HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT
Vol. 19 No. 10 December 2004
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DECEMBER PROGRAM
December's meeting, as usual, will be the annual Christmas Potluck, held at the Maturango Museum at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, December 14th (note the earlier than normal time and day). Entertainment will be provided by the Farris Family Singers, and Jenny Miller will lead one of her always entertaining games. Members are asked to bring a dessert to share with six to eight people. Hot cider and coffee will be provided. For more information about this month's or future meetings, call President Bruce Wertenberger at 375-2369 or leave a message at 375-8456. Andrew Sound
IT'S MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL TIME AGAIN!
Our membership year is the same as the calendar year, hence this reminder that it's time to renew your membership. Membership fees help pay for newsletter printing and postage costs, rent and utility costs for our office building, production costs of our exhibits and various other activities. One new expense coming up is to paint the exterior of our building. The membership fee is $15 per family and there are other categories. A renewal form is on Page 3. Please fill it in and send it off today.
A reminder that our Historical Society is an IRS 701(c)(3)
organization, therefore contributions
to it are tax deductible within the limits of the law. Your contributions
over and above your membership fee are greatly appreciated. Space
is provided on the form on Page 3 of this newsletter to indicate
any contribution.
EXHIBIT OF UNUSUAL TOOLS PLANNED
With the Centennial of Powered Flight a year behind us, it's time to change out the display in the HSUMD cases in the vestibule of the Maturango Museum. At the suggestion of George Silberberg, HSUMD member and Museum History Curator, Liz Babcock, plans to install an exhibit of unusual tools - anything that was formerly in common use but that is strange to modern eyes. Remember how much fun we had a couple of years ago when George had a program featuring unusual tools?
If you shared a tool then or if you have any other such tools we could borrow, please give Liz a call at 375-6900, any Sunday or Monday.
CHRISTMAS IN RAND CAMP DEC. 11
Have you made your reservations yet for Christmas in Rand Camp on Saturday December 11? If not, there's still time - but not much! The event will feature tours of various historic homes and the Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Randsburg. New this year will be be a slide presentation on some of the families of old Randsburg. The traditional Christmas Carol sing-along will take place in one of the historic homes, still with the accompaniment of Dr. Jim Vaskov on an old pump organ. The day starts at 10:00 AM at Plum Cottage, the second house west of the fire station on Butte Avenue, Randsburg's main street, where you can pay the cost of $6 per person and sign up for one of the two sessions each of slide presentation and Christmas Caroling. The schedule of events is as follows:
10.00---Registration/Coffee--sign up for historical slide presentation
(Plum Cottage--143 Butte Avenue)
10.30-11.00--1st slides (The Library-- 129 Butte Avenue)
11.30-12.00--1st Carol Sing-a-Long/Historical Reading (The Library)
12.15-12.45--2nd Carol Sing-a-Long/Historical Reading (The Library)
1.15-1.45--2nd slides (The Library)
2.15---Hot Cider and Chatter (Rose Cottage--311 Highland Avenue)
Advance reservations are required, and may be made by calling Bruce Wertenberger at 375-2369 or Beverly or Ron Atkins at 446-6700. You may leave a message with name, phone number and number in your party. See you there!
It is with regret that we note the recent passing of HSUMD member, Leonard De Geus. Our sympathy to his wife and family.
BUSINESS MEMBERS
Please patronize our local business members: Ridgecrest Moving & Storage, Heritage Inn, Farris' Diner & Italian Gardens, Indian Wells Valley Insurance Co., The News Review, BevLen Haus Bed and Breakfast, Jack & Dana Lyons, and The Swap Sheet.
HSUMD BOOKS TO BE AVAILABLE AT DECEMBER MEETING
Now that it's December, we're once again in that season of gift-giving perplexity. Here are some good suggestions about what to give local friends and relatives, as well as history buffs from any part of the country. To help you get your Christmas shopping done, we'll have these books and DVD available at our December general meeting on the 14th, or you can purchase them anytime the Maturango Museum is open.
A HISTORY OF THE CHURCHES IN INDIAN
WELLS VALLEY AND VICINITY, by Fred Weals. New in 2003.
A compilation of the histories of our local churches. Illustrated.
HOW IT WAS SOME MEMORIES BY EARLY
SETTLERS OF THE INDIAN WELLS VALLEY AND VICINITY, by
Lou Pracchia. Five different colorful accounts of life in the
IWV and nearby Sierra Nevada.
