195307 desert magazine 1953 july

8/14/2019 195307 Desert Magazine 1953 July

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N E W F R 56P A G 6 1953 M ID Y C A R P R IC C L IS TThis catalog is thesame as our1952 Fall Catalog. It is8V"xll" in size and it is profusely illustrated. Yourshopping wil l be made easy order by mail or vis itour shop to select your gifts. This catalog lists GemCutt ing Equipment , Grinding Wheels , Diamond Blades ,Sanding Cloth, andPolishing Powders , Jewelry MakingTools , Sterl ing Silver Sheet and Wire, Blank RingMount ings , Jewelry Findings such as Earwires ,

Bails, Locket Loops, Chain by the foot, Bezel Wire, etc.Field Trip Books andBooks of all kinds on Minerals,Gems, Jewelry Making, Prospecting, Uranium, etc.Fluorescent Lamps, Fluorescent Minerals, Geiger Count-ers, Uranium Samples , Magnif iers , Scales , Templates ,etc.Services Offered toYou Are: Expert Gem Stone Cutting,

Custom Jew elry M aking and Repair.Dealers please ask forwholesale discount sheetsPOLY ARBORS ATNEW LOW PRICESillustration at right shows1POLY D12Arbor $19.95 1Dresser Rest2Cast Splash Shields 15.00 1Jig Block DIAMOND'1100 Grit Wheel 8"xiy 2" 7.25 DRESSER1200 Grit Wheel 8"xiy 2" 8.25 2Galvanized Splash PansTOTAL VALUE $69.10SPECIAL COMBINATION PRICE $62.00

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FREE LAPIDARY LESSONSWith thepurchase of cabochon or facet cutting equipmenthaving a value of $85.00 or more, anexperienced lapidarywill give you a lesson ingemstone cutting in hisown shop.Model E-10 GemStone Cutter$139.75 F.O.B. PasadenaAdd $3.00 crating forout-of-town shipmentsNote: Trim saw has a vise (not illustrated) with lateraladjustment forslabbing.Thi s un i t and o t her HIGHLAND PARK EQUIPM ENT isfully described inour 50 page free catalog.

TIN OXIDE AGAINNOW ONLY $2.50 LB.Cerium Oxide $3.00 lb.Chrome Oxide $1.00 lb.Zirconium Oxide $1.25 lb.

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JEWELRY FINDINGSSter. Silver Earwires $1.00 dozSter . Si lver Spring Rings . ..$1.00 dozSter . Si lver Bai l s or L o o p s . $1.00 dozAll plus 20% Fed. Tax

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LET'S GET A C Q U A I N T E D O F F E R18" Rhodium Plated Sterling Silver oryellow Gold Filled Neck chains2 for $1.00 or$4.50 per doz.plus 20% Fed. E. TaxN E W B O O K O F F E R SINDIAN SILVERSM ITHINGby BenHunt $4.75GEM TRAIL JOURNAL

2nd Edition by Hen ry $2.00THE 1st BOOK OF STONES, CormackF or the 7-11year olds $1.75Synthetic ALEXANDRITESVisi t our shop to seet hese remarkablecolor changing gems. R o u n d andovalfaceted gems as loose stones or set inlovely rings.

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D E S E R T C A L E N D A RJuly 2-4Annual Fiesta and DevilDance, Mescalero Apache Reserva-tion Agency. U. S. Highway 70,New Mexico.July 2-5 20th Annual exhibitionof the pottery, weaving, basketry,embroidery and silver of Hopi

craftsmen. Indian demonstrators.Museum of Northern Arizona,Flagstaff.July 3-4Annual Bit and Spur Ro-deo, Tooele, Utah.July 3-4Rabbit Ear Roundup andRodeo, Clayton. New Mexico.July 3-5Southwest All-Indian Pow-Wow. Flagstaff, Arizona.July 3-5 Frontier Days Rodeo,Prescott. Arizona.July 3-5Spanish Fiesta, Old Townsection. Las Vegas, New Mexico.July 3-5Fiesta celebrating GadsdenPurchase, La Mesilla, NewMexico.July 3-5Reno Rodeo, Reno, Nev.July 4 Fourth of July Fireworksdisplay. White Sands NationalMonument, Alamogordo, N. M.July 4Rodeo, Cimarron, N. M.July 4-5 Round Valley Rodeo,Springerville, Arizona.July 4-5Southern California Chap-ter, Sierra Club, climb of LonePine Peak (El. 12,951 ft.) in theHigh Sierra overlooking OwensValley. Camp Saturday night ondesert at Coso Junction; climbSunday from Lone Pine. California.July 4-5Sixth Annual Rodeo, Aus-tin, Nevada.July 4-6 Desert Peaks Section,Southern California Chapter, Sierra

Club climb of Boundary Peak (El.13,465 ft.), highest point in Nevada.Trailless climb from base camp athead of Trail Canyon.July 9-11 Ute Stampede, Nephi,Utah.July 9-12Rodeo de Santa Fe, SantaFe , New Mexico.July 10-12Fifth Biennial Conven-tion. Cactus and Succulent Societyof America. Arcadia, California.July 14 Annual Fiesta and CornDance. Cochiti Indian Pueblo, NewMexico.July 17-25 Pioneer Days celebra-

tion, Ogden, Utah.July 21-25 Days of '47 PioneerCelebration, Salt Lake City, Utah.July 22-24 Rodeo, Spanish Fork,Utah.July 24Pioneer Day, Tooele. Utah.July 24 Pioneer Day celebration,barbecue and program. Mesa, Ari-zona.July 25-26 Spanish Fiesta, Taos,New Mexico.July 25-26 Corn Dance. TaosPueblo, New Mexico.July 26Indian Fiesta and dances,Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico.July 30-August 1 Black DiamondStampede, Rodeo Grounds, Price,Utah.

V o l u m e 16C O V E RCALENDARTRAVEL

P ERSO NALITYG H O S T T O W NPOETRYEXPERIENCEC O N T E S TFICTIONLEGENDP H O T O G R A P H YCLO SE-UP SDESERT QUIZW A T E RLETTERSB O T A N YMININGN E W SW I N N E R SLAPIDARYH O BBYC O M M E N TB O O K S

JULY, 1953 N u m b e r 7"Summer Fun." Sabin Canyon near Tucson, Arizona.Photo by ESTHER HENDERSON.July events on the desert 3Boat Ride on the Big Bend

By RANDALL HENDERSON 4Roving Reporter of the DesertBy JEFF ADAMS 11Man Who Bought a Ghost Town

By HAROLD O. WEIGHT 14Night on the Desert, and other poems . . . . 19Life on the Desert

By OLGA WRIGHT SMITH 20Prizes for photographers 21Hard Rock Shorty of Death Val ley 21Papago Well of Sacrifice, by CHUCK ABBOTT

and ESTHER HENDERSON 22Pictures of the Month 23About those who write for Desert 24A true-false test of your desert knowledge . . 24Forecas: for Colorado Basin 24Comment from Desert's readers 25Desert Cousins of Candytuft and Cauliflower

By MARY BEAL 27Current news of desert mines 28From Here and There en the desert 29In Desert's 1953 Life-on-the-Desert contest . . 32Amateur Gem Cutter, by LELANDE QUICK . . 35Gems and Minerals 36Just Between You and Me, by the Editor . . . 42Reviews of Southwestern literature 43

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Press, Inc., Palm Desert,California. Re-entered as second class matter July 17, 1948, at the post office at Palm Desert,California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No.358865 in U. S. Patent Office,and contents copyrighted 1953 by the Desert Press, Inc. Permission to reproduce contentsmust besecured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, EditorBESS STACY, Business Manager MARGARET GERKE, Associate EditorEVONNE RIDDELL, Circulation ManagerUnsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility fordamage or loss of manuscripts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Sub-scribers should send notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue.

SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne Year $3.50 TwoYears $6.00Canadian Subscriptions 25cExtra, Foreign 50c ExtraSubscriptions toArmy Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must BeMailed in Conformity WithP. O. D. Order No.19687Address Correspondence toDesert Magazine, Palm Desert, California

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"The Basin" in Big Bend National Park. This is the concession area wherevisitors find lodging, food, saddle ponies and camera supplies. The area is rimmedby the Chisos Mountains.

Boat Ride on the Big Bend ...Nine years ago Congress set aside over 700,000 acres of arid land in theBig Bend country of West Texas as a national park and last year 93.000motorists visited the area. Here is the story about a great North Americandesert region which has not previously been covered by Desert Magazine'sstaffand a strange fraternity of outlaws who operate in this region.

T WAS Monte Warner's idea.Monte is a Texan who has madeand lost two or three fortunes inoil leases, and who finds time betweendeals to pursue his hobby of boatingon the fast water rivers of the West."You think your California desertwith its Death Valley and palm can-yons and Joshua tree forests is quitea place," he said to me a few monthsago when he stopped at the Desert

By RANDALL HENDERSONMap by Norton AllenMagazine office for a chat. "But youreally don't know your deserts untilyou see what Texas has."That sounded like a Texan. Be-cause their state is the biggest in theunion they think it also is superior tothe rest of the states in nearly everyother respect. But that is as it should

be . An Arizonan thinks the same wayabout Arizona. And I have heard Cali-fornians do a lot of bragging aboutthe Golden Bear state.Monte went on: "In West Texasthere is such a fantastic desert thatUncle Sam made a park of ittheBig Bend National Park. The BigBend country has everything tim-bered mountains, mesas where the big-gest yuccas on earth grow, gem stones,DESERT MAGA Z I NE


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mineral hot springs, wildlife, and theRio Grande where you can take a boatride through canyons that make youthink you are on the Colorado River."I was interested in all this, for I havelong felt that Desert Magazine shouldtell its readers about the Big Benddesert in Tex as. Before our conver-sation ended, I had a date with Monteto visit the new Texas national parkand perhaps take a boat ride throughone of its canyons.It was the last of February whenCyria and 1 headed down the roadtoward the Lone Star state to keepour date. The late winter season isideal for motoring on Highway 80across southern Arizona and NewMexico, and in many places the des-ert wildflowers already were in blos-som.We met Monte Warner at Marfa,Texas, and immediately started mak-ing plans for a two-week visit in the707,895-acre Big Bend National Park.There are two entrances to the park,one of them from Alpine by way ofthe old Terlingua quicksilver mines.Only part of the 110-mile road fromAlpine to park headquarters is paved.The other route into the park fromMarathon, Texas, a distance of 80miles, is paved all the way.It was Monte's idea that we shouldbecome acquainted with both en-trances, and so we drove in by way ofAlpine and Terlingua. As our wind-ing road led over the Texas hills tothe south the landscape became moreand more barren, and by the time wereached the old ghost town of Ter-lingua we were in a terrain as arid asDeath Valley in California. Cinna bar,the ore from which quicksilver is de-rived, was discovered here in 1893,and between that date and 1930 whenthe principal mine finally was closed,many millions in flask silver wereshipped from the mill here.

