HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT

Vol. 20 No. 10 December 2005
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DECEMBER PROGRAM: OUR ANNUAL CHRISTMAS PARTY

The Historical Society's December meeting will be held earlier than normal this month, on the second Tuesday rather than the third Tuesday. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, December 13 at 7:00 PM at the Maturango Museum. This month's meeting will be the annual Potluck-Dessert Christmas party. Please bring a dessert to share with eight other people. This year's sing-along will be led by Bud Sewell, Jenny Miller will lead us in another of her innovative games, while Charlotte Goodman will perform the annual Christmas reading.

The Historical Society's other traditional December activity, Christmas in Rand Camp, will not take place this year, as arrangements could not be made in time.
Andrew Sound

USO BUILDING PROJECT STATUS

Progress is happening with the great support received from our membership and the community. To date, we have received pledges for over $23,000 of which $6,000 has been contributed. Our goal for pledges is $50,000. We greatly appreciate your continued support. The proposal, due on January 31st, for the California Cultural and Historical Endowment (CCHE) grant is in the process of being written. We are presently in negotiations with the City of Ridgecrest for the transfer of the USO Building ownership and expect to have the Building Title before the proposal is submitted. Our plans include opening the building for a tour in the near future. A tour announcement will be publicized in the local papers.
Bill Nevins

USO BUILDING PLEDGES

If you haven't sent in your response to our recent letter asking for pledges to the refurbishment of the old USO Building/Old County Building, now might be a good time to dust off that letter and send in a pledge to HSUMD, P.O. Box 2202, Ridgecrest, 93556.

DUES REMINDER

As noted in the November newsletter, we reluctantly have had to increase our dues to $20 per family membership and $30 for business membership. You may send a check for the 2006 membership year now to Fred Weals, Treasurer, at P.O. Box 2001, Ridgecrest, CA 93556. Dues cover the cost of the newsletter and its postage, membership in several history-related state organizations, rent and utilities for our building, etc.

DONATIONS ARE WELCOME

As the end of the tax year approaches, we remind you that the Historical Society is a 501(c)(3) organization and, as such, donations to it are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

GENEALOGICAL PRESENTATION

The Genealogical Society is hosting a day of presentations by Jean Wilcox Hibbens on January 21, 2006 at Grace Lutheran Church from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a lunch break. Morning talks will be (1) Family History: Research & Results for the Beginner and (2) Researching German Records When You Live in America and Don't Speak German. The afternoon talks will be (3) Shaking the Myth: Ways to Prove (and Disprove) Family Stories and (4) Bringing your Civil War Ancestor back to Life: Songs and Stories of the War of the Rebellion.

TOURS PLANNED

The HSUMD is planning some trips around the area soon. A list will be in the January newsletter for your perusal and reaction. A tour to Bickel camp is one possibility.

HISTORICAL ARTICLE

(Following is an article prepared by our great local historian member, John Di Pol, drawn from his own library of history books. Ed).
THE LOST CEMENT MINE

What....another "lost mine" story? Well....not quite. Other stories, like "the Lost Gunsight" or "the Lost Goler", all had a known discoverer; a person, or persons who found the lode, gathered samples and staggered into camp, or town, but could not recall nor relocate the specific location. The "Lost Cement" was different; its origin was not a story, but a legend, or more accurately: legends. The most generally accepted of these, but never corroborated, is of two men, struggling up the eastern Sierra in 1857, in dire straits, found a ledge of reddish cement impregnated with nuggets and flakes of gold in the vicinity of the headwaters of the Owens River. They loaded up with heavy samples and continued west. One expired enroute, the other shucked the samples of the cement and continued to the mining camp of Millerton, where he collapsed and was unable to recall the specific location of his lode. Fragments of the gold-laden cement were found in his pockets. A variation: both men (same men or from a different immigrant party?) arrived at the camp. One became very ill and continued to San Francisco to see a Dr. Randall. He paid for Randall's services by drawing a location map of the cement ledge. Randall then financed a search expedition in 1861.

The story of the Lost Cement is the aftermath of the legend: the exploration of the eastern Sierra region by search parties in the 1860s, 1870s and beyond and the resultant findings of rich (and some not so rich) deposits of Dogtown, Mammoth City, Lundy Canyon, Bodie, and many others.

The story of the Lost Cement and its aftermath is preserved in the files of the San Francisco Daily Evening Post in an article written in 1879 by the paper's mining correspondent James W. A. Wright. The noted historian Richard E. Lingenfelter found the article while researching the paper's archives and in 1960 arranged to have it published by Dawson's Book Shop in a limited edition of 200 copies under the title The Cement Hunters. Next to impossible to easily find (the book, that is.)

But all is not lost. Genny Smith, author and publisher of guide books of the Mammoth Sierra and the Owens Valley plus others, has reprinted the Dawson edition, with new material consisting of three historic maps, additional notes and Mark Twain's full account of the Cement Mine. Smith's book was published in 1984 with the title The Lost Cement Mine which may still be available in selected book shops. It is a handsome book, soft back, but exceedingly well done, 94 pages with appendix.

Wright's article is a gold mine (no pun intended!!) of information of the life and times in the Eastern Sierra of that era. He does a thorough job of describing the efforts of the cement hunters and goes into many facets of the development and settlement of the eastern Sierra with much information not usually found in the later popular histories. For example: The names Deadman Summit, Deadman Creek, Deadman Rest Area, all on Hwy 395. I'm sure many of you readers have passed through enroute to Carson City, Reno. Wright describes, in interesting detail, the origin of the appellation "Deadman."

Oh, Mark Twain. In his book Roughing It, published in 1872, he devotes the entire Chapter XXXVII to the "Whiteman Cement Mine." (Whiteman was an early cement hunter). Humorously written, classic Twain. Of course, it caused a spurt in cement hunters.

Lingenfelter says it best in his preface to the Dawson, 1960 edition: "No one ever found the 'Lost Cement' and with the turn of the century the searchers have grown fewer and fewer--and today there are nearly none. But all in all, the legend of the 'Lost Cement' has done well by many of those who sought it and it has done its part in the development of the eastern slope. Yet the Cement itself can never be found, for that is the way of 'lost mines' and that is what makes them lost."

Ref.: THE LOST CEMENT MINE, Genny Smith, Ed., 1984