INDIAN WELLS VALLEY HOW IT GREW,
by Fred Weals. A highly readable treasure trove of
information about land division, land ownership, tract development
and street naming. Nearly 100 pages of text, maps, historic photographs.
ZIG ZAG POST OFFICE and ITS NEIGHBORS,
1885-1971, by Jane Thomann, postmaster of the Little
Lake Pose Office in the 1970's. Contains information about the
history of the Little Lake Post Office, photographs and vignettes
of early settler families in the surrounding area.
INDIAN WELLS VALLEY STAGE AND FREIGHT
STOPS, 1874-1906 with comments by Lou Pracchia. Includes
photographs and historic information about the Native American
trails along eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. Discusses the
development of trails into routes for transport of bullion and
people in the last quarter of the 19th century. Includes history
and locations of way stations along those trails.
SAND CANYON STATION DVD, a
37 minute disc by Mark Pahuta. Learn about the construction of
the first Los Angeles aqueduct and the lives of the families living
in Sand Canyon after the aqueduct opened. Also covered is information
about the coming of the railroad to IWV, development of the town
of Brown, local homesteading, two great floods and an earthquake.
The DVD features historic footage and rare family photos. You
can also view some of our favorite HSUMD members Litha Crowell
Mattis, Bob Ramsey, Lois Ramsey Carr and Hank Schuette as
they reminisce about their early memories of Sand Canyon.
MYSTERY PHOTOGRAPH
We had no responses regarding the identification of which denomination had built the church in Inyokern which later became a private home. The photo of this building was published in our November 2004 newsletter.
We'll try plumbing your recollection with the photo below which was taken sometime in the late '40s or early '50s. If you can identify the activity and/or any of the people in the picture, please call or e-mail any of the HSUMD board members. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses are on the last page of this newsletter.
WHITE STAR MINE
(Continued from the October 2004 issue)
(After completing his education in Los Angeles during the Great Depression, Frank made a yearlong job-hunting trip. When it got to be snow season in Kansas, he decided to return home).
Frank rode the freights clear into Needles, and made his way back to Los Angeles. He had sent his suitcase ahead, so when it arrived before he did, his mother went to ask a neighbor, "Frank's suitcase came the other day, what could have happened?" The neighbor said, "Don't worry, Frank will follow that suitcase." And he did, arriving the next day.
But there was still no work in LA, so his father made him an offer. Peter proposed to finance Frank to return to the White Star Mine and build a house that Peter could live in after retirement, while working the mine. The plan was to build a house out of local rock, with cement from Tehachapi. "They call it Tufa cement, it's what they swept off the floors. You could buy it for two bits a sack," recalls Frank. Frank accepted his father's offer, so he and a friend drove down to White Star in an old Model T pick up truck.
They started the house-building project in 1930. Frank recalls, "I cleared the rocks and killed the rattlesnakes. I was only 19 years old, what did I know about building a house. I had a shovel and a trowel and a wheelbarrow." But with enough motivation, anything is possible. "Bad weather was coming on and we had to go like the dickens to build the house and get shelter. But anyhow, when I finished up, it was a nice house, several rooms, porch all the way around. We used that for a bedroom. There was an area in the back that we turned into a kitchen. I had propane gas refrigeration, a combination wood stove and then a gas stove. I had an air compressor, saw mill and hoist. Everything was ready to mine. I got this ready for my father. It was 1935 when I finished." In the meantime, he had met his future wife, Irene.
Peter arranged for a friend with arthritis to take care of
the house and mine. Frank returned to
LA for a while, but came back to the Valley, working at various
mines (though he never mined at White Star). He saw Ridgecrest
and the Navy Base develop and grow, and joined the Navy during
the war. In 1942, Peter retired to the White Star property as
planned, and lived there until his death in 1946. After that,
Frank sold the White Star house to Howard and Ruth Kirley, who
lived in the house for many years. Since their time, the house
has been extensively added on to, and has been a health club,
a restaurant and nightclub, and now is a private home again. The
Farrises have invited the community to their home for fundraising
dances, a family production of the "Sound of Music,"
and October last year, for a historical tour. He may not have
had much experience building houses, but Frank Erdman surely built
a treasure! Andrew Sound
SCHEDULE OF FUTURE MEETINGS
16 January - Ray Arthur - History of Ridgecrest Film Industry
15 February - Liz Babcock - From Nowhere to Somewhere IWV 1905
to 2005
15 March - Tom Chapman - Hidden Camps of Inyo County
19 April - Not yet confirmed
17 May - Robert A. Pearce - Owens Valley Controversy, The Untold
Story
HISTORICAL ARTICLE
(Following is an article prepared by our great local historian member, John Di Pol, drawn from his library of local history books. Ed.)
