HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE
UPPER MOJAVE DESERT
VOL. 13 NO. 3 MARCH 17, 1998
MARCH MEETING
"Mining in Panamint Valley" will be the topic of a slide-illustrated talk at our March general meeting. Mr. Benjamin Licari, Business Development Manager, C.R. Briggs Corp., will discuss the early history of the Briggs mine in Panamint Valley, current activities there, as well as secrets of Panamint Valley. He hopes to stimulate discussion from the membership to help him round out his understanding of past mining activities there.
Mr. Licari has a BS in Geology, University of California at Davis; Hazardous Material Management Certificate, University of California at Santa Cruz; is a California Registered Geologist; a Certified Professional Geologist and a California Registered Environmental Assessor with 20 years of experience in mining operations in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana. He has worked as a mine geologist, ore control engineer, mine superintendent and mine manager. Recent experience includes mine manager during closure of the Carson Hill Gold Mine and operations manager (and author of the closure plan) for the Jamestown Mine in California; both in environmentally sensitive locations. Most recently he was mine manager during closure of the Kendall Mine in central Montana, owned by Canyon Resources Corporation. He joined C.R. Briggs in early 1997 as Business Development Manager
The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 17. Bring a guest.
Refreshments will be provided afterward.
VESTIBULE CASE DONORS
We are pleased to announce the addition of several new donors to the list of those contributing to the cost of the new oak cases. New donors are: Dick and Gerry Wisdom, Vivian (Hansen) Vandevender and "In Memory of Kelly Hise."
ANNUAL MEETING
The board has set the date of May 15 for the annual dinner meeting. It will be at Farris' at the Heritage. More details in upcoming issues of the newsletter, but mark your calendars now for this activity!
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL ALERT!
Dues for 1998 became due on January 1 and are only slowly trickling in. For those of you who have not yet paid your $10.00 dues for 1998, an envelope addressed to our treasurer, Fred Weals, has been enclosed with your copy of this newsletter. Dues help support our ten newsletters per year, exhibit preparation costs and other expenses. We're counting on you to renew! Please do so now while the envelope is in front of you! Thank you.
MEMBERSHIP CARDS
We've decided to issue membership cards again. Those of you who have renewed will find them enclosed in this issue of the newsletter. Those of you who have yet to renew will receive the cards the month after you send in your check. (See above.)
Message from Prez. Lou:
POSSESSIONS
Call the title an avocation, a hobby, a compulsion, or a bent towards acquiring, or doing things that interest us, but the object of it all is to bring personal satisfaction to ourselves and others.
Recently I was reviewing our Home Page presentation on the Internet and took another look at the following location:
http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~jwest/
For you that are not familiar with interpreting that address, it says that on the World Wide Web at Ridgecrest, California, you will find information about a site which is referred to as "jwest" In this case the site belongs to Janet Westbrook, who maintains our Society page where our address is:
http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~matmus/Hist.html
Janet's page is perhaps one of the most informative about our area that is available. She not only tells about her busy schedule as a Professor at Cerro Coso Community College, but lists the many, many local attractions where there are things to do and sights to see. And that isn't all ---she also provides links to other interesting Internet locations. To me, having that and other kinds of resources available by stroking a few computer keys is well worth the cost of admission.
Like some of you, I find collecting "things" almost a compulsion. (Ask my wife)! The other day at a yard sale I came upon and bought a Shriner's fez complete with steel carrying case. I have no personal use for the item, but it occurred to me that this could be the beginning of an HSUMD collection of artifacts representative of fraternal and similar organizations. Eventually this may lead to a future display. Does anyone have any such items to contribute?
By the way - the Maturango Museum Board likes the bell idea that I mentioned in last month's newsletter and told us to go for it. Planning is underway for installation on the Museum grounds. (Bell weight is closer to 100 lbs, not 200).
One other item: Fred Weals and I are working on a project to encourage the establishment of a State designated Historic Trail for the Indian Wells Valley and Red Rock Canyon State Park remnant of the Stage and Freight route. The project concept was presented to the BLM Steering Committee last month and the response was very favorable. Lou P.
DESERT MAGAZINE
This colorful magazine was published once a month from Nov. 1937 to Dec. 1979. From then until June 1985 publication became sporadic with only 40 issues during those years. The total issues published were 534.
The HSUMD recently received the gift of a complete index to DESERT magazine. While the Society's budding library has 163 of these issues we would very much like to fill out our collection. If you have any magazines in the following years, we would very much appreciate your donation of them to us.
Missing issues include November and December 1937, all of 1938 through 1943, all of 1945 through 1960 (except we have November 1950, March 1953, December 1953, February, April, May, June and August 1954, March and May 1956., all of 1959 except August 1959. We are missing all of 1961 through 1968 (except we have February through June, and August and October through December 1963, and all of 1964 except December, and all of June 1965 and January, March through August and December 1967, March, April, June and December 1968.) and all of 1966 except November and December .
