Loafing Along Death Valley Trails

Brown’s success in the Assembly had not gone unnoticed in the neighboring county of Mono. “We need that fellow Brown,” a prominent citizen said, and others repeated it.

Again Charlie put his suitcase in his car, filled the tank. “We’ve never had anybody from this side at Sacramento,” he told a friend standing by. “I’m running for the Senate.”

“Know anybody up there?”

“I’m going and get acquainted,” he said and headed across the valley.

Most of Mono county is isolated by the High Sierras. Again the door to door technique. No torches. No brass bands. Just the old eye-to-eye-talk-it-over system. As always he let the voter do the talking and he listened, but when he slid into his car the voter was ready to tell his neighbor: “I like that fellow. Doesn’t claim to know it all.” He told his banker, his grocer, his butcher, baker, and barber.

Result? I was in the Senate Chamber at Sacramento later, when I heard one of a group of men huddled nearby say, “This is an important bill that concerns everybody on the east side of the Sierras. We’d better see Charlie.” I nudged the man reading a document at my side. “Those fellows want to see you, Senator.”

He had received the nomination of both the Democratic and Republican parties and had secured the passage of an act which denies a municipality holding more than 50 per cent of the property of another subdivision of the state, proprietary power over the security and stability of such subdivision. Moreover he was on the all-powerful Rules Committee, the Fish and Game, Local Government, Natural Resources, Social Welfare, and Election Committees, friend and frequent adviser of Governor Warren.

Honeymooning Secretary Ickes was combining business with pleasure when he reached California and wanting to see how his Park System was functioning, he took his bride to see Death Valley. Besides, he had some plans affecting the Inyo area.

The fight was having tough sledding in the legislature despite President Roosevelt’s approval. Then he talked to people less biased. “You’d better see Charlie…”

“Who the hell’s Charlie?” asked Harold.

“Senator from Death Valley…”

With Ray Goodwin, Superintendent of the Death Valley Monument to guide him, he was taken to all the show places. “Now,” said Mr. Ickes, “I want to see Brown.”

At Shoshone Charlie’s toggery is strictly for work which includes tending the gas pump, stove repairing, plumbing, and what-have-you. He was flat on his back under the dripping oil of a balky car when Mr. Goodwin stepped from the limousine.

“Charlie,” Mr. Goodwin called, “Mr. Ickes is here to see you.” Receiving no answer, he walked over to the car and added that Mr. Ickes was in a hurry. Still, no answer. “It’s Secretary Ickes, Department of the Interior. This is important.”

“So’s this,” Brown grunted. When he’d finished, he crawled out and wiping the grime from his hands, joined Goodwin at the waiting car. After being introduced to the bride and the self-styled “Old Curmudgeon” the latter explained his plan to add certain lands in Charlie’s district, to the Forest Reserve. “… You’re opposing me. You’re a Democrat, aren’t you?”

“I came from Georgia,” Charlie drawled.

“You’re for Roosevelt, aren’t you?”

“Within reason,” Charlie answered.

Then Mr. Ickes, with the assurance of the perfectionist began to sell his idea.

“Do you know of any reason why the area designated as Forest Reserve should not be protected as any other of our natural resources?” he concluded.

“Just one,” Charlie said.

“What’s that?” Ickes snapped.

“Your forest is nearly all brush land without a tree on it big enough to shade a lizard.”

Charlie was similarly dressed when a well tailored and impatient tourist with a carload of friends whom he was evidently trying to impress, drove up for gas.

Always unhurried, Charlie came to the pumps, slowly reached for the hose and as lazily checked the oil.

“Say, fellow – ” the tourist barked. “Senator Brown is a friend of mine. Get a move on or you’ll be looking for a job.”

Without the flicker of an eyelid, Charlie quickened, jumped for a cleaning rag and briskly polished the windshield. When he brought the tourist’s change he apologized for his slowness and begged him not to report it to Senator Brown. “Jobs are hard to get and I have a wife and ten children to support.”

Touched with remorse, the tourist looked at the change. “Just give it to the kids and forget it.”

When the Pacific Coast Borax Company built its swanky Furnace Creek Inn on the western slope of the Funeral Range overlooking Death Valley, it began to look about for places that would give the most spectacular and comprehensive view of the Big Sink as a means of entertaining guests, and far enough away to keep them from boredom.