EL PASO CITY REVISITED
Several years ago, June, 1994 to be exact, the Society's newsletter contained an item on "El Paso City", a settlement on the south side of the El Paso Range. This site and the name "El Paso Mining District" had been showing up on some of the older maps. Not much was known about this "City," but several society members began to dig around (figuratively, not literally!) and produced a few tidbits gleaned from the writings of two local historians. It might be of interest to recap these herein:
From DESERT BONANZA - Story of Early Randsburg Mojave Mining Camp" by Marcia Rittenhouse Wynn, 1949:
Quotes from The Los Angeles Tri-Weekly News of April, 1863: "From a new district we learn that there is much activity in the El Paso Mining district, situated beyond Tehachape and about fifty miles to this side of Slate Range."
"Los Angeles merchants and potential mine owners were interested in learning more of this discovery in the El Pasos, out on the mysterious Mojave."
More from The Tri-weekly News in April, 1863: "Specimens arriving in Los Angeles from El Paso, rich enough to raise the blood pressure..... Excitement here in regard to newly discovered mines in the El Paso district.... The Indians, we hear, are becoming troublesome...."
Again, from The Tri-weekly News, August, 1864: "Intelligence reached here on yesterday that Mr. Yarbrough, Superintendent of the Yarbrough Mining Company, El Paso District, had been killed at Mesquite Springs probably by bandits.
From the Los Angeles Daily Herald, June, 1874 : "Captain Clark and several others making up a surveying party, returned to the city from the El Paso Mining District. The object was to survey some old silver mining claims which were worked a number of years ago and abandoned....."
Author Wynn goes on to say "This El Paso District listed unblushingly on early maps as El Paso City is of unusual interest because it was such an early desert mining camp, even predating Cerro Gordo and Darwin.......So El Paso City rose up out of the sage, made a fancy bow, won a few headlines - then silence! Another forgotten scar upon a hillside!"
From GOLD GAMBLE by Roberta Starry, 1974:
"A gold claim notice in the El Paso Mountains, dated 1853
and filed in the name of Herman Johnson, is the first known document
to verify the presence of prospectors in the area"...
"California....1860....the desert was still a remote land,
lacking good connections with the rest of the state and nation.
Nevertheless cattlemen and prospectors were becoming more familiar
with Fremont Valley.... the landmarks like Pilot Knob, the springs
and the canyons."...
"The freighting of supplies to the growing mining population
was becoming big business. One of the routes into mines in the
Panamints and Slate Range skirted the foothills of the El Paso
Range with El Paso City and El Paso Well serving as supply points
and water spots."...
"A freighter known only as Big Jim, traveled the route along
the foothills of the El Pasos..........he looked forward to the
overnight stop at El Paso City or Cow Wells, names he used interchangeably.
That they were the same place is borne out by an 1880 township
and census map that places El Paso City where Cow Wells and now
Garlock appear on present maps."...
And so, what else can be added? How many more "Hidden Cities"
do we have locally?
P.S. GOLD GAMBLE, a publication of the Maturango Museum, has recently been reprinted. If you don't have a copy, you should obtain one. It is a trove of historical information about the Rand district and surrounding areas. John Di Pol
Ref: As above, plus STORY OF INYO, W. A. Chalfant, 1933
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL FORM
The Historical Society of the Upper Mojave Desert
P. O. Box 2001, Ridgecrest, CA 93556
Phone: 760-375-8456 Website: www.maturango.org/hist.html
Annual Dues are for the calendar year (January-December)
___ Individual/Family (same address) $15 ___ Business/Commercial $25
Additional Contributions
___ Contributor $50 ___ Patron $200
___ Benefactor $100 ___ Other $ ____
Please make your check payable to the HSUMD and send it and this form to the address above. All contributions are tax deductible We are a 501(c)3 organization.
I am interested in supporting the HSUMD by helping in the
following areas:
___ Oral history (interviewing/transcribing) ___ Education
___ Fund-raising(local/grant writing)
___ Newsletter ___ Publicity ___ Creating/arranging exhibits
___ Photography/Videotaping ___ Writing ___ Field trips (planning/guiding)
___ Archival research ___ Preservation ___ Collection management
___ Other _____________________________________________________________
My suggestions for programs, publications, or other activities
are:
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