The original pioneers who furnishedplace names for the maps of this regioncalled their terrain as they saw it. Wepassed Eggshell Mountain, Nine PointsMountain, Steamboat Mountain, Ele-phant Mountain, Butcher Knife Hill,Calamity Creek and Smuggler's Pass.As we drove along the road to thepark Monte told us about the longlegislative struggle which preceded thededication of this great desert regionas a national park in June, 1944.The man generally credited as beingthe original sponsor of the project wasEverett E. Townsend, often spoken ofas the "Father of the Big Bend Na-t ional Park ." As a member of theTexas state legislature in 1933, Town-send and a colleague, R. M. Wagstaff,introduced a bill establishing the TexasCanyons State Park, composed of 15sections of school land . La ter the sameJ U L Y , 1 9 5 3

year the state park was enlarged toinclude all unsold school lands andall delinquent tax lands in southernBrewster county.In 1934 a Civilian ConservationCorps camp was set up in the ChisosMountains in the heart of the Big Bendcountry. That same year CongressmanR. E. Thomason introduced in theUnited States Congress a bill author-izing the establishment of a nationalpark in that part of West Texas whichderives its name from a great semi-circular bend in the Rio Grand e. Theproposal was approved by SecretaryIckes of the Interior department in

1935. The bill was approved by Con-gress but it was not until nine yearslater that all preliminary details hadbeen worked out and the park actuallyestablished.In the meantime the Texas legisla-ture had appropriated $1,500,000 forthe purchase of private land in theBig Bend and this gave the park suf-ficient area to make it sixth in sizeamong the parks administered by theNational Park Service.First superintendent of the parkwas Dr. Ross A. Maxwell who hadmajored in geology at NorthwesternUniversity. W ithin the last year Dr.

It was necessary to wrangle the rubber boats over the boulders whichblocked the passage at the rock slide. Supplies and equipm ent wereportaged about 100 feet.


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Above To the left of the prickly pear cactus is a bush of Candelilla,an Euphorbia which is the source of a valuable type of commercial wax.Below To obtain the wax, the plant is boiled in water containingsulphuric acid. Picture shows the vat at ground level. There is a fire pitbeneath. The wax comes to the surface and is skimmed off at intervalswhen the brush lid is lifted.Maxwell has resigned his post, and LonGarrison, assistant superintendent ofthe Grand Canyon National Park inArizona, was named to take his place.Our destination in the park wasThe Basin, a natural amphitheater inthe Chisos Mountains where NationalParks Concessions, Inc., has builtcabins and provides dining and otherservices for visitors. The rates aremoderate. The facilities are still lim-ited, however, because Big Bend is acomparatively new park.

Situated at the base of a great stone6

massif known as Casa Grande, TheBasin is rimmed with mountains, thehighest being Emory Peak with anelevation of 7,835, highest point inthe park. The campsite is in the zoneof juniper and pinyon and a luxuriousgarden of Upper Sonoran vegetation.We were lodged in comfortablequarters in a cement block cabin andfrom our veranda in the late afternoonwe could see the native white-tail deerbrowsing in the shrubbery on themountain slope.

Later that same day we drove topark headquarters which is just offthe main highway from Marathon. Iwanted to congratulate Lon Garrisonon his promotion to the superinten-dency of this desert park. I haveknown Lon for many years. He wasone of Desert Magazine's first con-tributors in 1937 and I have followedhis career since then, and felt that hewas especially well qualified for thepioneering job to be done in the BigBend Park. Although he had beenon the new job only three months, Lonalready has made a fine impression onhis Texas neighbors, and his associ-ates both in and outside of the park.

Lon mentioned a few of the taskswhich lay ahead. "The Big Bend," hesaid, "is just emerging from its 'accessstage' and is entering its 'use stage.'Until now the main problem has beenthe building of access roads and trailswhich will enable visitors to enjoy thisgreat recreational area. The Big Bendcountry has a rather amazing rangeof plant life and wildlife.

"Within the next few months," Lontold me, "we expect to complete thepaving of the two main roads into thepark, and many miles of gravel roadswithin the park."And now that the access problemis about solved, our next step is tosign-post the trails and places of in-terest and to improve the accommo-dations. The plans for the future in-

clude a lodge and camp at a site nearthe Rio Grande. The Basin camp willserve for summer guests, the rivercamp, at a much lower elevation, willbe for winter visitors."Lon drove us to the river wherewe could look across the shallow RioGrande to the Mexican settlement ofBoquillas. Trucks were fording thestream, bringing fluorspar ore acrossfrom mines in Mexico3000 tons ofit a month for the Atomic EnergyCommission. The mining concern paysthe Park Service $1.00 a ton for use

of the park roads, and this income isan important factor in the mainte-nance of the park highways.The park organization at Big Bend,in addition to Garrison, includes LeonEvans, formerly of Yellowstone, as-sistant superintendent; George Sholly,chief ranger, four other rangers, fiveclerks and a construction and main-tenance foreman with a crew of 20men.One of the clerks at headquartersis Mrs. Etta Koch, whose husband,Peter, has the photograph concession

in the park. Back in the Basin thatevening we met Pete, who was sched-uled to play an important role in ourvisit to the Big Bend.DESERT MAG AZ I NE


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Park.Monte Warner and Pete had beenbusy during the afternoon arrangingfor a boat trip through Santa ElenaCanyon, the longest of the three scenicRio Grande gorges within the park.The 25-mile voyage through SantaElena normally requires two days andis one of the high spots of a visit tothe Big Bend. Mo nte had two five-man Air Corps rubber life rafts, whichare ideal for this trip because of theirshallow draught and light weight.The next day was spent in gettingtogether our supplies for the trip, andearly in the morning of March 5 thefour of usMonte, Pete, Cyria andmyself took off from our cabin inThe Basin for the little trading postat Lajitas, located on the bank of the

Rio Grande just outside the westernPark boundary.First we drove to the lower end ofSanta Elena and left one of our carsthere so we would have transporta-tion back to camp when we had com-pleted our two-day run through thecanyon . Then we followed a road upthe river to Lajitas.Rex Ivey and his wife have anadobe trading post here, their custo-mers being the cattlemen who runstock along the river, and Mexicanson both sides of the river. Also , there

is some mining activity nearby and thisis a postoffice and provision point fora wide range of desert domain.As we were inflating the boats a

The Giant Dagger a species ofYucca found only in the Big Bendarea.fisherman came up from the river witha 5-pound channel catfish, and wewere told that this was good fishingwater.Pete Koch has been through SantaElena five times, twice alone. Hisfirst trip was made on a raft he hadimprovised from dry agave stalks. Itwasn't much of a craft, but there areno bad rapids in this part of the RioGrande and Pete's only problem wasto keep his food and bedding andcamera equipment dry. Many othershad made the run through this canyonbefore Pete came here eight years ago.Robert T. Hill of the U. S. Geologi-cal Survey organized a boat party torun the canyon in 1899, and sold thestory to Century Magazine. Hill wrote:"This region is infested with thievesand murderers . . . our loaded rifleslay beside our oars and every bush andstone was scanned for a possible am-bush. "

There are still law-breakers alongthe Rio Grande, as we learned beforeour journey was ended, but they haveceased to be a hazard to visitors inthis region.The river was low, generally notmore than waist deep. Our rubberrafts dragged bottom frequently inpassing over the stony riffles, and oc-

casionally it was necessary for one ofus to go overboard and pull or pushthe rafts for a short distance. Bu t theweather was mild and these brief tow-

Pete Koch standing, Monte Warnerand Cyria Henderson members ofriver party.ing experiences were no hardship.In crossing the Rio Grande at ElPaso we had noted that the river therewas almost dry. We had wonderedthen if it would be possible to make aboat trip. But while the Norte Ameri-canos have utilized almost every dropof water that comes down the RioGrande from New Mexico, the Mexi-cans have not yet appropriated all thewater in the Rio Conchas, a tributarywhich comes into the Rio Grande fromMexico near Presidio, Texa s. So,while our boat ride was on the inter-national boundary, we were gratefulto the Mexicans for the water in whichwe were voyaging.

For some distance below Lajitas theriver flows between low hills and thecurrent is sluggish, not over IVi milesan hour. At five o'clock we came toa grassy bank about seven miles fromour starting point, and Pete announcedthis would be our night camp.That evening, around a campfire ofdriftwood, we became better ac-quanted with the companions whomade this trip possible for us.Monte Warner, whose office is inDallas, had planned to be a politician.He went through law school at theUniversity of Wyoming, working as a

newspaper reporter to help pay hisway. Law , he thought, was the bestpreparation for a political career.Members of his wife's family, how-J U L Y , 1 9 5 3


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ever, were heavily interested in South-western oil, and they induced him toturn to the oil fields for his livelihood.He served as an air pilot in WorldWar I.Peter Koch was born in Yugoslaviaof German parents. His family cameto the United States when he was six.He went through school in Cincinnati,Ohio, and became a photographer onthe Taft newspaper Times-Star.Pete was never entirely happy inthe city, and eight years ago he andhis wife decided to go West. He lefthis newspaper job and planned to goto Arizona or California. But an ac-quaintance told him about the BigBend country which was then in theprocess of becoming a national park.The Kochs decided to look the newpark over. They went to Alpine,Texas, and thence into the Big Bendand have remained there ever since.They have a trailer equipped as aphoto shop, and with their threedaughters reside in one of the barracksoriginally erected in The Basin by theccc.

