Robert Haslam & the Pony Express

Robert Haslam rode for the Pony Express during most of the time the brief service was in operation.  He was destined to become the most famous rider and would be known affectionately throughout the West as “Pony Bob.”  He was born in London, England in 1840 and arrived in America as a teenager.  He joined the Pony Express and was assigned the run from Lake Tahoe to Buckland’s Station, seventy-five miles to the east.  The ride that made him famous was a grueling 120 miles run that took him eight hours and twenty minutes, while wounded.  It was the fastest trip ever made by the Pony Express.  What was the message he carried?  It was Lincoln’s Inaugural Address.

    The famous midnight ride of Paul Revere and the Pony Express have something in common.  Over the years both have been embellished with a great deal of exaggeration.  One historian summed up the Pony Express’s history this way, “It’s a tale of truth, half-truth and no truth at all.”  Famed showman Buffalo Bill Cody, who had served as a rider, made a Pony Express enactment a part of his Wild West show, which greatly helped in making the mail service a bigger-than-life legend.

    But it is true that being a rider wasn’t easy work; it was lonely, arduous, and above all dangerous.  The Pony Express’s famous advertisement pretty much summed it up; it read,

               “Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen.  Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily.  Orphans preferred.”

    During the 1800s thousands of people left their homes behind in the East and headed out West.  Pioneers hungry for new lands left their roots and crossed the continent, thousands of future sourdoughs in search of riches raced to various mining sites throughout the new frontier and opportunists ready to provide services to all these people migrated along with them. 

    The only way these displaced people could communicate with those left back East was a very slow mail delivery by boat, which went from New York to Panama across Panama by canoe and mule, and then by boat again to San Francisco.  Or the somewhat faster method, but still slow overland mail service, which took three to four weeks.  In 1860 three men, William H. Russell, Alexander Majors and William B. Waddell, who were well-established freighters delivering supplies to military outposts came up with a fast mail service over land.  They claimed they would deliver the same mail in just ten days or less.  In the beginning the business was given the impossible name: Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company.  Very quickly it was shortened to simply the Pony Express.

    The route went through a whole lot of Indian land from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, a total of nearly 2000 miles and those Indians were already warring against the occupation of their land, so there was always the possibility that a rider would be attacked.  Being an expert rider and having a fast horse therefore were essential.

    Robert Haslam raised his right hand and took the following oath as did all the other riders:

         “I, ___, DO HEREBY SWEAR, BEFORE THE GREAT AND LIVING GOD, THAT DURING MY ENGAGEMENT, AND WHILE I AM AN EMPLOYEE OF RUSSELL, MAJORS AND WADDELL, I WILL, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, USE PROFANE LANGUAGE, THAT I WILL DRINK NO INTOXICATING LIQUORS, THAT I WILL NOT QUARREL OR FIGHT WITH ANY OTHER EMPLOYEE OF THE FIRM, AND THAT IN EVERY RESPECT I WILL CONDUCT MYSELF HONESTLY, BE FAITHFUL TO MY DUTIES, AND SO DIRECT ALL MY ACTS AS TO WIN THE CONFIDENCE OF MY EMPLOYERS. SO HELP ME GOD."

That’s a pretty remarkable, all encompassing oath if you ask me.  It seemed like a lot to expect from young adventure seeking youth.  But apparently it worked and they chose the right people, because in the eighteen months the service was in operation 34,753 pieces of mail were sent and delivered with only one mail delivery lost.  The service employed 183 riders and paid them as much as $150 a month, which is equivalent to about $2700 in today’s money.  And those riders survived pretty well considering all the hazards; Indians killed only one rider.  The completion of transcontinental telegraph service was the reason the Pony Express had to come to an end.  Obviously it wouldn’t be able to compete.  But it would have had to end as a business any way, because during the eighteen months it never ever showed a profit.

    And what became of Pony Bob?  He continued to work as a rider for Wells Fargo and later scouted for the U.S. Army.  He was with his good friend Buffalo Bill Cody, when Cody was sent to negotiate the surrender of Sitting Bull.  He died poor in Chicago in 1912.

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.     

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Scot's Shady Court

Every year during March I go on what I call My Walkabout.  It’s off first to Winnemucca and Shooting the West, an unfortunate title for a symposium, especially one conducted in the Wild West where most trucks come equipped with gun racks and some of the folks may be packing heat.  Nevertheless it’s a fantastic opportunity to listen to the luminaries of the photography world and to renew friendships with a bunch of truly nice people from all over the West, as far away as Illinois. 

