Audio
Interview with Bill Keys Clip #1
Transcript
Bill Keys Interview 21 Oct 1966 Interviewed by: Steve Smith, Lost Horse District Transcribed: Faith Lane, Keys Ranch Caretaker,10 Jan 2015 [Audio has background noise of hammering, sawing, and general construction noise throughout.]
Billy Keys: So, uh, this Desert Queen was first found by a man by the name of James who is buried at the Lost Horse well. In 1894, he worked at the Lost Horse Mine, and Sundays he went prospecting, and he walked five miles across north, over north from the Lost Horse, and found the Desert Queen Mine. Well these cowboys, went riding out after cattle out through the Desert Queen Valley; why they'd notice any fresh track either by coyote or wildcat or anything, they were that keen. They were as keen as a coyote as to marks in the ground. Well they saw this big man track, going and coming. Going north and then coming back. Well, they said, I wonder what he went north forth for…let's follow it up. And they followed it up and found his monument, and the gold, and his notice in the monument. So, they said, Well, this is a rich thing. We just go back and we'll set up a scheme, and we'll go up and kill him, and we'll get the mine. So George Meyers, Jim McHaney, and Charley Martin made up the party. And they went up there and they called James out. They said Oh, come out here, we found a rich strike up here. Do you own it? Well, James said All right, I'll come up there and see. And when he came up, Charley Martin had testified in court in San Bernardino that he had rheumatism so bad he could hardly walk on this trial, but he managed to go backwards fifty feet and pick up the gun that George Meyers laid by a Joshua tree and he said he'd never taken that gun off before that time. But on this occasion he took the gun off and laid it by the Joshua tree, and Charley Martin backed with all of his rheumatism and got this gun as James advanced up the hill. So when he got close enough, Charley Martin shot him, killed him. So then, they had to make up a scheme that this fella had a knife, this James had a knife and he made stabs at him, backing him this fifty feet as bad as that rheumatism that he had. But he said he went backwards so doggone fast that the fella could never get but skin deep with his knife. Eighteen times. And George Meyers said he hollered like a pup when Jim McHaney did the stabbing.
Steve Smith: [Laughs]
Billy Keys: Yeah. So then they went in and notified an attorney in Los Angeles. Byron Waters was one of the famous attorneys in Los Angeles, and Byron Waters told me, in his own house, after he was blind, and told me the story about how he went out before it was known that the man was dead, and fixed up the deal and the trial and cleared these men. Byron Waters told me that himself after he was blind, and in his own house, so he said he cleared them.
So then they went to work on the mine, and Bill McHaney came out of the mine one morning and Johnny Wilson had been picking up this float of the Queen at Twentynine Palms and 'rastra'ing it for a grub stake. But he couldn't find the mine because the channel had changed. The wash channel had changed. So he missed it. But when Bill McHaney drove out with a four horse team with ore that run a dollar a pound to go to the Pinon Well run by the Tingman, Holland & Company, two stamp mill, and made the first mill run there. So Johnny Wilson when he saw Bill McHaney driving along with a four horse team, he was hunting jackrabbits at the time and saw Bill McHaney, and he went over to to Bill McHaney and he looked at a piece of that ore and he said Why that's the stuff I used to find at Twentynine Palms, and I couldn't find the mine! Yeah. Why Bill, he says, You've found the mine that I've been looking for for twenty years. So Bill went on for Pinon, and a mill run was made. And Jim McHaney, after the mill run amalgam was retorted, and left a sponge. Well there was $47,000 in that sponge. So as Jim McHaney was riding out with his sponge, Tlngman said, Jim how about that $35 grocery bill that you owe me? Well he says, I'll pay you just as soon as I cash this in. Well, he says, Let me clean out that trough and I'll call it square, that trough there, that trap. Why, he says, If you think there's anything in that go ahead and yes, we'll call It square. And Tingman cleaned up $600.
Steve Smith: [Laughs]
Billy Keys: Yeah. So they called that square. Well he went on with this sponge, and he shipped that. And when the returns came he paid Charley Martin for killing James $47,000. And that was for Charley Martin's third Interest.
Description
Mr. Keys tells the story of the discovery and claim jumping of the Desert Queen Mine.
Credit
Ranger Steve Smith, Joshua Tree National Park, National Park Service
Date Created
10/21/1966
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