When bedtime came that eveningMonte emptied the rubber rafts andturned them upside down. "Thesemake the most comfortable beds youever saw," he explained, and gener-ously offered to let Cyria and me sleepon them.We told him we would much preferour air mattresses on the ground, soMonte and Pete used the up-turnedboats. As we turned in, Monte wasmumbling something about those"dumb Californians who didn't knowcomfortable beds when they see them."But Monte learned something thatnight a lesson that every campermust learn sooner or later. On a coldnight, the warmest place is close tothe ground, not at an elevation wherecold air can circulate beneath the bed.At daybreak our host was red-eyedand disconsolate. He had been coldall night.

After a leisurely breakfast we shovedoff toward the narrow slot which theRio Grande has carved for itselfthrough the Mesa de Anguila. Aheadwas the most spectacular sector ofSanta Elena Canyon.

This was the day we made theacquaintance of an amazing fraternityof outlawsthe Candelilla wax makersof the Rio Grande country. At severalplaces as we proceeded downstreamthe previous day Pete had pointed outwhat he called "Candelilla camps." Acamp consisted merely of a hole in theground where a fire had once burned,with a stack of candelilla straw besideit.

Candelilla, I learned, is one of themost useful plants on the North

American desert, but its habitat islimited to a narrow zone in Texasalong the Rio Grande, and to NorthernMexico. Scientifically, it is Euphorbiaantisyphilitica. Like other membersof the Spurge family it has a milkyjuice with some rubber in it. But itschief value is the thin film of waxthat grows on its leafless stems.This wax has great commercial valuein the making of candles, phonographrecords, shoe polish, floor and car wax,for the making of smudgeless carbonpaper, and as a rust-proof coating formachinery. The navy has learned thatthis wax in solution is the best protec-tion for the big deck guns which areexposed to the corrosive action ofdamp salt air.We had gone less than a mile downthe river on this second day whenwe saw Mexicans a short distanceahead wading across the stream to theirown side of the river. "Now you'll seea Candelilla camp in operation," Montetold me. A thin wisp of smoke wascurling upward from a fire on theAmerican side.Pete's boat was in the lead, and hewas soon engaged in conversation witheight or ten Mexicans who were linedup on the shore. Monte and I landedon the opposite bank. I wanted to seethe Candelilla wax making process.What I learned then and in conversa-tion with park officials later was this:The equipment for wax recoveryin this remote region consists of

a string of burros to bring in the Can-delilla plants, a huge metal vat forcooking the stems, a container of sul-phuric acid, and a skimmer and con-tainer for the wax.The Mexicans usually work in com-panies of from six to a dozen members.They go out with their burros andreturn with the burro-train loadedwith Candelilla plants. Two men inan hour can harvest the 125-poundpack which one animal carries. Theplants are pulled up by the roots, butfortunately a few broken roots remain

in the ground from which a new cropof Candelilla springs up and is readyfor another harvest in about six years.A burro train loaded with Candelillaplants looks like a parade of miniaturehaystacks coming down the trail.In outlaw operation such as wewitnessed, the vat is limited to a sizewhich can be moved by pack animalfrom one site to another, and thosewe saw were about 2Wz by 5 feet,with a depth of 2 to 3 feet.This vat was set in a pit-furnace atground level and the plants forked into

it to boil in water containing sulphuricacid. The acid cuts the wax off thestems, it floats to the surface and isskimmed off. As it turns cool it hard-

ens to about the consistency of bee'swax.A ton of Candelilla plants producesabout 60 pounds of wax, and themarket for the product was 52 centsa pound when we were there. A com-pany of six or eight Mexicans canharvest and process about 60 poundsof wax worth $31.50 in a week.Along the Rio Grande in the BigBend Park it is an outlaw industry,for the Mexicans are violating parkregulations when they denude the land-scape of its vegetation. Also, they arebreaking another park rule when theyoperate a commercial enterprise with-out a concession.On the Mexican side, the law re-gards them as bootleggers becausethey are not marketing their productthrough a central union agency atMonterrey. There is an embargo onCandelilla wax sold through otherchannels. And so they are hunted menhunted by the Park Rangers on theAmerican side and by the Rurales onthe Mexican side. Their best protec-tion is the remote and inaccessible re-gion in which they operate. Theircamps can be reached only by a boatcoming down the Rio Grande.At first they were frightened by ourapproach. But when they saw awoman in the lead boat it allayed theirfears and they were willing to talkwith us. When ] wanted to buy alittle of the wax, I learned it was con-cealed in a cache back in the hills, butafter a little delay they produced asmall chunk for me. Their productgenerally is sold to Americans whohave trading posts along the river.While the Mexican who transports hiswax across the stream and sells to anAmerican is violating his own laws,there is no legal breach on the part ofthe trader who buys it outside thepark limits on the American side ofthe Rio Grande.Later that same day we found an-other Candelilla camp in operation,this time on the Mexican side. The

Mexicans operating this one on a sand-bar, saw our boats come around abend a half mile upstream and on theassumption that we might be officersthey hurried back into the hills. Whenwe reached the camp the Candelillavat was boiling, but the only livingthing we saw was a burro tied to atree. It was always easy to spot a campon the shore, for there was the tell-tale stack of Candelilla straw and theodor of wax being cooked in sulphuricacid. As we continued down the riverwe saw Mexican heads bob up frombehind the rocks up on the shore, andbefore we were out of sight the oper-ators were heading back to their cook-ing vat again.

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above the slow flowing Rio Grand e. Pete Koch in his first trip through Santa Elena Canyonon a raft made of Agave stalks.I must confess that my sympathieswere on the side of the Mexicans.When the economic status of humansis such that they feel impelled to liveas hunted men in a desert wildernessand run the risk of imprisonment inorder to gain a bare subsistence infrijoles and cornmeal and flour fortortillas, then they should not be cen-sured too critically.After we had passed the Mexi-can wax makers the canyon walls be-gan to close in and we were soonpaddling downstream in a gorge so

narrow we were in the shade much ofthe time.It was near lunch time when wecame to what the Rio Grande river-men call the "rock slide." Here agreat block of rhyolite had brokenaway from the canyon wall above andhad fallen into the stream . In his1899 report Robert Hill wrote thatthe pile of debris blocking the canyonwas 180 feet high and a half milelong. It took his party three days toportage their boats and equipmentover the barrier. The experience wasso unpleasant Hill referred to their sitehere as Camp Misery.During the 54 years which haveelapsed since the Hill party wentthrough Santa Elena the forces of ero-

sion have made the navigation of thecanyon much easier. We had to por-tage the rafts about 100 feet, but sincethey weigh less than 75 pounds eachit was not a difficult ope ration . Wewrangled the boats over the bouldersand carried our food and bedrolls toa point below, and then ate our lunchon the rocks. The midday temp eraturewas 82 degrees.In mid-afternoon Pete pulled inand landed on a bar, and when Monteand I joined him he told us about apretty tributary canyon which camein from the Mexican side at this point.The entrance to the tributary was anarrow slot in the sidewall, but afterentering it we found a pretty paradiseof clear-water pools and hangingbanks of maidenhair fern. On a pre-vious trip Pete had explored the tribu-tary for some distance, and had namedit Fern Can yon . I was sorry welacked the time and supplies to remainin this lovely spot for another day.Below Fern Canyon we passedthrough the most spectacular portionof Santa Elena. Her e the walls risealmost perpendicular to a height of1500 feet and the current is so slug-gish one could easily imagine himselfpaddling on a lake deep in the heartof a sreat moun tain fastness. Th e

Park Service is building a trail alonga narrow bench in this sector of thecanyon so visitors to the Big Bendmay get an inside glimpse of SantaElena gorge without the expense ofbringing a boat here.Down-river from Santa Elena aretwo other canyons. One of them isMariscal where the river cuts throughthe Mariscal Mountains for a distanceof eight miles. The other is BoquillasCanyon where the Rio Grande hashewn a channel for a distance of 14miles through the Sierra del Carmen.At several points in Santa Elena wesaw lovely green banks of bermudagrass. Th e prevailing vegetation iscatsclaw, mesquite, river cane, creo-sote, sotol and lechuguilla. Th erewere a few lupines, which the Texanscall bluebon nets, in blossom. Tam a-risk, the invader from overseas whichis now crowding mesquite and willowalong the banks of many of the west-ern streams, has not yet come to SantaElena Canyon.Our voyage ended at dusk, and Ican hardly imagine a more delightfultwo-day outing than this leisurely 25-mile trip through Santa Elena, pad-dling when we felt like it and the restof the time just floating along with alazy current that would inevitably