We have February and September 1967. But, again, we are missing 1969 through 1976 (except we have May 1969, June 1970 and September -December 1970, January, February, April and May 1971, January, February, May, June, August - December 1972, November 1973.) We have all of 1974. We are missing parts of 1975 and 1976 (we have August 1975, January - April and June through August and October through December 1976.)
We are missing all but March and June of 1977, missing most of 1978 except January, February , May and July, all of 1979 except January, July and December. We are missing August 1980 (there was no January 1980). We are missing all of 1981 through 1985.
Again, we would appreciate any and all donations of these missing issues.
Contact Lou Pracchia, Bruce Wertenberger or Dot Gould if you have issues to contribute.
IWV DAYS
Even with somewhat breezy weather conditions, Indian Wells Valley Days brought out a great crew of members to erect and take down the porch, and man the tables. Helping to do their part were the following women and men: Liz Babcock, Katie Bell, Bill Burns, Eunice Caffee, Alma Dial, Carroll Evans, Charlotte Goodson, Dot Gould, Barbara and Bill Hall, Don Lane, Jenny Miller, Harold Platzek, Vivian Vandevender, Bill Ward, and Bruce Wertenberger. Thank you all.
We can also be very proud in having members Lois Carr and Hank Schuette not only be the parade Grand Marshals, but they also provided a nice historical atmosphere by setting on the porch both Saturday and Sunday to answer questions about earlier days in the Indian Wells Valley.
Lou Pracchia
SAND CANYON CALLS TO US ALL...........STILL!
The Sand Canyon Environment Education Program is underway with two field trips already made. The days were beautiful, the flowers coming on, and the students enthusiastic about their experiences. They particularly enjoyed meeting Lois Ramsey Carr on the very site where she and her family once lived. Many thanks go to Brenda Burnett, Andy Jones and Hank Schuette for helping guide the History Walks.
Several of you have graciously agreed (some even volunteered!) to serve as guides on future trips. We will need more guides, however, so you still have the opportunity for a one-of-a-kind day and contribution to an excellent Historical Society cause! You will receive in advance copies of the history "trail" guide and the student field journal, along with a few tips for group leaders and directions to the canyon.
The remaining field trips are March 20, March 27, April 3, April 30 and May l. It's as simple as picking a date and calling me. You'll be glad you did! And THANK YOU.! The SEEP on-line web address is: www.ndti.net/SEEP
Charlotte Goodson, 375-6449
THANK YOU
Thanks go to Dot Gould for our fine refreshments in February. Helping Dot was her daughter, Patty, and Dana Lyons who baked cookies for our enjoyment. Thanks again for adding that special touch to our meetings.
NEW MEMBERS
Welcome to new members Tipler Ubbehode and John Cox. Actually, Mr. Cox joined several months back, we're just slow in getting this noted in the newsletter.
APRIL SPEAKER
Tommy Chapman will be our April speaker. He will be talking about woodcutters and the wood cutting operations needed to supply early local mines with charcoal.
Did you know?
Hamp Williams and Jack Nosser were co-finders of one of the world's largest producing silver mine, the California Rand Silver and later known as the Kelly Mine at Red Mountain? It was discovered in 1919. Ore was sacked into burlap bags and ran fro $1.00 a bag up. Some of the better ore was worth $100.00 a bag. How would you like to sack up desert dirt and get $100.00 a bag for it?
Did you know?
Randsburg has a lot of interesting history. In the White House Saloon there is a bar that had been made in the East and transported around the Horn. The floor of the saloon, at least in 1921, had bullet holes in it showing the results of some shoot outs.
The story is told that Randsburg had such a bad reputation for violence that in Prohibition Days the sheriff used to call ahead so they could take care of the evidence so there wouldn't be a problem when the law arrived.
Did you know?
You should be aware of pack rats, especially if you are storing dynamite? Back in 1932, an old timer, George Sutherlen, worked in the Minnietta Mine and stored his dynamite in his cabin. One time George was gone for a week and when he got back, all his dynamite was gone. he searched and searched and found it where the pack rat had stashed it, under the cabin right under George's bunk. He said, "If the rat had found a dynamite cap and chewed on it, the whole cabin could have been blown to bit."
Did you know?
That the town of Red Mountain used to be called Osdick? It was named by an old timer by the name of Pete Osdick during the silver boom. During the flu epidemic in 1917/8. Pete officiated at 19 burials in 10 days. At that time, he wired the governor of California to send them a doctor who could sign death certificates. By the way, those attending the services wore masks to protect themselves from the bug. The masks had three holes in them, two to see through and one for a cigar in the corner of the mouth.
Did you know?
In 1912, a family by the name of Robertson homesteaded land where most of Ridgecrest now stands. Later, a John McNeil and his wife bought the land after Robertson's death and started a dairy, but then the land was sold to a man by the name of Crum and a town grew and was known as "Crumville." We might still be part of Crumville had not the citizens decided that they didn't want to tell people they lived in Crumville. A Mrs. Ada Thompson suggested "Ridgecrest" and the post office department accepted that.