All the old timers who had wandered over the ranges were called in. Each suggested the place that had impressed him more than others. Each of these places was visited and after weeks of deliberation a spot on Chloride Cliff toward the northern end of Death Valley was chosen and the bigwigs started back to Los Angeles.

When they stopped at Shoshone for gas and water, Clarence Rasor, an engineer of the company was still thinking of the chosen site and asked Brown, long his friend, if he knew of any view of the valley better than the one at Chloride Cliff.

“I don’t pay much attention to scenery,” he told Rasor. “To me it’s all just desert or mountain. But I know one view that made me stop and look. Kinda got me. The chances are most folks would rave over it.”

“Could you find it?”

“Sure could…”

Rasor called the others, repeated Charlie’s story and added: “You’re in a hurry, but knowing Charlie as I do, I believe we’d better turn around and go back if he’ll guide us.”

Charlie agreed. It was a long, tortuous climb, even to the base of the peak. There Charlie went ahead and then beckoned them. Holding to bushes they walked or crawled to stand beside him; took one look and caught their breath. A mile below them lay the awesome Sink. White salt beds spread like a shroud over its silent desolation. Billowed dunes, gold against the dark of lava rock. Here a pastelled hill. There a brooding canyon. Beyond, the colorful Panamint under the golden glow of the sun.

“This is the place,” they said.

“… You can tell ’em too,” said Charlie pointing, “that right down there is Copper Canyon. If such stuff interests them, they can see the footprints of the camels and elephants and a lot of historic junk like that.”

So you who thrill at Dante’s View may thank Charles Brown of Shoshone.

When first elected to the senate, his colleagues were quick to see the qualities that had appealed to voters when they elected him supervisor. He had frequently been before that body in his fight for roads and tax reforms. They knew too that better schools for all rural areas either wholly or largely were the result of his efforts, and soon he was on the Rules Committee – a place usually assigned to those who come from the more populous districts of the state, because its five members through its power to appoint all standing and special committees, largely decide what legislation reaches the governor.

In 1950 Brown announced his candidacy for reelection under the state law that enables a candidate to seek the nomination of two parties.

The slot machine had been outlawed in California by the previous legislature and Brown had been largely instrumental in securing the passage of the law. Since the slot machine is a three billion dollar business in the nation, the gamblers opposed him as part of a general plan to secure repeal of the law and reinstate the one-arm bandits.

Since Mono county adjoins Nevada, gambling interests of that state contributed without stint, to retire Brown to private life. He had been in office for 25 years and opposed by this powerful group, guided by both brains and cunning, the odds apparently were against him. While the opposition boasted that he was through, Brown was calling at cabins in the hills and gulches, meeting friends on busy village streets and again when the vote was counted, it was discovered that voters have memories. He had won the nomination of both the Democratic and Republican parties by almost two to one and under the law, was re-elected.

Due to his priority standing and the retirement of older senators, the big fellow who walked 150 miles to get a job at Greenwater in order to save the fare to eat on, automatically shares with two men the power to control the legislation of the state.

Hell, like gold, is where you find it – either in people or places. A lady of wealth and aristocratic background in route to Furnace Creek’s luxury inn, stopped at Shoshone for gas. Worn out by the long drive over the corduroy road, she looked about her and then at Charlie in greasy overalls. “How on earth,” she asked in genuine distress, “do you make a living in this God-forsaken-hole?”

“It’s hard ma’am,” Charlie said gloomily. “But we get a few pennies from tourists, a little flour from mesquite beans, and stay alive one way or another, hoping to get out.”

The gracious lady opened her purse, thrust a five dollar bill into Charlie’s hand and went her way.

“It really made her happy,” Charlie chuckled, “and I just didn’t have the heart to give it back.”

What is it that man wants of these “God-forsaken-holes” on the desert? I sought the answer one day when Shoshone was having a holiday. George Ishmael, as native as an Indian, was chosen to barbecue the steer. A well-to-do tourist begged the job of digging the big pit. “Want to flex my muscles…” Another cut the wood. At a depth of four feet, water was struck and rose a foot over the bottom. “That’s all right” George said. He tossed a dozen railroad ties into the hole, floated them into position, covered them with dirt, built the fire, lowered the carcass of the steer, covered it with green leaves and filled the hole. “An unforgettable feast,” agreed the scores who had come from places 100 miles away.