J U L Y , 1 9 5 3


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carry us through themajestic gorgewithout hazard or discomfort.During ourremaining days in thepark wefound many interesting sidetrips. One day wemotored down tothe Hot Springs where mineral waterbubbles from theshore of the RioGrande . For many years this wasmaintained as a health resort becauseof the curative value ofthe water, butmore recently it has been abandonedand neglected. Some ofthe men inthePark Service believe that eventually itwill berestored and leased to a con-cessionnaire who will build a healthclinic here.Over 800 species of plant life areincluded in abotanical check list com-piled within the Big Bend Park. Oneof these is theDrooping Juniper, J.jlaccida, which is found only in theChisos Mountains. It resembles an

ordinary Juniper which has wilted forlack of water.Another botanical rarity found onlyin the Big Bend is the Giant Dagger,Yucca carnerosana, which flourishes

on a mesa called Dagger Flat, andgrows to aheight of15 feet.In thelate years of the 19th cen-tury andearly in thepresentcen-tury the cattlemen moved in withgreat herds of stock. What they didto the land inthe period between 1915and 1925 is best described by J. O.Langford, a homesteader who onceowned the Hot Springs. Inhis book,Big Bend, AHomesteader's Story, hedescribed what hefound after anab-sence of several years from his home-stead. He wrote:"During the war, cattle prices andthe prices of goats and sheep soared.And totake advantage ofthese prices,ranchers poured livestock into thatvast region asfast asthey could buythe animals. An d now, where onceI thought there was more grass thancould ever beeaten off, I found no

grass atall. Just the bare, rain-erodedground. Andwhere once beautifulpools ofclear cold water had stood inTornillo Creek, now I found only greatbars of sun-baked gravel . . . aban-

doned dugouts, with theroofs fallenin, were allthat was left of the dwel-lings that once housed a happyandprosperous family . . . all of themstarved out by theblind greed andignorance of men who hadchangedtheir paradise into adesert wasteland."In West Texas, there are old-timerswho will tell you that themovementto establish anational park inthe BigBend was prompted tosome extent bya desire to"bail out" a lot of cattle-men who had found their once luxuri-ous range made worthless by over-grazing. But theauthorities differ asto this viewpoint. Some of the cattle-men aresaid tohave opposed vigor-ously the effort toestablish a nationalpark here.But all that ishistory now. Aparkhas been established. An d Am ericansmay be sure that under the far-sighted

policies of the U. S.Park Service theBig Bend in thefuture will bepro-tected and developed for theenlight-enment andenjoyment of all thosewho care tocome here.

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Roving Reporter of the DesertIn 1945 Nell Murbarger quit her job as editor of the weekly news-pape r at Newport B each, California. "The next day ," she writes, "Ihe ad ed ba ck to the desert. I w as g lad to find it w as the sa m e olddesert I had left 10 yea rs before. I built a cam pfire an d coo ked m y

supper . . . and then I sat in the soft darkness and looked at the skyand the stars. Every once in a while I had to remind myself that thiswas all mine again, not just for that night, but for all the nights tocome. I had bee n l iving in exile for 10 years, a nd n ow I had beenrepatriated." By JEFF ADAMS

paintings, chiefly by Charles M. Rus-sell. Every remaining foot of wallspace was occupied by filing cabinetsand bookcases stacked with South-western volumes.That I should be curious about hermanner of living did not seem especi-ally surprising to Nell."1 suppose it does seem strange thata woman should choose the sort of

NYONE WHO frequents thedim byroads of the desert is

m& *

ox shoes to prehistoric pottery. Sand- work I am doing, but I don't think Iwiched between the relics were a couple could en dur e the p rospec t of living inalmost certain eventually to of cases of ore specimens, and num - any other mann er. I'm doing exactlycross trails with Nell M urbarg er, rov- erous reproductions of early Western what I have dreamed of doing evering repo rter of the Southwest. Driving12,000 miles a year in a battered se- Nell Murbarger roving reporter oj the desert country.dan, this versatile writer covers theghost towns, mining camps, and cattlecountry her beat extending fromCalifornia to West Texas and Colo-rado.Like many readers of Desert Maga-zine I had enjoyed Nell's stories ofplaces far from the beaten track; butonly recently did I learn that most ofher rambling is done without any com-panion, and wherever night overtakesher, she unrolls her sleeping bag andmakes camp.That any woman should choose solonely a career was hard to understand,and I felt that back of her choice theremu st be a story. I decided to find ou t.When I called at Nell 's home inCosta Mesa, California, I was shownto her cabina small frame buildingset under a large walnut tree in thebacky ard. Flankin g its portico oneither side were cactus plants andmineral specimens, and over the en-trance hung a weathered pair of desertsheep horns.Rapping on the door, I mentallybraced myself for a whirlwind encoun-ter with some muscle-bound "CattleKate" who shot from the hip andbroke wild horses as a pastime.But it wasn't that sort of womanwho came forward to greet me withoutstretched hand and a smile as warmand genuine as all outdo ors! This wasa brown-haired woman, slender andgirlish in appearance, with merry browneyes that sparkled mischievously whenshe spo ke . S>he was we aring fadedlevis and a man's red plaid shirt; andhanging from a peg beside her deskwas a battered gray stetson with twoholes in the crown.Indian rugs covered floor and chairsand benches; burlap drapes framedthe windows. Decorating the knottypine walls were enough pioneer relicsfor a small museumeverything from

J U L Y , 1 9 5 3 11


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since I was ten years old. Not manyfolks," she added significantly, "arethat fortunate!"For one whose life would be dedi-cated to thepursuit of Western history,Nell showed good judgment in choos-ing as her birthplace a sod homesteadshanty on the plains of western SouthDakota . Thedate: a stormy Octobernight in 1909.Over those same plains, in themem-ories of men then living, hadthunderedgreat herds of buffalo. There hadsounded the war drums of the Sioux,an d the blast of outlaw gunfire. Oneof thegreatest joys of Nell's childhoodlay in listening to the exciting, first-hand stories of men who had helpedmake frontier history in the BlackHills; men who had known personallyCuster andSitting Bull, andWild BillHickok and Calam ity Jane . Bisectingher parents ' homestead were thegrass-grown ruts of the old Deadwood-Sid-ney stagecoach trail, and one of herearliest recollections is of scouting thattrail in search of relics.

" A s 1 was an only child, and noother youngsters lived nearby, I movedthrough a strange big world peopledonly by adults and animals , andbirds,and dreams ," said Nell. "Some folksthought it deplorable that I shouldhave to grow up in loneliness, withoutchild playmates but if I was everlonely, I was never conscious of it. Ihad my books and saddle pony andmy dogs; and I had the whole, wideplains for a playground!"Western Dakota, at that t ime, wasstill wild and isolated, with no roadsworthy of the name, no automobiles ,no telephones. Winters were long andsevere, and sixmonths might pass thatNell and her mother would see noother wom an. Schools, consequently,were few and far between.When Nell became of school age,her parents were faced with a majordecision. Rather than ship her off tosome distant town to live with stran-gers, they decided to teach her athome. Both were well educated, andwith all their scholastic attention fo-cussed on one small pupil, she pro-gressed rapidly. At the age of twelveyears she completed the eighth grade,took her final exams under the countysuperintendent of schools, andfinishedwith the highest averages and secondyoungest of any student in the countyfor that year.Feeling that their daughter shouldhave an opportunity to complete herhigher education in a manner moreorthodox, her parents sold the home-stead and moved to Southern Califor-ni a in 1923."I don' t know which one of us mostheartily detested thenoise andconges-

tion of city life!" laughed Nell. "Ionly know that wecould scarcely wait,each spring, for school to close. Wewould have everything packed andready. As soon as wecould get away,we would head northinto theMotherLode country, sometimes on to Ore-gon and Idaho. Dadlearned to placermine for gold, and wewould camp forweeks at a time onsome fishing stream ,washing the gravel and salvaging theyellow dust."We gathered natural history speci-mens and sold them to museums andbiological laboratories. We cut red-wood burls, and cured starfish, andsold them to curio dealers. Sometimeswe even worked in the fruit harvestpicking apricots andhops , andpeachesand apples andoranges. It didn't mat-te r to us what we did, so long as itwas out in the open air, and so longas wewere free to come and go as wechose."Even before leaving the homestead,Nell had chosen writing as a career.A t the age of 10 she had made herfirst sale of non-fiction, which hadbrought her a two dollar check fromBird Lore magazine. Other sales hadfollowed, chiefly to Dakota Farmer,National Sportsman, and Sports andHobbies magazine, of Los Angeles.So frequent were her contributions tothis last-named medium that by 1930they had won her a position as assist-ant editor.

"That really put me to walking onthe clouds!" she declared. "The obhad only one drawback. In order torealize a living from it, I had to col-lect my salary in advertising spaceand then sell the space!"With the coming of the depressionin the early '30s Sports and Hobbiesfolded up and its assistant editor wentback to gold mining and freelancing.Realizing herneed of practical writ-ing experience, Nell eventually turnedher back on thegypsy life andaccepteda position as general reporter on theCosta Mesa (California) Globe-Her-ald, a weekly newspape r. This wasfollowed by reportorial jobs on severaldailies, including the LosAngeles Ex-aminer. In 1937, shebecame manag-ing editor of the Globe-Herald, re-maining in this position until 1940,when she accepted a higher-paid po-sition as editor of Newport-BalboaPress, of Newport Beach, California.U p to this point she hadbeen com-bining her newspaper work with free-lancing and was selling to a numberof nationally-known publications. Butth e Press was a young andlively newsmedium. From six pages it increasedto twenty-four pages. The editor'sduties and salary increased accord-ingly* and Nell was soon working al-

most night and day to keep pace withthe demands of her job. No longerwas there any spare time for freelanc-ing.With realization that her lifelongdream of traveling and writing wasbeing sacrificed to a weekly paycheck,Nell notified her employers that herservices would terminate with thecloseof 1945."The knowledge that I was freeagain, was the greatest thrill I haveever known," she said. "After spend-ing all my young life in God's out-of-doors, I hadbeen shackled to an edi-tor's desk for 10 long yearssix daysa week, andsometimes as much as 18hours in a single day! Andnow, onceagain, I wasfree!