I always stay at Scott’s Shady Court Motel, a throwback to a much earlier time.  Well, let’s face it so am I.  I love these funky relics and search them out wherever I travel.  The funkier the better.   Just as long as the linen and towels are clean, the rug reasonably stain free, and the bathroom scrubbed I’m happy.  I don’t even mind that Shady Court has no artwork on the walls.  Tis better to have no art then some of the stuff you see in motels.  The rooms are small, about the smallest you’ll find on the open road.  How small are they?  So small you have to step outside just to change your mind.   Ah, but there’s a swimming pool.  It’s indoor, which means winter or summer and all the times in between swimming’s a possibility.  Don’t expect a continental breakfast, instead Louise, the owner, has a large jar of penny candy on the front desk.  It’s a mystery to me how heat is delivered to the rooms.  I have yet to find any controls and vents are not apparent.  Luckily I like to sleep on the cool side.  Run the hot water in the shower a few minutes and the bathroom heats up.  The picture is from a few years ago when I was assigned to Room 58, Santa Catalina.

The motel got its start in the early 1930s.  It was used to house not only travelers, but World Progress Administration (WPA) workers as well.  The dual purpose continues today; it's not uncommon to find seasonal workers in residence alongside the weary I-80 traveler.

I made a survey of reviews posted on the web....7 travelers gave the motel 5 stars, 7-4 stars, 2-3 stars, 4-2 stars and one 1 star.   That averages out to 3.7 stars, which is pretty good for a funky motel.  One person summed up their stay this way. “I rather sleep in my car.  What a dump.”  Another said, “...stayed at this place 8 times, it’s perfect for people who like charming rooms with really cool 1960s furniture.”  Isn’t it amazing how opinions differ.  And then there was this, “We might stay there again if we absolutely must, but we hope to not have to return to Winnemucca for anything.”  Now that’s gone too far.  It’s one thing to run down the Shady Court, but when you malign Winnemucca, them’s fighting words.

And that’s the way it is at Shady Court.

Oh, there’s been a FOR SALE sign out front for the past few years.  No one seems to want to take on this millstone of a motel.  I can understand why, there’s a whole lot of deferred maintenance that would reach deep into a new owner’s pockets.  A friend tells me that he thinks whoever buys it will tear it down.  I hope not.  Would be a shame to lose this link to a time when the roads where less crowded and a cheap motel room cost under $5.

PS...If you go to http://www.rdmenzies.com/blog you can read my good friend Richard Menzies report on Shady Court.

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Sheep Ranch

Many years ago I attended a photography workshop in Sheep Ranch located in the Sierra foothills, not far from the historic town of Murphys.  I turned off State Route 4, the Ebbetts Pass National Scenic Byway, and headed into the center of Murphys and was surprised by the change.  I used to come to Murphys in the old days when it was just a tired out reminder of a time when people rushed in for gold.  It always appeared to be barely alive, but in recent years it has had a new birth and is now called the “Queen of the Sierra, One of the Ten Coolest Small Towns in America.”

   I drove down the main street passed boutiques, gift shops, cafes and wineries searching for Sheep Ranch Road.  The first time through, I passed right by it; I thought it was an alley. The road was narrow and wound its way up, over and around many mountains.  These mountains showed the scars of a recent devastating fire.  The Mother Lode country has had a long tradition of burning out its inhabitants, but still they come.

   Sheep Ranch got its name because of the sheep corrals that surrounded it.  In 1860, the place quickly changed to a mining town when gold was discovered in those corrals.  In a quick gold rush minute it went from corrals to fifteen saloons and five flourishing gold mines.

    Today it’s a mixture of old dilapidated shacks and a few newer homes.  When I arrived some children had placed a small bicycle ramp in the middle of “Main Street” and were noisily enjoying themselves.  The heart of what’s left of downtown with its one building was just a mere twenty feet from where they played.  Part of the old building was the post office, which appeared to be alive and well, the other part looked like it might have been at one time a grocery store.  Outside an old Texaco pump with a glass top sat rusting.  Everywhere paint was peeling, creating rich patterns of age and neglect. 

    The inn where I stayed was also a relic from a time when stagecoaches were the mode of transportation and passengers stopped for the night.  The parlor was filled with overstuffed furniture and a large steel barrel stove.  The green and red walls were a mosaic of pictures, deer heads, tools, a stuffed badger and a stuffed squirrel, the Mona Lisa and an assortment of treasures that one might find in an antique store.  Downstairs also contained a bar complete with a barber chair and spittoon, a small poker room just big enough for one table, a kitchen confused with old and new, two bedrooms with marvelous period furniture, and a large dining room with a buckboard hanging from the ceiling.  Upstairs there were more bedrooms, creaking floors and lumpy beds.  Bathrooms came late in the life of this old relic.  Several years ago a tower was added on the backside of the building.  It housed two bathrooms down and two up.