Sitting beside me was a prominent Los Angeles attorney, eminent in the councils of the Democratic party in both state and nation. “Why,” he asked, “will a man wear himself out in the city when he can really live in a little place like this?”

“I thought of suicide at first,” said Patsy, young matron with three healthy little stairsteps. “My husband said ‘for heaven’s sake, go out for a month and have a good time.’ I went. Back in a week.”

A Vermont girl said she had come to escape a straightlaced code that constantly reminded her sin was everywhere. “Here I’ve got an even break with the devil…”

All had found something that clicked with something inside of them which challenged something in civilization. Maybe it was expressed in the dogma of the Tennessee judge reared in the hill country of the Cumberland river. As he stepped from his plane on his annual vacation he was cornered by a reporter: “Judge, you’re 94 years old. What do you think of this modern world?”

“Best one I know about.”

“No criticism?”

“None whatever. Maybe a few minor changes. Just now we are being educated out of common sense into ignorance; lawed out of patriotism; taxed into poverty; doctored to death and preached to hell…”

Chapter XXII

Lost Mines. The Breyfogle and Others

The most famous lost mine in the Death Valley area is the Lost Breyfogle. There are many versions of the legend, but all agree that somewhere in the bowels of those rugged mountains is a colossal mass of gold, which Jacob Breyfogle found and lost.

Jacob Breyfogle was a prospector who roamed the country around Pioche and Austin, Nevada, with infrequent excursions into the Death valley area. He traveled alone.

Indian George, Hungry Bill, and Panamint Tom saw Breyfogle several times in the country around Stovepipe Wells, but they could never trace him to his claim. When followed, George said, Breyfogle would step off the trail and completely disappear. Once George told me about trailing him into the Funeral Range. He pointed to the bare mountain. “Him there, me see. Pretty quick – ” He paused, puckered his lips. “Whoop – no see.”

Breyfogle left a crude map of his course. All lost mines must have a map. Conspicuous on this map are the Death Valley Buttes which are landmarks. Because he was seen so much here, it was assumed that his operations were in the low foothills. I have seen a rough copy of this map made from the original in possession of “Wildrose” Frank Kennedy’s squaw, Lizzie.

Breyfogle presumably coming from his mine, was accosted near Stovepipe Wells by Panamint Tom, Hungry Bill, and a young buck related to them, known as Johnny. Hungry Bill, from habit, begged for food. Breyfogle refused, explaining that he had but a morsel and several hard days’ journey before him. On his burro he had a small sack of ore. When Breyfogle left, Hungry Bill said, “Him no good.”

Incited by Hungry Bill and possible loot, the Indians followed Breyfogle for three or four days across the range. Hungry Bill stopped en route, sent the younger Indians ahead. At Stump Springs east of Shoshone, Breyfogle was eating his dinner when the Indians sneaked out of the brush and scalped him, took what they wished of his possessions and left him for dead.

Ash Meadows Charlie, a chief of the Indians in that area confided to Herman Jones that he had witnessed this assault. This happened on the Yundt Ranch, or as it is better known, the Manse Ranch. Yundt and Aaron Winters accidentally came upon Breyfogle unconscious on the ground. The scalp wound was fly-blown. They had a mule team and light wagon and hurried to San Bernardino with the wounded man. The ore, a chocolate quartz, was thrown into the wagon.

“I saw some of it at Phi Lee’s home, the Resting Spring Ranch,” Shorty Harris said. “It was the richest ore I ever saw. Fifty pounds yielded nearly $6000.”

Breyfogle recovered, but thereafter was regarded as slightly “off.” He returned to Austin, Nevada, and the story followed.

Wildrose (Frank) Kennedy, an experienced mining man obtained a copy of Breyfogle’s map and combed the country around the buttes in an effort to locate the mine. Kennedy had the aid of the Indians and was able to obtain, through his squaw Lizzie, such information as Indians had about the going and coming of the elusive Breyfogle.

“Some believe the ore came from around Daylight Springs,” Shorty said, “but old Lizzie’s map had no mark to indicate Daylight Springs. But it does show the buttes and the only buttes in Death Valley are those above Stovepipe Wells.