"I headed back to thedesert. I wasglad to find it still the same old desertI had left, 10 years before. I built acampfire and cooked my supperandthen I sat in the soft darkness andlooked at the sky and the stars. Everyonce in a while I had to remind myselfthat this was all mine, again; not justfor that night, but for all nights tocome. Had I been living in exile for10 years and then been repatriated, Icouldn't have felt more thankful!"Since that momentous decision, Nellhas driven nearly 100,000 miles overthe Southwest. She has traveled andcamped in every county in California,Nevada, Utah and Arizona, and allbut a few counties in New Mexico,Colorado and Wyoming.Her equipment is simple. Built intothe trunk compartment of her 1946Mercury sedan is a redwood cupboardholding all her food andutensils. Thelid lowers to form her table, and acanvas campstool provides a seat. Shecarries no tent. While her car isequipped for inside sleeping, she pre-fers to sleep on the ground, using aneiderdown sleeping bag with water-proof tarpaulin for ground cloth andcover. Only in case of inclementweather does she use the car bed.

Except for a 30-day period eachautumn, which she and her parentsspend camping in Arizona and NewMexico, shetravels alone, without evena dog for company."I t ' s not that I'm hopelessly anti-social," shelaughed. "It'sjust that notmany women are interested in travel-ing and living as I do. I can' t blamethem," she added. "I'm sure it wouldbe boresome to wait in some littlejerkwater town while I spent two orthree days running down a story, orwith my head buried in a musty oldnewspaper file! I find I always do amore thorough job of research whenI'm alone, as there's no feeling thatsomeone iswaiting impatiently for meto finish."

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Although she carries a gun and isa good marksman, she has never beenobliged to use it for any purpose morelethal than target shooting."I don't go in much for killing,"she explained qu ietly. "I do n't killeven rattlesnakes, unless they are dan-gerously close to places of habitation,or along an established trail. 1 sort offeel that the desert belongs to themas much as it does to me."Knowing that her travels frequentlytake her on lonely byroads, dozens ofmiles removed from any point of habi-tation, 1 asked if this wasn't dang erouspractice for a woman traveling alone.What about breakdowns, or gettingstuck?"That's just one of the risks of thejob ," she replied. "I d o all I can toavoid trouble by keeping my car in topmech anical conditio n. In case ofminor motor trouble, I can generallylocate and fix it; and, of course, I canchange a tire, or get out of a sandtrapas well as most men. So far, I havebeen very fortunate. Sometime, I pre -sume, I'll fall into some predicamentbeyon d my ability to solve. But, whenthat time comes, I'll just make campbeside my car and wait for someoneto come alon g. I always carry sufficientfood and water for ten days or twoweeks; and it's almost impossible, thesedays, to find a traversible road so re-mote that at least one vehicle a weekdoesn't pass over it."

As you might guess, her hobby isghost towns! Having visited and pho-tographed practically all of the betterknown ghost towns between Denverand the coast, she is now working onthe smaller, less spectacular camps. InNevada, alone, she has mapped thelocations of 200 former boom campsand abandoned stations on railroadsno longer operative.Beginning in 19 21 , Nell has kept adaily record of her experiences andobservationsnot the trivia commonto most diaries, but thoughtful notes

concerning the land and its naturalhistory, the people she meets alongthe way, and the stories they tell her.On her field trips she averages 3000words per day in such observationsher record grist having been collectedlast year on a six-week jaunt throughUtah and Nevada, when she typed126,000 words of notesan amountequal to two full-sized volumes offiction!Notes hand-jotted during the dayare typed each evening, in duplicate,on letterhead size manifolding paper.

At the end of each trip, these sheetsare paged, bound in pamphlet form,and all subjects cross-indexed on filingcards, thereby enabling the immediatelocation of any information included.

By operating in this manner, nothingis left to the uncertainty of memorya safeguard which has won her a repu-tation for accuracy almost unparalleledamong contemporary Western histori-ans.In the past 32 years, her dailyjournal entries have totaled close to5,000,000 words.Further evidence of her meticulousattention to detail is found in the bat-tery of filing cabinets lining the wallsof her office. Me thod ically segrega tedby county and subject are an estimatedmillion news clippings spanning theentire history of Western developmentfrom prehistoric inhabitants to atombom b tests. She also owns a largelibrary of Southwestern magazinestheir contents minutely cross-indexedon filing cardsscores of referencebooks dealing with pertinent subjects.

and nearly 10,000 photographic nega-tives of Western subjects.Shaking my head in bewilderment,I rose to leave. Nell laughed."I'm afraid I haven't made too gooda case for myself," she said. "If you'restill convinced that mine is an oddsort of occupation, maybe you'd better

just put me down as an odd sort ofwoman!"I wish I could explain it, so youcould understandbut I'm not quitesure I understand it myself! It's justthat I'd rather watch the moon risingover the desert than see the best musi-cal on Broadway; and while this busi-ness of following dim trails and seek-ing out forgotten history is a hard,demanding life, there's something aboutit that gives me more joy and satisfac-tion than anything else on earth!"Miss Murbarger generally camps alone and unrolls her sleeping bagwherever she happens to he when night comes.

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Two years ago, just after h e h adbought the ghost s ilver camp atCalico, California, Walter Knotttold the Desert Magazine staff thatas soon as h is p lans were com-pleted for restoring the old townand work actually started, hewould give Desert's readers aglimpse of the project as he vis-ualized it. While the program un-dertaken by Knott will require 10or 15 years for completion, workhas now progressed to the pointwhen the full story can be toldand Harold Weight has told it wellin the accompanying text, basedon an interview with Walter Knott.By HAROLD O. WEIGHTP ho tog raphs by the au tho rMap by Nor ton AllenSOM E SATU RDA Y night 10 or12 years from nowthe exactdate is still uncertainLucileand I hope to be keeping an importantdate way out on the Mojave Desert.We'll leave Highway 91 at Yermo andhead north past the dusty silver platter

M an W ho Bough t a G ho st T ow n

of the dry lake and up the bajada, fol-lowing the road that winds above thegraveyard and into the jagged andcolorful volcanics of the Calico Moun-tains. Th en that last steep little pitch

onto the narrow plateau, and we'll beat the ghost town of Calico.But it will not be the familiar ghostwe've visited so often in the paststark and silent and crumbly underthe moonlight, with a lonely light ortwo but accentuating its long aban-donm ent. Not if Walter Knott's plansare carried to completion. Fo r ourappointment with the future is reallya date with the past; with the daywhen old Calico comes back to life.And then it will be a lively ghostindeed. There will be booted andbearded prospectors and miners onMain Street, and girls in calico and in satin. There will be food at Yun gHen's restaurant and general merchan-dise in Lane's Mercantile Store, and"Calico Strike" and root beer and sar-saparilla and maybe even hard ciderin Joe's Saloon and Cook's and theOasis. There'll be dances in DiamondLil's, and maybe entertainment atCalico Town Hall. Visitors wishinglodging for the night will find it atMrs. Cook's Pioneer House ("Tablesfurnished with the best the market af-

Old Calico as it looked at the time it was purchased for reconstruction by WalterKnott. Wall Street Canyon in the foreground, M ain Street on the little plateau,center. Calico reached the height of its boom in the middle 1880s.

14 D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Calico Ghost Town as it will look when restored by Walter Knott, from paintingby Paul V. Kliehen of Bitena Park. Knoll's Berry Farm photo.fords") , or H.15.Stevens' Calico H ouse("First class in every respect"), orperhaps even at the Hyena House.A nd of course there will be guidedtrips through a reconstructed silvermine, and gift shops and rock shopsin reconstructed Calico buildings.That 's the way Walter Knott hasplanned it. And it's a man-sized dreaman d a worthy one, this preservation ofthe remaining ruins of Calico and thereconstruction around them, of thegreatest Southern California silver

camp as it was in the heyday of its1880s boom. But Knott has shownthe ability to make dreams into reali-ties. And he and his staff are notamateurs in the building of ghosttowns. Those whowant a foretaste ofwhat Calico will be like a decade fromnow might well visit the Ghost Townat Knott 's Berry Farm at Buena Park,California, constructed in part fromrelics Knott and his associates haveassembled from all over the West,ranging in variety from ladies' hatpins

to narrow-gauge railroad trains.All this talk about the future doesnot mean that nothing is being doneat Calico now or that visitors areunwelcome there or that they wouldnot enjoy a visit. Knott plans therestoration of Calico as a long rangeproject stretching over a period of 10to 15 years and costing $200,000 ormore. But work hasbeen under waynow nearly twoyears, under the directcharge of Calico Fred Noller withArtist Paul von Klieben the designer.This map by Norton Allen shows the areas where some of the gem material inthe Calico Mountains is found.

::.v.v.M0SS AGATE AGATE HILL Moss AGATE PALM DIGGINGS

)AGGETT

TO BAKER6 LASVEGAS

JULY, 19 53 15


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10*2Calico Fred at the entrance to the $65,000 glory hole in the Maggie Mine.Tunnels in the old mine have been improved and indirectly lighted, andtourists are guided through them.The Shaft House of the Maggie Mine is the first building of Calico to bereconstructed by Knott. Walls in the foreground also have been dug out,and the surrounding areas cleared of the debris of 60 years. Visitors to-day are conducted through a tunnel which starts in the Maggie Shaft houseand penetrates the hills behind it.

As much as $5000 a week has beenspent in this work. A great deal of itwent for cleaning up the debris aroundthe old campbut earlier visitors toCalico can appreciate the great im-provement here. Besides this, and theexcavation and strengthening of oldwalls and the improvement of pathsand trails, a shaft house has been con-structed at the Maggie Mine, the Mag-gie Tunnel and its $65,000 glory holecleared out and lighted for tours, andthe old Assay Office recovered fromYermo, where it had been moved, andset up again as a rock shop on Calico'sMain Street. In the Maggie ShaftHouse visitors can obtain soft drinks,some basic food items, old fashionedcandies and tobaccos.

Walter Knott did not buy Calicoghost town with no personal knowl-edge of what the great old camp andthe desert around it were like. In fact,if I had experienced his introductionto Calico, I don't know whether ornot I would be so anxious to preserveit. That was during the summer of1915 , as he remembers it. There wasa scheme on to work the tailings atCalico and he was hired as the com-pany's carpenter.

