HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE UPPER MOJAVE DESERT

Vol. 18 No. 5 A UNITED WAY AGENCY May 2003

ANNUAL MEETING AND DINNER

As announced in the April newsletter, our annual dinner meeting will be on Tuesday evening, May 13.

We are very pleased that the after dinner speaker will be the noted author and speaker, Remi Nadeau IV, who has written nine books, the latest being The Silver Seekers, which was published in 1999. Others include: City-Seekers, the Water Seekers and Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of California.

Nadeau's heritage goes back to his great,great grandfather and namesake who was the famed mule-team freighter, Remi Nadeau. He owned over a thousand mules and ran freight lines all over the eastern Sierra to Los Angeles and between mining camps.

Remi Nadeau IV, our speaker, has a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford and a PhD in history from UC Santa Barbara. His talk primarily will be based on his book, The Silver Seekers.

The dinner will be buffet style and include roast round of beef, chicken with fine herbs, vegetables, dessert, beverages. The program will consist of short annual reports, election of directors and, of course, our speaker, Dr. Nadeau.

Tickets for the annual dinner meeting are available at the Maturango Museum. The cost is $20.00 each. Social hour will begin at 6:00 p.m., with dinner being served about 6:30 p.m. The meeting will take place in the Carriage Inn banquet room.

The time to get the tickets is a bit limited since we need to get a count of people attending to the Carriage Inn by May 7. Walk, run, or better yet, drive to the Maturango Museum now to get your dinner meeting tickets...

The Nominating Committee has announced a slate of nominees for our upcoming election. They are: Dr. Lorraine Blair, Bill Nevins, Lou Pracchia (incumbent), Fred Weals (incumbent) and Bruce Wertenberger (incumbent). Biographical sketches of these nominees will be available at the annual meeting. Nominations from the floor will be accepted.

The Nominating Committee consisted of Joan Woodman, Barbara Hall and Charlotte Goodson, the chairperson.

OUR COLLECTIONS

Among other items, your historical society's collections contain quite a few telephone directories from both Ridgecrest and China Lake. These items have been thoughtfully donated by local residents and society members since our founding in 1985. They comprise an important area research record that is not otherwise readily available. Primarily their use has been to determine names, addresses, dates of residency, occupation, or business entity.

There are issues we do not have and hope that you the members will help us acquire. We need Ridgecrest directories for 1952, 1955 through 1958, 1960, and 1992. For China Lake we need all issues prior to 1959.

If you would like to access these directories, or other items in our library or collections, please contact any of your society's directors to make arrangements. Lou Pracchia

BUSINESS MEMBERS

Please patronize The Swap Sheet, Ridgecrest Moving and Storage, Inc., Granite Construction ­ Sand and Gravel, Farris' at the Heritage and the Indian Wells Valley Insurance Co.

CHINA LAKE CHIEFS' CLUB FIREPLACE

(The following personal recollection was submitted by HSUMD member, Martha Jauregui. It is one in what we hope will be a continuing series of recollections by our members of the early days in Indian Wells Valley. In the past six months we have had a series on the community of Brown and a story of an early sunrise Easter service in Red Rock Canyon. Ed.)

I wonder how many of you readers have been in the Meeting and Conference Building on Base? Or, maybe were there when it was the Chief's' Club. At any rate, did anyone notice the fireplace in there? There is a story behind that.
In June of 1947, when we first arrived at China Lake, the original Chiefs' Club was in the process of being built by the chiefs. All were assigned duties and my dad's job was to go out into the Desert and hunt down the stones so he could build the fireplace and chimney. He loved doing this. He loved the Desert and the wide open spaces. During the time he was here, he was usually off exploring the Desert and soon joined the Rockhounds.

The finished product was nothing fancy, mainly one large room, the bar and a kitchen. The front door faced west and there was a second door on the south side, with a third off the kitchen. There were no windows and the front, which faced Lauritsen Rd., was about 15 feet back from the street. From the back, all the way to Dibb Rd., there was nothing but desert.

When the club was finished, there was a rousing grand opening and a good time was had by all. After that, there were many family outings such as trips to Whitney Portals and the Easter Sunrise services in Red Rock Canyon. Naturally, the meeting place at the club and the grownups would have to fortify themselves against the cold weather. There were also Easter and Christmas parties for the kids. This was a wonderful time. The war was over and we were a family again.

Sometime in the early sixties, the Chiefs' Club burned down, leaving only the fireplace and chimney. Contractors were brought in to rebuild and the fireplace was incorporated into the new building. At that time, my mother was working at Good Samaritan Hospital in L. A. and she learned of the fire from one of the patients. I felt bad when she told me. The club was built with loving hands, by survivors of the Pacific battles, heroes all. I wish I could have gotten their stories and I did manage to get a few. As for my father, Sam Collins, on October 21, 1951, he was killed in an automobile accident on old Highway 6, now 14, six miles north of Mojave. It was the weekend of the first Desert Empire Fair and he was on his way back to Pt. Mugu., where he was stationed.

