Death Valley Historic Resource Study A History of Mining

1. Inyo Independent, 8 January 1927.

2. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 124.

3. In 1933 when Death Valley became a national monument, the well site was marked by the present iron pump and masonry curbing. Bob Eichbaum guarded the original stovepipe and displayed it for a time at his Stovepipe Wells resort. After being lost for a short period, the relic was relocated and displayed again at the dedication of an official state historical plaque at the old well site on 10 November 1968 during the 19th annual Death Valley Encampment. San Bernardino (Ca.) Sun, 8 November 1968.

4. Bullfrog Miner, 10 August 1906.

5. Ibid., 22 February 1907.

6. Rhyolite Herald, 19 April 1907. According to Death Valley Scotty's reminiscences, water and feed for pack animals and -freight teams cost 50¢ a head, and a shot of whiskey for, thirsty drivers and prospectors cost the same. Houston, Death Valley Scotty Told Me-- p. 88.

7. Rhyolite Herald, 19 April 1907.

8. Inyo Independent, 8 and 29 August 1925. Eichbaum's two-route proposal had included plans for a toll road beginning at the south end of the valley and going north via Bennett's Well and Furnace Creek Ranch clear up to Mesquite Spring in the north end of the valley. This route was violently opposed by the U.S. Borax Company employees, who were frequent users of it. Mary De Decker, The Eichbaum Toll Road Death Valley '49ers Keepsake No. 10 (San Bernardino, Ca.: Inland Printing & Engraving Co., 1970), n.p.

9. Inyo Independent, 10 October 1925.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., 8 May 1926.

12. Ibid., 10 October 1925.

13. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 112.

14. Inyo Independent 20 November 1926; "Death Valley's load to Nowhere," in World's Work 49 (July 1930): 51.

15. Inyo Independent 27 November 1926, and 24 November 1928.

16. Shorty Harris and John Cyty became almost regulars around the ranch, even participating in some of the Easter sunrise services initiated later. See Inyo Independent, 7 April 1928.

17. Letter quoted in De Decker, Eichbaum Toll Road n.p.

18. Inyo Independent 26 March 1927.

19. Ibid., 9 April 1927.

20. People attracted to 'the 1928 observance were witness to the inaugural flight by women over Death Valley. Inyo Independent, 14 April 1928. After Death Valley became a national monument in 1933 the sunrise services continued under the sponsorship of the NPS.

21. Inyo Independent 29 October 1927.

22. Ibid., 14 December 1929.

23. Ibid., 4 January 1930.

24. John R. White, Supt., DEVA NM, to Chief Engineer Kittredge, Office of National Parks, 'Buildings & Reservations, 31 October 1933.

25. Inyo Independent 23 September 1966.

26. World's Work, 49 (July 1930):51.

27. Inyo Independent, 27 November 1926.

28. Ron Miller, Fifty Years Ago at Furnace Creek Inn, Death Valley '49ers Keepsake No. 17 (Pasadena: The Castle Press, 1977), p. 7; Inyo Independent, 8 January 1927; Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 115; Papke, Guidebook, p. 20; Myrick, Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, p. 610.

29. Miller, Fifty Years, p. 7; Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 115-17; Inyo Independent, 29 May 1936.

30. Miller, Fifty Years, p. 9; Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 116-17; Myrick, Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, p. 611; Inyo Independent, 11 December 1926, 8, 22, and 29 January 1927.

31. Miller, Fifty Years, p. 7; Inyo Independent, 8, 22 January 1927; Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 115-16.

32. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 117-19. See Fred Harvey Fact Sheet available at the Inn and Ranch for a brief history of both structures. Some discrepancies in dates will be noted; Inyo Independent, 26 February 1937.

33. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 118-19; Inyo Independent, 8 May 1936; Fred Harvey Fact Sheet on Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch.

34. Myrick, Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California, p. 611.

35. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 120-21; Inyo Independent, 14 November 1931.

36. Water was provided to the plant by means of an air-pipe that lay uncovered on top of the ground, and living quarters were provided for the borax workers, skinner, and swampers. The ranch was only needed, therefore, to supply foodstuffs. John R. Spears, "Through Death Valley," in California Illustrated Magazine (February 1893), p. 317.

37. Ibid.

38. Crampton, Deep Enough, Preface.

39. Calif. St. Mng. Bur., Third Annual Report of the State Mineralogist for the year Ending June 1, 1883 (Sacramento: James J. Ayers, 185, p. 32.

40. Spears, Illustrated Sketches, pp. 36-37.

41. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 6.

42. Inyo Independent, 9 February 1906.

43. Ibid.; Rhyolite Herald, 19 April 1907; Bullfrog Miner, 6 July 1907.

44. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, pp. 91-92.

45. Cited in Hunt, Archeology of the Death Valley Salt Pan, p. 12.

46. Ibid.

47. Perkins, White Heart of Mojave, p. 120.

48. Bullfrog Miner, 9 November 1907; Inyo Register, 20 February 1908; Bullfrog Miner, 15 February 1908.

49. Bullfrog Miner, 22 February 1907.

50. Ibid. This amount of acreage is doubtful, since the irrigation ditches could never have supplied enough water to cultivate so large an area.

51. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 140; Inyo Independent, 13 May 1922.

52. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, pp. 140-41; John L. Von Blon, "A 'Garden of Atlah' in Death Valley," in Scientific American (April 1926), pp. 242-43; Edmund C. Jaeger, ed., The Desert in Pictures published for Palm Springs Desert Museum by Desert Magazine Press, n.d., p. 41; Inyo Independent, 26 February 1937.

53. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 123; Fred Harvey Fact Sheet on Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch; C.A. Schoil, "Historical Facts in the Development of Furnace Creek Inn and Furnace Creek Ranch," typescript in history files, DSC; Inyo Independent 11 December 1936, 23 July 1937, and 29 September 1939.

54. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 123; Fred Harvey Fact Sheet on Furnace Creek Inn and Ranch; Inyo Independent, 26 April, 10 May 1940.

55. San Bernardino (Ca.) Sun, April 1969.

56. Rhyolite Herald, 22 December 1905; Inyo Independent, 9 February 1906.

57. Bullfrog Miner, September 1907, in Harold Weight and Lucile Weight, Rhyolite: The Ghost City of Golden Dreams (Twentynine Palms, Ca.: The Calico Press, 1970), p. 13.

58. Weight and Weight, Rhyolite p. 14. The exact extent of ownership of each of these parties in. the Nevares Spring property has yet to be determined. Time did not permit exhaustive research on this subject in the course of this study. Nevares and Beatty evidently filed a joint water right on the spring.

59. Rhyolite Herald, 19 August 1908.

60. Ibid.

61. John R. White, Supt., DEVA NM, to Dir., NPS, 25 October 1937.

62. Gower, 50 Years in Death Valley, p. 6.

63. Hunt, Archeology of the Death Valley Salt Pan, pp. 7, 163.