Day after day he worked on theshadeless bottoms of the big redwoodcyaniding tanks, with the temperatureat 116 degrees. "If you would laydown a hammer, you couldn't pick itup," he recalls. "If you put down anytool, you had to stand it on end topick it up, it became so hot." Then,in August of the same year, he laidthe galvanized iron roof over the two-story mill building, with the metal sohot he could not touch it with barehands.

But long before his first visit, Knotthad a sentimental interest in Calico.His uncle, John C. King, early sheriffof San Bernardino County, had grub-staked the prospectors who discoveredwhat became the Silver King Mine,one of the camp's richest, creditedwith a $10,000,000 production.In the first issue of the town's news-paper, the Calico Print, dated July 12,1882, a brief history of the camp wascarried. Before any strike in the Cal-ico Mountains had been made, silverwas discovered about eight miles awayin what is now the Waterman Mine.That was in the fall of 1880. In thespring of 1881, according to this story,Lowery Silver made the first strike atpresent Calico. Later accounts givehis name as Larry Silvia and say hewas accompanied by Charlie Meachamand Johnny McBride. The discoveryof the King Mine, according to thenewspaper, was made by UndersheriffTom Warden, Hues Thomas andothers, and it was "the wonder of the

16 DESERT MA GA Z I NE


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Larry and Lucille Coke moved into a roofless ruin in Calico in the 1930s, whenthe camp was entirely uninhabited, and restored a number of buildings, createda museum of local relics, and mad e the name of Calico Ghost Town known allover the United States. In 1 947, the Cokes sold their interest to W. E. "Doc"Smith, lifetime Mojave Desert miner, and his sister, Mrs. Irene Wolfe, who inturn sold to Knott's Berry Farm. On the porch of the old Calico Museum , leftto right: Doc Smith, M rs. Irene Wolfe, Lucille and Larry Coke.age, the richest and biggest mine inthe state of California."In July of 1B81 there was only onetent at Calicoin Wall Street Canyonand James Parker and Ellie Millerwere the only inha bitan ts. But fromthat time, despite fires and epidemics,the camp never ceased growing untilit reached its peak populationesti-mated variously between 800 and3500. It was probably largest at thetime of the September 1887 fire, whichnearly burned :he town out. The heavylosses were reflected in decreased min-ing expansion.But the blow which destroyed Cal-ico's futurewith its ore still far fromexhaustedwas the fall in the priceJ U L Y , 1 9 !> 3

of silver to a low of between 50 and60 cents an ounce, far less than halfits value when the camp first boomed.Silver never came back, nor didCalico. Oh, the camp was not aban-done d all at onc e. Some of its peop lenever did abandon it, moving at lastfrom the plateau to the little graveyardbelow. And at intervals attemp ts onlarge or small scale were made toopen the mines or to rework the tail-ings.But no one was living in Calicotoward the end of the depression ofthe 1930s, when Larry and LucilleCoke moved into the town to try theirluck at making the mine tailings pay.There wasn't even a roof on the ruined

adobe in which they lived, until theyput one on.Through the next ten years, theCokes made the mine tailings pay, buttheir prime interest shifted to the oldtown of Calico itself. As they builtand excavated and repaired, they foundrelic after relic of the life of those whohad lived in Calico in the 1 880s. Itreally seemed to them that there shouldbe a museum to house their findings,so that the occasional visitor to theold mining camp could see them andappreciate more deeply the romanceof Calico. So they built a museu m.The visitors spread the fame ofCalico, and other visitors came in in-creasing numbers. Then the rock-17


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hound hobby, exploding into popular-ity, brought more and more collectorsinto the Calico Mountains which area storehouse of semi-precious cuttingmaterial, minerals and cabinet speci-mens. During World War II, Lu-cille kept the camp and the museumopen, and it was visited by thousandsand thousands of young men andwomen training in the camps of theMojave Desert. After the war, theCokes' interest in Calico was sold toa desert oldtimer, the late Doc (W. E.)Smith and his sister, Mrs. Irene Wolfe,who maintained the museum untilWalter Knott took over the wholecamp.

It was about the end of the war,too, when many of us who were awedby the spectacular beauty of the can-yons in the Calico Mountains and whodid not want to see the historicallyimportant ruins of old Calico weatherentirely away, attempted to promotethe creation of a state or national parkin the Calicos. Fo r a time it seemedthat the move would succeed. Then itstruck an unsurmountable obstacle.That obstacle was, of all things,mon ey. The same governm ent whichwas, apparently, willing at that timeto use tax millions for any fantasticproject so long as it was outside theboundaries of the United States didnot have a cent to purchase or restorea monument to the American spiritwhich made possible the millions theywere squandering. If the land weregiven to them, then they might bewilling to see what they could do aboutit. And the state, which was spendingmillions for highways to take its peopleplaces could not afford the money togive them something to see when theyarrived.

That was the way the matter stoodearly in 1951 when the Knotts boughtthe Calico townsite and some of thesurrounding mining claims. And per-haps it is more fitting that Knott shouldrestore Calico than that the federalgovernm ent should. For as Calico isa symbol of the American drive andspirit which made our nation so strongand so rich, so is Walter Knott a proofof the American dream that a mancan rise as high as his own abilitiesand his own willingness to work willcarry him.When Walter Knott worked thatsummer in Calico, it was during a bit-ter struggle to survive on the desert.He had homesteaded in the Mojavenear Newberry in 1913 and found thatit was impossible to live without out-side work . So he labored in Calicoand in other mines. And from themines he went to work on the high-way between Newberry and Needles.He helped spread the first oil upon it,walking the whole distance between

those points several times in doing it.From Newb erry with the m oneyearned on the highwayKnott wasenabled to move his wife and childrenby wagon to a farm in San Luis ObispoCou nty, rented on shares. In threeyears there he made enough money toenable him to move down to BuenaPark where his present Berry Farmand Ghost Town are world famous.At Buena Park he rented the prop-erty for seven years, living, the firstpart of the period, in an $8-a-monthshack which had been occupied by aMex ican family. Th ere they grewberries and sold them from the littleroadside stand which was the genesisof the present tremendous enterprise.When Knott bought Calico ghosttown a lot of people who figure theremust be some personal "gimmick"behind every man's every action triedto figure out what Knott was going toget out of the deal. They still arewondering and asking, and this exas-perates even a man with Knott 's gentleand equable temperament."We have no business playing aroundwith Calico, at all," he declares. "Wedon't expect to make any money there,and we have all we can do right here.But all of Southern California is fillingup so rapidlyfrom Los Angeles andthe south that I feel in time thedesert will become more and more aplayground for the people who livehere. With future faster transporta-tion, more and more people will begoing out there. And since the publichas paid us money here and we havemade a degree of success, we feel thatwe owe an obligation to the public andthis is one way of meeting it."

In the booklet on Calico whichKnott 's Berry Farm has published, thematter is stated a little more formally:"It is with a deep sense of respon-sibility that Knott's Berry Farm havingpurchased Calico Ghost Town, has as-sumed a protectorate over it and itsfuture welfare. Suddenly to becom ecustodian of an heirloom valuableby reason of its historical importance,and priceless, because it is irreplace-able, creates a sacred trust, and theacquisition of Calico Ruins is so re-garded by Walter Knott, a direct de-scendant of early day western pioneers,and an outstanding pioneer in his ownright . . .

"To restore merely the physical as-pects of the town without the lustyand swaggering spirit that gave Calicoits singular reputation, would be ignor-ing its character, influenced and deter-mined by the 3500 human beings wholived, loved, and labored there . Thesemust also be portrayed, to make oldCalico live again."Reading that, and listening to Walter

Knott, I am satisfied old Calicois in good hand s. Th at is why Lucileand I are looking forward eagerly tothat visit to a living ghost town a dec-ade from now. We are certain WalterKnott is going to do his part to keepthat date.

cutct it fThe Jerome, Arizona, City Councilhas voted to go into the ghost business.Sensitive for years to such adjectivesas "dead," "dying" and "ghost ly,"Jeromites, with the enthusiastic back-ing of their municipal officers, haveagreed to capitalize on their fallenstatus by turning their town into "theWilliamsburg of the West."At a recent meeting, 50 towns-people formally launched the JeromeHistorical Society to preserve all thingsof historic interest and to carry on anintensive publicity campaign.Electing Johnnie O. Moore as presi-dent and Jim Brewer as chairman ofthe executive council, the society an-nounced it would establish a museumon the town plaza. Associate mem-berships in the society, at $1.00, wouldentitle holders to free admission to themuseum. Three-dollar active member-ships would be good for museum ad-mission and all society publications.Brewer was credited with fatheringthe whole idea. He explained thattourists at nearby Tuzigoot NationalMonument, where he is superintend-ent, had forced him into an interestin old Jerome by their thousands ofquestions about it ."Are we officially dead now?" askedMrs. Henry Clark at the end of themeeting."Well ," declared Mayor John Mc-Millan, an undertaker, "the death cer-tificate hasn't been issued yet."Jerome is to be no mere ghost town,

however. A place that bustled oncewith 15,000 people, Brewer insisted,mu st be a gho st city. Signs at bothend of town, he said, would make thisclear.Most members and town council-men alike seemed to feel that procla-mation of official ghost status wouldnot discourage interest in the town forother reasons.The state legislature has expressedinterest in establishment of a tubercu-losis hospital there and the IndianService is known to be considering itas the site for a Navajo school.Brewer suggested the museum in-clude displays carefully tracing thegrowth of Jerome as a fabulous miningcamp.