    Next-door, George Hearst made his fortune.  From the 3600-foot shaft George and his miners coaxed, sweated, and blasted millions of dollars worth of gold.  While nosing around I discovered a small mountain of tailings.  It gave mute testimony to their efforts.  While I stood on the pile of rocks, I imagined the following scene.  George Hearst and his son, perhaps on that very spot were deep in conversation.  George wanted his son to continue the family business. 

   “No, Father I have other plans, besides I rather live in an enormous castle on a mountain top overlooking the Pacific.”

    “Ok, my son here’s a couple million.  Go peddle your papers.”

    And so William Randolph Hearst did precisely that.

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Coeur d'Alene

Ah beautiful Coeur d"Alene!  We arrived during a drizzling rain and an unseasonable cold snap.  The thermometer should have read 75-80 degrees, but instead it only had been in the high 50s for days.  According to local weather forecasts, it would continue to be stuck there for a while.  I overheard a local man ask a sales clerk, "Well, did you enjoy your summer?"  He was joking about the brief warm spell they had had a week ago.  Enough about the weather, what is it about this wonderful place that makes me like it so?

    The lake, the marina, the many shops, the shoreline park, the high-rise condominiums, and the downtown work together perfectly to make this a great destination.  There had been a few changes since our first trip fifteen years earlier.  I guess it's inevitable that strip malls have to be built when a city grows.  But Coeur d'Alene has done a pretty good job of keeping theirs to a minimum.

    We strolled through the pleasant downtown and the nearby city park situated at water's edge. Nearby, dominating the waterfront, is the very posh, eighteen story resort simply called Coeur d'Alene Resort.  Linda remarked that the modern interior reminded her of a Las Vegas casino, without the slots.  People were gathered around a huge wood-burning fireplace while others window-shopped at the several boutiques.  Outside, the resort’s marina was filled with speedboats of every description.  Blue canopies cover each slip adding nicely to the ambience.  We strolled the pier and watched a seaplane land and then take off again.  I’ve got to hand it to the pilot; from what I understand landing on water can be tricky.  This guy made it look easy.  Two young boys were swimming in the lake.  "Egad! Don't they know it's cold?"  Then I remembered my own youth.  At that age when you feel like swimming, and there's no one around to say, "Don't you dare, you'll catch pneumonia," you swim.  Cause and effect is something a young swimmer doesn’t worry about.

    We took a trip around the northern part of the lake in one of the tour boats.  There were some really nice summer homes on the western shore.  In one section, the owners chose to have no roads, so the only way in is by boat, not bad if you ask me.

    So what does Coeur d'Alene mean?  You just knew I would eventually have to tell you, didn't you?  It is of course French.  The early trappers who traded with the local Indians found the tribe to be sharp, hard hearted traders.  "They have pointed hearts the size of an awl's point," the trappers declared.  So instead of calling the Indians by their rightful name, which was Schee-Chu-Umsh, they called them Coeur d'Alene, "heart of an awl."  The name stuck and there you have it.

    I think Coeur d’Alene is almost perfect, not too big, not too small, about 34,000 people, enough to have a decent infrastructure.  And then there’s the waterfront setting, snow, forests all around, beautiful scenery and a really nice downtown.  How could anyone ask for anything more?

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Pigeon Point

While we still owed a fifth wheel (trailer), we often drove up the coast and park near the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.  The site was frequented by boondocking RVers.  Boondocking is a term used amongst RVers and it means...free camping.  You pull off the road and spend the night in a place where it’s legal to do so, or in a spot where no one really cares.  At Pigeon Point we could park at the edge of the surf under the light from the lighthouse and no one complained.  It was absolutely glorious.  We’d basked in the sun, watch fifty different species of birds hunt for their food in the tide pools, read or just sit and stare out into the ocean.  After enjoying the day, we were lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves.  And then there was the lighthouse itself.  There is something wonderful about lighthouses.  They remind us of the early days of sailing ships and those romantic, adventurous times, of Captain Ahab, pirates, whalers and Long John Silver.  Lighthouses are very much a part of our heritage.  And let us not forget that they are amazing feats of engineering and architectural design, making them both efficient and beautiful.