“Kennedy interested Henry E. Findley, an old time Colorado sheriff and Clarence Nyman, for years a prospector for Coleman and Smith (the Pacific Borax Company). They induced Mat Cullen, a rich Salt Lake mining man, to leave his business and come out. They made three trips into the valley, looking for that gold. It’s there somewhere.”

At Austin, Breyfogle was outfitted several times to relocate the property, but when he reached the lower elevation of the valley, he seemed to suffer some aberration which would end the trip. His last grubstaker was not so considerate. He told Breyfogle that if he didn’t find the mine promptly he’d make a sieve of him and was about to do it when a companion named Atchison intervened and saved his life. Shortly afterward, Breyfogle died from the old wound.

Indian George, repeating a story told him by Panamint Tom, once told me that Tom had traced Breyfogle to the mine and after Breyfogle’s death went back and secured some of the ore. Tom guarded his secret. He covered the opening with stone and leaving, walked backwards, obliterating his tracks with a greasewood brush. Later when Tom returned prepared to get the gold he found that a cloudburst had filled the canyon with boulders, gravel and silt, removing every landmark and Breyfogle’s mine was lost again.

“Some day maybe,” George said, “big rain come and wash um out.”

Among the freighters of the early days was John Delameter who believed the Breyfogle was in the lower Panamint. Delameter operated a 20 mule team freighting service between Daggett and points in both Death Valley and Panamint Valley. He told me that he found Breyfogle down in the road about twenty-eight miles south of Ballarat with a wound in his leg. Breyfogle had come into the Panamint from Pioche, Nevada, and said he had been attacked by Indians, his horses stolen, while working on his claim which he located merely with a gesture toward the mountains.

Subsequently Delameter made several vain efforts to locate the property, but like most lost mines it continues to be lost. But for years it was good bait for a grubstake and served both the convincing liar and the honest prospector.

Nearly all old timers had a version of the Lost Breyfogle differing in details but all agreeing on the chocolate quartz and its richness.

That Breyfogle really lost a valuable mine there can be little doubt, but since he is authentically traced from the northern end of Death Valley to the southern, and since the chocolate quartz is found in many places of that area, one who cares to look for it must cover a large territory.

One mine that had never been found turned up in a way as amazing as most of them are lost.

At Pioche, Nevada, an assayer was suspected of giving greater values to samples than they merited. It is known as the “come on.”

In order to trap the suspect, a prospector broke off a piece of old grindstone and ordered an assay. “If he gives that any value, it’s proof enough he’s a crook,” he told his friends.

Proof of guilt came with the assayer’s report. The grindstone was incredibly rich in silver, it said.

“We’ve got the goods on him now,” the outraged prospector announced and it was decided to give the assayer a coat of tar and feathers. Wiser counsel was accepted, however, and it was decided to give him no more business. The fellow was faced with the alternative of starving or leaving the country, when he learned the reason of the boycott. Conscious of no error in his work, he made another and more careful assay. This time the samples yielded even higher values.

It was agreed by all mining engineers of that day that rock like the samples never carried silver or gold. But the assayer knew his furnace hadn’t lied and he couldn’t believe grindstone makers were mixing silver with sand to make the stones. So he traced the grindstone to the quarry it came from. The result was the Silver King, one of the richest silver mines.

THE LOST GUNSIGHT. The first lost mine in Death Valley, preceding that of Breyfogle’s by four or five years, was the Gunsight.

A survivor of the Jayhawkers or the Bennett-Arcane party of ’49 (it is not clear to which he belonged) after escaping death in the valley, saw a deer or antelope and on the point of starvation, took his gun from its strap to shoot the animal. Seeing that the sight had been lost, he picked up a thin piece of shale and wedged it in the sight slot. Later he took the weapon to a gunsmith who removed the makeshift sight and upon examination found it to be almost pure silver. “Where I picked it up,” said the owner, “there was a mountain of it.”

So begins the history of the Lost Gunsight and the story spread as stories will, until ten years later it reached the ears of Dr. Darwin French of Oroville, previously mentioned. The doctor became excited and in the spring of 1860 organized a party to locate the fabulous mountain of silver. Though he searched bravely he failed to find it. However, he brought back the first authentic account of what others with a flair for lost mines could expect in the way of weather, topography, Indians, edible game, vegetation, and water. On this trip, however, he discovered silver in the Coso Range.

