Carl told me:

"When Gooding moved down fromAustin, he bought some land from myfather. He used to come over almostevery night. I was going to the School ofMines, so I would get him talking aboutmining and the desert.

"Time and again the talk would getaround to the Lost Breyfogle. Time andagain I wo uld get him to describe theBreyfogle ore. Gooding was an assayer,so his description should be good. It wasreddish very reddish and apparentlyimpregnated with iron oxide. It was notquartz, but was si l icif ied. What youmight call porphyry. The gold was veryye ll ow . The o re was l ike . . . "

Stoddard h esitated, seeking a com-parison.

"Like the oxidized ore at RoundMo unta in?" I asked .One of the mines "of great expecta-tions" in Birch Creek Canyon. Som eNevadans believe Breyfogle obtainedrich specimens at Birch Creek and usedthem, with his lost ledge story, to obtaingrubstakes. 1960 photo.

He looked "surprised "Yes, it was."Gooding and Breyfogle were Penn-

s y l v a n i a D u t c h m e n , " h e c o n t i n u e d ."When Breyfogle got to Austin with hisgold, he looked Gooding up. Goodingwas one of the organizers, if not the or-ganizer, of the first hunt for the ledge.

"Breyfogle told Gooding his story.When news of the Reese River silverstr ike came to him in Los Angeles, heand two companions left via San Bernar-dino. They knew that if they held to adue north direction, they would come toAustin. They continued an uneventfultr ip unti l they reached the neighborhoodof Death Valley. There they were attack-ed at night by Indians. Breyfogle's com-panions were ki l led , and he escaped w ithonly his shoes. From then on he used theshoes to carry such water as he couldf i nd . He reached a place at the lower endof Death Valley known as Coyote Holes,fi l led his shoes with water and went on.It was very hot and he was in pretty badshape.

"After he left the Holes, he saw whathe thought was a spring on the hi l lside.Always in need of water, he climbed tothe spot, only to find it was a mesquitetree. Terr ibly disappointed, he wentback to the valley. On the way he cameacross a spot of red dish ea rth on a hi l l . Inthat spot he found the pieces of fabulousore. He was a prospector, and he knewwhat he had found."Breyfogle went on, l iving on bunchgrass w hich is succulent down tow ardthe roots and such water as he couldf i nd . He traveled largely by night and by

the stars, and held, steadily to his ncvrth-ern course. He came to Baxter Springs,( in the southernmost t ip of the ToquimaMountains) and stayed there severaldays. Then he went on and was pickedup, with the r ich ore, by a rancher in theBig Smoky Valley and taken on intoAust in .

"T he expedition formed to find the orewent back to Coyote Holes to start thesearch. Breyfogle thought he could pickup his trail there. But he could never gethimself located. Gooding said he wascontinually talking about and looking forthe red spot on the hi l l . The expeditionfa i l e d . "

Geneva, sti l l not through with Brey-fogle, must have learned about his lostledge at this periodto its sorrow. InOctober 1865, W il l iam McB room and C.C. Sears were killed in Death Valley byIndians, and A. A. Simonds was wound-ed . They were hunting the Breyfogle,and McBroom and Simonds were resi-den ts o f Geneva and l i s ted wi thBreyfogle on that 1863 town plat. In al l ,including Breyfogle, five of those sevenco-proprietors of Geneva went huntingthe lost ledge, or hunting for fr iends whohunted for i t. Expeditions from Austinalso went breyfogling during that andfol lowing y ears. An d most of them go-ing and coming went r ight past goldenRound Mountain, which would not be lo-cated and mined for another 40 years.Whe n I went to Round Mountain in1946, I thought the question of whetherit was the Breyfogle could be decided by

Continued on Page 39

Desert /January 1977 31


32/48

of crossroads on the eastern Mojave.Roads led southwest to Barstow; west toRandsburg; north to Death Valley andTecopa; east to Coodsprings, Nevadaplus Ivanpah and Nipton, California, aswell as southeast to Cima, Kelso andcamps in the New York Mountains. By1905, Silver Lake's general mercantilestore, Rose-Heath-Fisk Company, andsaloons were doing a thriving business.

Seven miles south at Baker Station,the Salt Lake Railroad Line had beencompleted across the desert and on intoUtah. When Borax Smith pushed therails for his Tonopah & Tidewater Rail-

by MA RY FRANCES STRONGphotos by Jerry Strong

S ILVER LAKE Country could be thename of an elongated, trough-likevalley containing shimmering lakessurrounded by mountain ranges. It couldalso be highly mineralized and rich inhistory; encompass ghost towns and pro-vide a giant playground for those whoenjoy the great outdoors. Indeed, it is allthis and morea winter wonderland atthe southern end of Death Valley on Cali-fornia's Eastern Mojave Desert.