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n Ve&entBy MILJRED BREEDLOVELas Vegas, NevadaOn summer nights when stars look downUpon these silent desert sands.The cactus wears 1 silver gown.And yucca leaves wave slender strandsOf gossamer to tajnt the breeze;While angels, seeiig light subdued.Must view with satisfaction theseUnsullied miles o:! solitude.The desert noonday's savage sunHas spent itself, and slipped from sight.Not knowing it h


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F I R S T P R I Z E W I N N I N G S T O R Y I N D E S E R T S 1 9 5 3 I I F E - O H I - T I I E - D K S E R T C O N T E S TL I F E O N T H E D E S E R T

By OLGA WRIGHT SMITH

This tomcat was a mighty killer. He permitted neitherrodent nor reptile to come near camp. But eventuallyhe tried to vanquish a skunkand that was a differentstory.

Y H U S B A N D and I wereprospecting in the CopperMountains on theLechuguillaDesert in southwestern Arizona. Hewas loading theempty water cans intothe truck, making ready for theweeklytrip across the desert to town."I'll bring out a house cat," he said."A house catwill soon rid us of thesepackrats and mice that are eating usout of camp ."W e had to haul ourwater and sup-plies from Wellton, over a long water-less trail crossed by treacherous sand-washes. Loss of supplies was serious.It was difficult to replace them. Yetno sooner did we lay in fresh suppliesthan packrats gnawed into packingbox cupboards andappropriated beans,rice and oatmeal; skunks and ring-tails dug up potatoes, carrots andbeetswe cached in the sand; mice ruinedthe flour.The wild creatures weren't furtiveabout their depredations. Alone incamp, while myhusband searched themountains for mineral, I wasoften en-tertained by desert dwellers whocameboldly into camp. Ike and Mike, thetwin whiptail lizards, always creptunder my feet on the sandy floor ofthe cook shade, snatching flies Iswatted and tossed, lapping crumbsdropped from the plank table. Perky,the kangaroo rat, was so at home inmy tent that once in my presence hesat up on his oversized haunches andwashed his tail, playing it out like arope with tiny pink hands as hecleanedit meticulously to its tasseled tip. Co-chise, the intrepid chipmunk, chief ofhis tribe, ran all his family off thefield when he chose to prospect ourpremises. And Lily, the shy littleskunk, whonightly left dainty hand-like tracks in the damp sand underthe olla, eyed me inquisitively, butquite unalarmed, when at dawn I in-terrupted her explorations.

Because of the confidence of thesefriendly invaders, traps were unthink-able. Yet something had to be doneif we continued to eat. I was not infavor of a house cat, but better ahouse cat than this, I thought, as Ithrew out a fresh sack of corn mealalready peppered through with mousespecks. A sissy house catcould not bemuch of a menace to tough desertfolk but his presence should at leastdiscourage their pilfering.The only available cat in Wellton

turned out to be a gray tiger kitten.My husband brought him to camp ina gunny sack. We named him KittyTom.Released from the bag, our newcamp policeman lapped canned milkgreedily, took one quick look around,and fled to the rocks. We called andwe hunted. We were still without acat.Twenty-four hours later the kittenslunk back. This time he might havestayed, for after devouring some oat-meal he began to wash his, face. ButCochise the chipmunk popped out ofhis rock crevice with such hystericalshrieking at sight of him that KittyTom fluffed his tail in fright andstreaked away again. For days thekitten slipped into camp for food, onlyto scoot away. We despaired of tam-ing him. Then one night a bobcatscreamed. From then on Kitty Tomslept on the brush kitchen shade andseldom wandered far from camp.Just when our camp policeman as-sumed his official duties we hardlyknew, but there came a daywhen wildcreatures nolonger cavorted about thecamp. Kitty Tom showed up morn-ings with his face spiked with chollathorns, proving he'd been inspectinga pac krat's fortress. Ra ts and miceno longer stole our supplies. But be-fore we know it chipmunks and birdshad thinned out too, and there wasn'ta lizard in the canyon with tail intact.We really hadn't intended that ourcat should exterminate our neighbors.We merely wanted him to frightenthem away from our tent. It waspitiful to see Ike and Mike shame-facedly dragging stumps around in-stead of the long graceful tails Naturehad given them. It was disturbing tosee once gaychipmunks dodging fromcrevice to crevice, too terrified tosnatch the food they needed. I beganto hate that cat.

Then came the hotsummer andwithit the snakes. To give the devil hisd u e , Kitty Tom at that time did usmany a favor by tormenting diamond-backs and sidewinders until theirfrenzied rattling announced their pres-ence. He stirred up 27 rattlers in ourcamp that season. Nothing that movedescaped him.But byfall he'dbecome insufferable.By then he was strutting around thecanyon, rolling hismuscular shouldersand making chests as if he had the

whole desert licked. Worst of all, hehad. He'dchallenge anything short ofa bobcat.Sometimes on moonlight nights,when the cat washunting in the rocks,we caught glimpses of Lily's littlespotted back as she played aroundcamp. One evening we heard ascrambling under the boulders behindthe fireplace, but when wepeered intothe chinks with a flashlight, we couldsee nothing. My husband dropped apiece of burning paper down a crevice.We smelled burned hair, spied afluffytail, and hastily backed away. Was itluck that nothing more devastatingthan the smell of singed hair waswafted out that crevice? Or was theshy little Lily only being polite?Most prospectors are wary of "hy-drophy" skunks, holding to the be-lief that if one bites you, you'll barklike a dog. But we were never afraidof Lily. Perhaps we felt flattered ather consideration; she was immaculatearound our camp. We left the littlelady undisturbed, even making it apoint to leave citrus rinds and potatoparings handy. What she thought ofth e cat we didn't know, but she keptdiscreetly out of his way.Cochise was of a different stripe.Sole survivor of his species aroundcamp, he stubbornly clung to hisstronghold in therocks beside thecookshade, coming boldly out on forays.Kitty Tom, grown to enormous sizeand complacency, stalked Cochiseconstantly. Night and day,despite myslaps, thetiger catwatched that crevicein the rocks that was the chipmunksentrance and exit. But Cochise, wily,cunning, quick at concealment, dartedprovacatively in and out right underKitty Tom's frustrated nose, with noapparent reason but to prove it couldbe done. He just flicked his impudenttail at his enemy andwent on leadinghis charmed life.

But even a doughty little chipmunkcan't flirt with death forever. Oneday Kitty Tompounced; Cochise wasjust a hair's breadth too slow. I ranto the rescue, but Kitty Tom fled upthe canyon wall, the shrieking Cochiseclamped in his jaws. There was onlyLily left.That same night Kitty Tom and Iwere alone in camp. Cap had not yetreturned from town. It was chill De-cember now, andwrapped in a blanket,flashlight at hand, I sat by the rock

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fireplace behind the brush cook shade,the cat crouc hed at my feet. Becausea cold wind moved up from the desertfloor, at our :>acks I had draped acanvas tarp over a line between twoposts of the shade.The fireligh: burned only a smallhole in the dark around us, but above,black peaks were etched against a skyof brilliant stars. The wind carrieddesert smells, the odor of dust, thespicy scent of creosote, and just ahint of skunkthis last an outdoorsmell, not unpleasant, that often hangson the desert air.I studied the cat with distaste as hesat smug and complacent beside me,fireglow highlighting his glossy coat.He was a giant of a cat now, gaunt,but with the muscular frame of afighter. As I watch ed him , he sniffedthe air and growled at something inthe darkness.The warmth of the fire felt good.The smell of smoldering mesquite andironwood and the silence were as com-forting as the soft woolen blanket thatenfolded me. Time passed. I dozed.The next tiling I knew, Kitty Tomwas screaming behind the canvas cur-tain. I fumbled for the flashlight,found it, stumbled to my feet, and,

tingling with dread, peered aroundthe curtain. Skunk fumes almostknocked me down.Tremblingly I played the flashlighton the kitchen floor. There, grovelingin the dust, spitting, yowling, clawing,rubbing his face on his arms in afrenzy of agony, was Kitty Tom, theTerro r of the Canyon ! He had caughtLily's gas attack squarely in the face!Badly sh aken 1 set fire to a pile ofbrush in an open space near the cookshad e. The flames shot high. Theylit up the canyon and brought thetruck galloping at break-neck speedover the last stretch of sandwashes.The victorious Lily had modestly with-drawn.The subdued behavior of our per-fumed camp policeman furnished uswith considerable merriment. But thereal pay-off came several eveningslater when Lily surprised the cat onthe trail into camp . With superb self-

confidence the skunk stamped her footand swung her rear threateninglytoward her enemy. Kitty Tom didnot argue. Ignom inously, he took tothe rocks in long leaps.What became of that house cat wenever knew. Tha t he left the vicinitysoon became evident. Life settled back

P r i z e s E a c h M o n t h f o r P i c t u r e s . . .Generally there are not as many entries in Desert's Picture-of-the-Month contest during the summer as in winter, but the contest will becontinued through the hot season nevertheless, for nearly everyphotographer has good negatives which were taken on previous tripsinto the desert country. With competition not so keen in summ er, theodds in favor of your winning a prize are greater than during the coolseason. Any desert subject is suitablecloud effects, sunsets, rockformations desert peop le including the Indians, wildlife an d rarebotanical specimensunusual pictures of any kind as long as theyare essentially of the desert.Entries for the July contest must be in the Desert Magazine office.Palm Desert, California, by July 20, and the winning prints will appearin the Septemb er issue . Pictures whic h arrive too late for one contestare he ld ov er for the next mon th. First prize is $10; sec on d prize $5.00.For non-winning pictures accepted for publication $3.00 each will bepaid . HERE ARE THE RULES

1Prints lor monthly contests must be black and white. 5x7 or larger, printedon glossy paper.2Each photograph submitted should be fully labeled as to subject, time andplace. AISD technical data: camera, shutter speed, hour of day, etc.3PRINTS WILL BE RETURNED WHEN RETURN POSTAGE IS ENCLOSED.4All entries must be in the Desert Magazine office by the 20th of the contestmonth.5Contests are open to both amateur and professional photographers. DesertMagazine requires first publication rights only of prize winning pictures.6Tine and place of photograph are immaterial, except that it must be from thedesert Southwest.7Judges will be selected lrom Desert's editorial staff, and awards will be madeimmediate y after the close of the contest each month.