The following year, 1861, Dr. S. G. George who had been with the French party, decided he could find the Lost Gunsight and organized an expedition which crossed Panamint Valley, explored Wild Rose Canyon and reached the highest spot in Death Valley. But Dr. George’s valiant efforts were no luckier than those of Dr. French.

William Manly, author of “Death Valley in Forty-Nine” also tried but gained only another tragic experience and came nearer losing his life than he did with the Forty-Niners. Lost and without water and beaten to his knees, he was deserted by companions and escaped death by a miracle. How many have lost their lives trying to find the Gunsight no one knows. There are scores of sunken mounds on lonely mesas which an old timer will explain tersely: “He was looking for the Gunsight.”

Dr. French, after his failure, pursued another and even more intriguing lost mine. With a ready ear for tales of treasure, he heard of a tribe of Indians in the Death Valley area who were making bullets for their rifles out of gold. Accordingly he organized another party to find the gold.

For eleven months Dr. French and his hand-picked comrades combed the country. The gold they found would have loaded no gun, but you may add the Lost Bullet to your list of lost mines. A member of this party was John Searles, for whom Searles’ Lake is named.

Because early prospectors searched for Breyfogle’s lost mine throughout the region where he was found scalped, an interesting digression is not amiss.

A few miles east of Shoshone, there is a Gunsight mine named, of course, by the discoverer in the hope that he’d found the one so long lost. It adjoins the Noonday and was a valuable property which belonged to Dr. L. D. Godshall of Victorville.

The Noonday produced five million dollars and was operated until silver and lead took a price dive. A 12 mile railroad was built from Tecopa to haul the ore. The steel rails were later hauled away and the ties went into construction of desert homes, sheds, fences, and firewood. For years the two properties could have been bought for what-have-you.

Then came Pearl Harbor and a young Kentuckian, Buford Davis, looking around for lead or any essential ores that Uncle Sam could use, dropped off at Shoshone. Charles Brown told him of the Gunsight and the Noonday. Davis inspected the properties, bought them for a relatively small down payment. He chose to begin operations on the Noonday and sent Ernie Huhn, an experienced miner to deepen the shaft.

“Honest to God,” Ernie told me, “I hadn’t dug a foot when I turned up the prettiest vein of lead I’d ever seen.”

In the next six years the Noonday produced approximately a gross of nine million dollars and a net of probably six million dollars.

These figures were given me by Don Kempfer, mining engineer and Shoshone resident, from estimates which he believed accurate.

In 1947 with the rich rewards attained but as yet unenjoyed, Buford Davis made a hurried airplane trip to Salt Lake. Returning, he was only a few moments from a safe landing when the plane crashed and all aboard were killed.

Today, (1950) the property belongs to Anaconda and is considered one of its most valuable mines.

For those interested in lost mines I offer the list that follows. (The names are my own.)

THE LOST CHINAMAN: When John Searles was struggling to make a living out of the ooze that is called Searles’ Lake he had a mule skinner known as Salty Bill Parkinson – a fearless, hard-bitten individual who was the Paul Bunyan of Death Valley teamsters.

While loading a wagon with borax, Salty Bill and Searles noticed a man staggering down from the Slate Range. They decided he was supercharged with desert likker and paid scant attention as he wobbled across the flat from the base of the range. A moment later he fell at their feet. They saw then that he was a Chinaman; that his tongue was swollen, his eyes red and sunken; that he clutched at his throat in a vain effort to speak. He could make no intelligible sound and lapsed into unconsciousness. They thought he had died and was left on their hands for burial.

Salty Bill afterwards stated that he’d said to Searles: “‘Fremont, Carson, or the Mormons old Bill Williams, for whom Bill Williams River, Bill Williams Mountain, and the town of Williams, Arizona, are named was at Resting Springs. He’ll spoil in an hour. I’ll go for a shovel while you choose a place to plant him.’ I’d actually turned to go when Searles called me back.” Searles had seen some sign of life and after removing a canvas bag strapped to his body they took him to a nearby shed, gave him a few spoonfuls of water and eventually he was restored to consciousness. He lay in a semi-stupor all the afternoon and was obsessed with the idea that he was going to die. His chief concern was to get to Mojave so that he could take a stage for a seaport and die in China or failing, arrange for the burial of his bones with those of his ancestors.