Severed by Highway 127, large num-bers of motorists travel through SilverLake Country during weekends and holi-days. They are usually bound for DeathValley, Dumont Dunes or points north.Few even notice the three lake beds orhalf-dozen roads leading into the back-country. Consequently, the regions re-mains uncrowded and unspoiled.

There are roads to roam which lead toold m ines, ghost towns and several form-er mining camps. A four-wheel-drivetrail allows exploration of a long section32

of Borax Sm ith's fabled Tonopah & T ide-water Railroad. Bring along a metal de-tector and "go over" the several sidingsalong the route. A nice talc specimen caneasily be added to a mineral col lec t io n-some material is suitable for carving.There is also plenty of open country forcamping under the stars. There may bean added bonusif weather condit ionshave been favorable, desert lilies will beblooming in Apr i l and May along with amyriad of other wildf lowers.

Silver Lake is the largest of threeplayas in this desert region. They aredry, it is true, but their f lat bottomsshimmer and radiate in the sun's rays.Mirages often make the lakes appear tobe water-f i l led. Sometimes, the water isfor real as the consequence of heavythundershowers or surplus water fromthe Mojave River.

The hub of Silver Lake Country wasthe litt le town of Silver Lake on the east-ern lakeshore. Its location was the focus

road north across Silver Lake to Rh yolite,the l i t t le comm unity seemed assured of abright future. However, the Panic of1907 cast a few doubts on this.

Silver Lake's population hit an all-timehigh of 135 in 1918. Mines in the areawere operat ing, as was a mil l on thelakeshore near town. After World War I ,mining went into a slump and peoplebegan to move on. The mercantile storeclosed in 1927 and 1933 found SilverLake officially deadthe post office hadbeen closed.

One old building, tamarix trees plusnumerous foundations and mil l piers,

Desert/January 1977


33/48

Right: 7/ie little Silver Lakecemetery is located on a

forlorn, windswept bajada.It is, perhaps, a more suitable,

final resting place for"free so uls" than its

crowded metroplitan counterpart.Below: Remnantsof the camp at the

Silver Lake Talc Mineinclude several buildings,gangue dumps and adits, all

attesting to a history of45 years continuous

mining activity.

'

-"

piles of discarded talc and a truck scalemark the former site of Silver Lake alongboth sides of Highway 127. A graded dirtroad leads northeast to an abandonedsubstation of the Metropolitan Water &Power Company. Along the way, a wel l -preserved dugout will be seen on theright. You wil l f ind the few remainingruins at Silver Lake both picturesque andphotogenic.

We stopped at the little Silver LakeCemetery just north of town. There were12 graves with only two sti l l marked.One of the latter, Harry "D ea th V alleyJack" Nickerson, 1897-1932, was prob-D e s e rt /J a n u ar 1 97 7

ab ly one o f the reg ion 's co lo r fu lcharacters.There is a choice of several routes forexploration of Silver Lake Country. Wefound the loop tr ip from the old ghosttown to the talc mines, on to RiggsSiding then north along the old railbed toValjean Siding more enjoyable. Wespent several days in the region andmade side trips to the sites shown on theaccompanying map.

Leaving the ghost town of Silver Lake,we fol lowed a graded road northeaster lyto a junction with a powerl ine road. W eturned r ight and wandered easter ly

* * ~

through the northwest corner of the Tur-quoise Mountains. It was mid-May andthe entire region was a wildflower gar-den. There must have been some latespring rain in this area as the rest of thedesert's wildflower bloom was longgone.

Shortly after enter ing the mountains,? road " Y " appeared and a sign on thepowerl ine road warned "Private Proper-ty. Keep Out." We kept left into a washwhere old sections of paving indicatedwe were on a former mine road. In a littleover four miles we reached a junctionand again turned left. Detailed mileagesare given on the map of Silver LakeCountry.

To the east we could see the sizabletalc deposits known collectively as theSilver Lake Talc Mine. Here, in atwo-mile ore zone, concentrations ofminable talc have developed in the formof shistose masses along margins of tre-molite bodies. Most of the talc shist andtremolite rock are snowy white and me-dium to coarse-grained. The mineablebodies showed a thickness of about 10feet and ranged fro m 30 feet to some 800feet in length.

The main camp was our destination.Using binoculars we studied each minedarea and quickly located the camp. In afew minutes we were standing in i tsghostly ruins. It is always sad to view theremains of a once lively m inin g campwhere hopes, joys and sorrows had cometo pass. There was evidence everywhere a wom an's shoe, child 's toy, brokendishes, toolsof the people who hadlived and worked here.

Five residences lay in shambles fromvandals. One side of the most substantialhouse had been rammed by a car. Win-


34/48

Several former sidings lie along theabandoned Tono pay & Tidewater railbedthrough Silver Lake Country. There islitt le above ground now to mark their lo-cations, but they should be of interest tometal detecto

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197701 Desert Magazine 1977 January