Address All Entries to Photo Editor'Decent TfCayayine PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA

to normal in our quiet desert canyon.Lily and her family prospected campunmolested, thwarted only by thewooden boxes we turned upside downover fresh vegetables we buried in thesand. Pack rats and mice raided ourcupboards freely as of old, still boringinto supplies we were foolish enoughto leave unstored in lard buckets.Chipmunks snatched biscuit crumbsand bacon rinds around the cookshade. Flocks of Gam bel's quailsometimes stopped to call. An d eventhe bob-tailed lizards seemed happyagain.

H a r d K o c k S h o r t y

" Y e p ! They's plenty o' min-eral springs in this part o' thedesert," Hard Rock Shorty wassaying to the little group of tour-ists who had stopped at the In-ferno store for cold drinks."Some of them's good, an'some's bad. There's that Sodaspring up in Eight Ball crick.No good to drink unless yu puta little vaniller or sarspariller init. An ' up in the Fun erals is anarsenic spring. Better keep awayfrom that one."Up in Fried Egg Canyonthey's that alum spring. Ol' DocHostetter usta have a sanitariumup there. W arn't much of a placefer livin'jest a brush shack,but he had a lot o' customers fera while. He advertised it as areduc in' sanitarium where fatpeople'd get thin without dietin'or takin' pills.

"Fat people come flockin' inthere by the dozen and Doc wuzdo in' all right fer a while. He'dmake 'em drink that alum waterand rub a lot of it on their fattummys to shrivel 'em up. Grubwuzn't very plentiful, and docreally wuz takin' 'em down withthat treatment o' his."But hot weather come andthe durn spring dried up. Seemslike that water wuz gittin' strongerall the time, an' it got to doin'sech a good job o' shrinkin'things that it shrunk itself rightout o' existence."

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/ f e of rock still mark the place where theancient chiefs held night-long council to save theirvillages from flood.Dead ocotillo stalks fence the sacrificial well of thePapagos. According to legend, four children died hereto appease primitive gods.Papago We l l of Sacrifice . .

By CHUCK ABBOTT and ESTHER HENDERSONPhot ographs by the au t hors

N A lonely spot on the PapagoIndian reservation, where thedesert rolls away to nowherean d the greasewood bends with thewind whipping over the desert flats, apile of granite slabs sparkles in thesun, surrounded by a fence of deadocotillo stalks, hardened and whitenedlike old bones. It is the shrine ofAlihiani, Cemetery of theDead ChUd,an d the site of the Well of Sacrifice.According to Papago legend, inprehistoric times a hunter was trailinga badger when the animal, seeking es-cape, dug into the earth and disap-peared. Thehunter, loathe to lose hisprey, attempted to follow. Suddenlya torrent of water gushed from thebadger hole, flooded the ground andincreased in volume until four nearbyvillages were inundated.The terrified inhabitants called acouncil of their chiefs. Tw o came fromeach village to debate an emergencymeasure. After a solemn all-nightconference, the chiefs decreed thathuman sacrifices were necessary toappease the angry gods.Accordingly, from each village onechild was takentwo girls and twoboys. They were robed in their finestceremonial garments and told they

were to go to a beautiful land whereall their wishes would be fulfilled. Thechildren then were thrown alive intothe well, and earth and heavy stoneswere heaped upon them.Today the eight stone seats where

the chiefs sat during their night ofcouncil still may be seen. Close by, amound of heavy granite slabs threefeet high, surrounded byocotillo stalksthrust into the ground, marks the siteof the sacrificial well. Openings ineach of the four corners of the squarefence afford exit to the soul of eachchild when it wishes toescape.Each year the stalks arepulled up,laid aside, and a newfence is formed.The old branches arenever destroyed;the stalks at the bottom of the pile ofdiscards are so withered they seem tohave been there hundreds of years.There are twogreat piles of discardedbranches lying in twosemi-circles, oneon each side of the well. Each pile isat least five feet high and 30feet long.Ocotillo branches when cut usuallyeither rot or sprout in time if stuckinto theearth. Those at the well havedone neither; they are sand-blasted toa smooth, gray, spineless finish as hardas ivory.White people living on the reserva-tion have persistently tried to pry fromthe Papagos the date and time of theyearly fencing ceremonyto no avail.To thePapago it is a secret andsolemnoccasion which no white man maywitness. He would not understand.22 DESERT MAGAZINE


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P i c t u r e s o f t h e M o n t h"Deutce

Andrew Crofut of Reno, Nevada, wasawarded first prize in the May contest forthis photograph of a young Indian, dressedin tribal costume for a dance celebration orpa rad e. The picture was m ade with a 4x5Speed Graphi; camera, super panchromaticpress film and flash equipment.

This dra m a :ic study of the ruins at Rhyo-lite, Nevada, won second prize in the Maycontest for Adrian Atwater of Carson City,Nev ada. He used a 4x5 Speed Graphiccamera, K2 filler, 1/50 second at f. 22.

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M r s . Olga Wright Smith, first prizewinner in Desert's 1953 Life-on-the-Desert contest, is a native Iowan. Mrs.Smith's story of the animals whichshared the Smith's prospecting campin Arizona appears in this issue.M r s . Smith, a former Des Moinesschool teacher, was born and raisedin Iowa. She received her educationat Des Moines and Drake universities,the University of California in Berke-ley and Western Reserve in Cleveland,Ohio.Mr. Smith is a civil engineer. Anative of Clifton, Arizona, he intro-duced his bride to the Arizona desertsoon after their marriage. "Thoughhis work has taken us to variousplaces," Mrs. Smith writes, "neitherof us is happy to be away from Ari-zona. We still own mining claims onthe Lechuguilla Desert southeast ofYuma and return to them as often aswe can."Those mines and the camp men-tioned in my Life-on-the-Desert storyare located within sight of El Caminodel Diablo, the Devil's Highway,marked by hundreds of graves ofthose who perished there of thirst dur-ing gold rush days. My one claim to

distinction is that I am one of the fewwhite women who have made theirhomes in that area through the ter-rific summer heat."In addition to prospecting andstudying Southwest flora and fauna,the Smiths' hobbies include photog-raphy and collecting books of South-west Americana. They make theirhome in Des Moines.

Lelande Quick, editor-publisher ofThe Lapidary Journal, and author ofthe Desert Magazine lapidary depart-ment, "Amateur Gem Cutter' recentlywas awarded life membership in theLos Angeles Lapidary Society. Quickwas one of the organizers of the LosAngeles group.

Weldon Heald, frequent contributorto Desert Magazine, is crusading forthe protection of portions of the Coro-nado National Forest in the ChiricahuaMountains of southern Arizona. Re-cently the U. S. Forest Service an-nounced plans for opening portions ofthe area to lumbering, additional roads,and cabin sites. Heald's story, "Pro-tecting the Chiricahuas," appears inthe spring edition of The Living Wil-derness.

WATER SUPPLY OUTLOOKPOOR FOR COLORADO BASIN

Little change is noted in water sup-ply forecasts issued May 1 by the U.S. Weather Bureau and Soil Conserva-tion Service, the outlook remainingunfavorable. Specific reports are asfollows:Colorado River above Cisco Streamflow will be deficient over theentire area but to the greatest degreein the Dolores and Uncompahgre ba-sins where the water-year run-off isexpected to be approximately half ofthe 1941-50 average.Green River Basin Current pre-dictions for the Green River Basin arenot encouraging. Flows of 80 percentof average are expected for the Green

River above Warren Bridge, for theWhite River in Colorado and for thePrice River and Huntington Creek inUtah. For the other streams in thebasin the outlook is less favorable.The median forecast for the GreenRiver at Green River, Utah, is for only58 percent of average.San Juan River Basin As a

result of the heavy precipitation dur-ing the past month, slight increasesmay be noted in this month's forecastsas compared with those of a montha g o . However, the water-supply out-look for the basin is still not good;median forecasts for the tributariesrange from only 55 percent to 63 per-cent of average. The water-year run-off of the main stream at Rosa is fore-cast to be only 57 percent of average.

T R U E O R F A L S EHere's another lesson for thosewho would like to become bet-ter acquainted with the GreatAmerican Desert. This test includes geography, history, botany, miner-alogy and the general lore of the desert country. Twelve to 14 correctanswers is fair, 15 to 17 is good, 18 or over is excellent. The answersare on page 40.

1Papago Indian children climb the Saguaro cactus to gather the fruit.True __ . False2A sidewinder has a rattle on the end of its tail like a rattlesnake.True . False .3Gas and volcanic disturbances make it hazardous to climb downinto Ubehebe crater in Death Valley. True False4Most of the mineral wealth which came from the Calico Mountainsin California during their boom days was silver.True False5Shiprock, famed landmark in New Mexico, is on the Navajo reser-vation. True False .6Thousands of white pelicans find refuge on Pyramid Lake in Nevada.True False ...... .7Alamogordo, near the White Sands National Monument in NewMexico is on Highway 66. True . False8General Kearny's Army of the West on its westward trek to Cali-fornia crossed the Colorado River near Yuma. True . False9Woodpeckers sometimes drill holes and make their nests in the giantSaguaro cactus of Arizona. True . False .10Panamint Range forms the eastern rim of Death Valley in California.True _ . False11Mark Twain once worked on a newspaper at Virginia City, Nevada.True . False12The ancestral home of the Chemehuevi Indians is along the RioGrande. True . False13Color of the copper ore Chrysocolla is blue-green.True _ . False14The Natural Bridges National Monument is in northwestern Utah.True... . False15La Paz was the name of a once rich placer gold field in Arizona.True False16Flower of the Ironwood true is yellow. True . _. False17In Tucson, Arizona, it is possible to look to the north and see theSan Francis

195307 desert magazine 1953 july

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