I see the fireplace as his legacy and if the Navy decides to get rid of that building, I hope the Museum would take it and care for it. Gunners Mate Master Chief Collins did so love this area and he left a part of himself in the fireplace. Martha Jauregui:

MILLSPAUGH

(Following is the first installment of an article prepared by John DiPol after researching his library of books about the area. A previous article by Mr. DiPol told of an encounter between Dr. Rose Burcham and the attorney, Pat Reddy. ED)

The Argus Mountain Range in the upper Mojave Desert trends for 50 miles in a south to north direction and forms the eastern boundary of the present China Lake Military Reservation. It is, in many ways, a rather nondescript geological happening, not different from many other desert ranges: rugged, dry, treeless (sparse pinyons excepted), bland, unattractive, etc. BUT, it is in the middle of a highly mineralized region of the Northern Mojave and, as such, had been heavily prospected in the latter part of the 1800s and early 1900s, but without much historical "press" as its more glamorous neighbors: Cerro Gordo, Panamint City, Ballarat, Darwin, etc. Closer examination, however, will show a number of mines located throughout the range; some very rich, others not. The two "biggies" were the Modoc Consolidated and the Minnietta Group, both located on Lookout Mountain in the northern Argus, on the east side, overlooking Panamint Valley. The Modoc, discovered in 1875, was purchased soon after by George Hearst (father of William Randolph Hearst) and was a valuable addition to his other interests in the Comstock Lode and the Homestake Mine in the Black Hills. The Minnietta Group, located soon after the Modoc, was owned and operated by Jack Gunn of the Owens Valley. Both mines produced millions.

And then there was the Millspaugh camp. Its distinction is that is was unique and it was different. The campsite is located just east of the Argus summit, at the head of Shepherd Canyon at an elevation of 6156 feet above sea level. It sat astride the toll road built in the early 1870s by John Shepherd (a resident of Owens Valley) that ran from Lone Pine, up Lower Centennial Flat, down through old Coso (now called "Coso Village"), thence easterly across Etcheron Valley (then known as "Junction Flat"), up the Argus, down into Panamint Valley, terminating in the booming Panamint City. (Editorial note: There was another loop to this road, starting south of Owen Lake, going through Darwin, then south up the Darwin Wash to join with the Old Coso route at Junction Flat.)

The camp is named after its founder Almon Millspaugh, a native of Michigan, born in 1860, came to live and work in Santa Maria, California, for several years, was moderately successful in several business ventures, but eventually settled in the little town of Onyx on the south fork of the Kern River. There he made fast friends with Lou Smith and Frank Pettipool with his wife Jessie, and prospected the high country without much success. In the fall of 1898, the three men packed up, headed

east across Indian Wells Valley, then up Mountain Springs Canyon to Junction Flat. They continued eastbound on the Shepherd toll road through the Argus Mountains. (Editorial note: It is reasonable to speculate that the trio was headed for the town of Ballarat, which had been established the year prior and with in the center of a great deal of prospecting and mining activity.)

When they reached the head of Shepherd Canyon, they encountered George Davis ("Old Man George") who was camping and prospecting and had located and recorded several claims that were sufficient to keep him in "bacon and beans," with an occasional bottle of whiskey! George invited the three visitors to linger, which they did for several months, prospecting in the area until the spring of 1899. Their own findings, together with the purchase of some of Old Man George's claims, convinced them that sufficient deposits of ore were available to warrant development. With these arrangements made, the three men returned to the South Fork, acquired teams, wagons and materials to be hauled up into the Argus for establishing a permanent camp.

One of the principal factors which made the Millspaugh development unique and different from the vast majority of mining ventures was that it was not a stock company. It was a family business, with several members of the family and very close friends as owners and working operators. Almon Millspaugh was the principal owner. He recruited his brother-in-law, Oliver Bailey, from Nebraska to join in, as well as Mrs. Jessie Fowzer and her young daughter Elizabeth (later to become Elizabeth Mecham), together with his original partners, Smith and Pettipool. Mrs. Fowzer was the bookkeeper, assayer, and later Post Master when the post office Millspaugh was established in 1901.

The other unique feature of the Millspaugh camp was the quality construction of the many facilities as opposed to the usual mining camp slapdash, temporary, minimal cost approach.
John DiPol

In early 1900 crews of men were hired to fill, grade and level building sites. Tents with floors and called up sides were put up while the permanent boarding house, residences, offices, etc. were being constructed, all with lathe and plaster, siding, flooring and corrugated iron roofs. Additional family members arrived, such as Grandpa Millspaugh, who came in from Michigan to do the mason work. Employees were hired: Miss Brice as the cook and her brother, Frank, as teamster. Several miners were hired on a permanent basis to work the mines, principally the "Yellow Metal" claim. Wells were dug to provide an excellent supply of water/ A two-stamp mill was installed, powered by a Fairbanks-Morse steam engine, to crush and mill the gold ore in classical fashion. Freight teams hauled material and equipment in from Mojave via Mountain Springs Canyon and Junction Flats. This was augmented by freighting from the terminus of the Randsburg Railroad in Johannesburg.
John DiPol