    Pigeon Point Lighthouse has a rich history, as do most of the lights along the West Coast.  The area was originally named Whale Point because of the migrating grey whales that pass by each year.  In 1853, the clipper ship “Carrier Pigeon” was shipwrecked on the rocks just off the point and so the name was changed.  Three more major wrecks followed, which resulted in the building of the light station in 1870.  Pigeon Point light has the distinction of being one of the tallest lights in the US and still in operation.

    The wedge of land we camped on was across the frontage road from a field of Brussels sprouts.  When the farmer picked his crop, there were always some left behind.  I remember culling some of those leftovers to augment a night’s meal.

    It was exciting to be there when the Pacific storms churned up the water and pounding waves beat against the rocks.  The wind howled and the trailer shook.  It was fine as long as the shaking wasn’t too violent.  We’d just lie there and sleep a little, awaken, snuggle down deeper in the covers, go back to sleep, repeating the whole process ever hour or so.  One particular storm got so bad that we were sure that at any moment the trailer was going to topple over after being hit by what must have been gale force winds.  During that particular storm, we were forced to abandon the site in the middle of the night.  At about 4 am we pulled up stakes and headed inland.

    At another time, my sister, Linda, my sister’s husband and I filled garbage bags with trash left there by careless fools.  We harvested the surroundings, filling up the back of my long bed truck with a dozen or more bags and hauling them to the nearest dumpster.  It was pathetic what some people left behind:  a junk car body, assorted cartons, tin cans, dirty baby diapers and even a pathetic litter of kittens too wild to get near.  Well, finally the day of reckoning arrived.  It was inevitable that someone would complain about freeloaders who were staying on what must have been private property and then as thanks leaving garbage behind.  One evening while we were eating dinner, there was a knock on the door.  It was a Highway Patrolman who politely told us to vacate the premises, which we did.  On the way out of the site while maneuvering over a berm, I misjudged and the trailer hit the rails of the truck and bent them badly.  I guess you could say that was our “punishment” for freeloading on the land.  That bit of bad luck cost several hundred dollars.

    At about the same time, the light station was being transformed into a hostel with lodging for 50 people.  It was never clear to me who actually made the complaint about the boondockers.  Was it the farmer or Hostelling International?  There was a report that the farmer wanted to transform the property into a regular RV park, but the Coastal Commission squashed the plan.  In any regard, I think making the area off limits to boondocking was probably the right thing to do.   Soon after our eviction, signs were posted prohibiting any further camping and the hostel transformation was scaled down.  Our days of boondocking at Pigeon Point were over, but definitely not forgotten.

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Scotty's Castle

One of the most famous California conman was one Walter E. Scott, better known as Death Valley Scotty.  During his multi-level career, Scott worked as a surveyor, a stunt rider in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, a fencer of stolen high-grade ore, holder of a cross-country speed record for train travel, an actor appearing in a play about himself, and a prospector, who duped more that one wealthy millionaire. 

    Scotty convinced one of Chicago’s millionaires to invest in a gold mine; a mine that of course had no gold.  The millionaire was persuaded to come out West and Scotty showed him around Death Valley, but never once took him near any gold mine. The millionaire really enjoyed the trip, breathing clean air, exercising and laughing at Scotty’s many jokes, so he forgave Scotty for his scheming ways and they became great friends.  On a later trip the millionaire brought his wife along.  She took to Scotty right off and eventually gave him all the credit for her husband’s improved health.  As a result, she encouraged her husband to build a vacation home in Death Valley, one that Scotty could also use.  So in 1927, the millionaire began construction on a million dollar Spanish style mansion.  Work continued off and on for the next four years.  It wasn’t a castle and it didn’t belong to Scotty, but that didn’t stop it from becoming known as Scotty’s Castle, even though the sign at the mansion’s entrance read “Death Valley Ranch.”  Of course Scotty proclaimed that he had financed and built the castle for himself and the millionaire allowed him to get away with the lie.  Actually, Scotty rarely stayed in the mansion; he preferred a bungalow down the road a ways, but he showed up frequently at the millionaire’s dinner parties and regaled the guests with tall tells about his life and about his prosperous phony bologna gold mine.  The millionaire just shrugged his shoulders and regarded it all as harmless fun.  Along about 1935, the millionaire ran into financial problems when his company went into bankruptcy.  He had to cut his losses, so he willed the mansion to a religious organization, but with the stipulation that Scotty could spend the rest of his days living there.  And Scotty did just that.  Up until his death in 1954, he was in residence entertaining paying guests.  He is buried with his dog Windy on a hill overlooking “his” castle.

Note:  The second picture shows part of the enormous swimming pool.  Those three windows are underwater viewing ports.  

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