JACK LONGSTREET, A Nevada Frontier Character

My interest in Andrew Jackson “Jack” Longstreet began when I picked up a copy of Sally Zanjani’s biography of this Nevada character.  She titled the book Jack Longstreet, Last of the Desert Frontiersmen.  Nevada deserts have always intrigued me; that’s why I visit them frequently.  I love the open spaces and the quiet solitude miles away from the maddening crowds.  I’ve come to realize that I wouldn’t want to live full time in any of them, but I do like to read about people who do, so when Zanjani’s book jumped out at me, or I should say the picture of Jack on the cover jumped out, I quickly bought it.  His story is as large as the man. 

    There he was a broad shouldered, bearded, determined looking elderly man dressed in sloppy clothes and a pointed hat with one hand hook in a pocket and the other holding what appears to be a walking stick. Longstreet stood six feet tall, but his powerful build made him seem even taller.  His long hair covered the fact that he was minus an ear.  He claimed that vigilantes, after capturing a gang of cattle rustlers he was with, hanged them, but because of his youth, they spared him and only cut off his ear as punishment.  The picture shows a deep tan, which apparently was as dark as the Indians he lived amongst; however there is no evidence of what Zanjani describes as his sparkling blue eyes.   Study the picture for a few moments.  Can there be any doubt that here was a force to be reckoned with?

    Longstreet made his way into Nevada in the late 1800s and was the kind of mysterious character that we find throughout Western lore.  So what is known about Longstreet?  First of all, he was a rugged individualist, who apparently had a strong moral code.  He was known to have a quick temper and was involved in several gunfights; as evidenced by the gun he packed, a long-barreled Colt .44 favored by old time gunfighters.  It had several notches scratched into it.  But Jack was also a man of contradictions.  In stark contrast to his persona, he spoke with a soft Southern drawl and had a “gentlemanly, almost courtly style, and a warm brand of Southern hospitality that offered every amenity to a guest and a cocked gun to the unidentified stranger.” He roamed the deserts of Nevada and Arizona engaged in a wide range of enterprises: at one time or another he was a prospector, a rancher, a saloonkeeper, a trailblazer, a stagecoach shotgun rider, a defender of Indian rights, and a thorn in the side of ranching and mining interests.  For the most part he was a loner, but he found friendship amongst the Southern Paiutes, learned to speak their language and had Paiute wives.  Eventually the Paiutes came to regard him as a leader.

    I learned that Longstreet once lived in what is now the Ash Meadow Wildlife Refuge located about ninety miles northwest of Las Vegas in the Amargosa Valley.  I wanted to learn more about Longstreet, so I visited Ash Meadow in 2008, where his stone cabin had been restored.  The location must have been to Longstreet’s liking; it was remote, sat at the edge of a crystal blue spring and was a good place where he could raise horses.  He squatted on the land and named it Ash Meadow Ranch.  He built the cabin up against a mound, into which he dug a cave that provided natural refrigeration.  There were two other structures on the property; a wooden frame house and a shed, but they’re long gone.  After a few years, he sold the place and moved to nearby Windy Canyon, where he established a ranch and a mine.

    Jack Longstreet’s last days are shrouded in mystery.  In 1928 he accidently shot himself in the armpit and shoulder.  He went to a hospital in Tonopah, was treated, but left before he should have.  Back at his Windy Canyon ranch, the wound festered and then Longstreet suffered a stroke.  After several days, when he hadn’t show up for his daily visit, a friend rode over to Longstreet’s place and found him unable to move, lying alone.  After suffering the stroke and without water for three days in the deadly heat, it was remarkable that Longstreet, a 94 year old, was still alive.  It remains a mystery as to where Fannie, his Paiute wife, was during this time.  Zanjani asks, “Had she turned aside from him, believing, in the Southern Paiute way, that a man grown old and helpless is better off to die?”  Once again Longstreet was in the hospital, but this time he would not up and leave.  A car was dispatched to find and bring Fannie to the hospital, but Longstreet died before she got there.  Four years later Fannie died and she was laid to rest beside him in Belmont, Nevada.

    Jack Longstreet lived the life of a self-reliant man, a man on the move, a man to be feared and a man of contradictions.  His early life is a mystery and his later life the stuff of which myths are made.  On that score Sally Zanjani concludes, “In the life of Longstreet, however, the myth was also the truth” and because of that he is remembered as one of Nevada’s frontier characters.     

Q