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197002 DesertMagazine 1970 February
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THE
MAGAZ
NOVEMBER, 1940ANNIVERSARY NUMBER25 CENTS
Glendale, CaliforniaDear Mr. Henderson:I have been immensely interested in thearguments appearing on the "Letters" page ofthe last three issues of Desert Magazine re-garding the much disputed Pegleg mine.As I have been following up clues, stories,newspaper and magazine articles concerningthe Pegleg for 40 years, and have made manytrips into the desert in search for the elusivenuggets, perhaps a few words from an old-timer would interest some of your readers.It is evident that neither Jackson C. Hillnor Bradley R. Stuart are aware of the factthat there were two Pegleg Smiths. They prob-ably never knew each other, but had two thingsin common—their last name and a woodenleg.The name of one, I understand, was JohnO. and the other Thomas.Now one of these far from mythical char-acters discovered black gold on the surface ofthe ground in the early '50s. This was JohnO. Smith. The other, Thomas, had a mine andseems have been given considerable publicityafter his demise. Nothing is known of himprior to that event.So—the verdict of the jury at this point isthat Hill and Stuart may both be right.How do I know this? Well, the story ofJohn O. Smith which I have partly verifiedby actual contacts, was written in considerabledetail in the Los Angeles Express of July 13,1900.A very similar account appeared inMunsey's magazine for December, 1901. Themain facts from these stories are that the goldwas black, there was lots of it, and Peglegpicked it up from the surface of the groundnear three hills.The late Joe Chisholm, who used to writefor the Sunday magazine of the Los AngelesTimes, told me of the two Peglegs, and thatthe Munsey story was true. Also, he told memuch about the mine that Thomas Smithworked. This account had appeared in theTimes of January 3, 1932. He places the lo-cation contiguous to the Chocolate mountainswhich would agree with Hill's location.It was the John O. Smith gold that I havelooked for—and am still looking for. I neverdid try to locate the Thomas Smith mine.From the information I have gathered thesemany years I cannot place the location of theblack gold in the place described by John D.Mitchell in the Desert Magazine—though hiswas a good story.H. E. W. WILSON.Dear Editor:Inglewood, CaliforniaWe all enjoy the Desert Magazine. My 13-year-old boy and his dad have quite a scram-ble to see which shall get it first. Even thedog goes around in circles when we speak ofgoing to the desert.MRS. D. N. PUSH.Dear Sir:Moorpark, CaliforniaIn your September number Louise Eaton inher Turtle mountain story expressed a desireto keep the desert clean—especially the out-of-the-way places. We would like to add asuggestion on the same subject.While in Yosemite national park attend-ing the school of Field Natural History con-ducted there we learned to dispose of trashin one rather easy way—by burial. Startingfires promiscuously was taboo, so, instead,trash was either covered with a quantity ofearth, or where that was lacking, it wascached carefully under rocks where it was in-conspicuous.Again, for Desert Magazine—let's keep upthe good work and keep it clean—like ourdeserts!GEORGE H. MERRIKEN.Los Angeles, CaliforniaDear Sirs:Please don't have any more Phainopeplasdarting past on page 24 of future issues. Ican't find out what the darned things are.L. E. PRICE.
Friend Price: The Phainopeplas men-tioned by Hulbert Burroughs in his LostPalm canyon story last month are birds
—
a crested little black bird that is a trueson of the desert. I hope you get betteracquainted with him. His wife is mouse-grey. —R. H.
• • •Sacramento, CaliforniaDear Mr. Henderson:In glancing over the "Letters" on page 37of the September 1940 issue of the DesertMagazine, I was amazed and disgusted toread the letter from Christopher Young ofDrifton, Pa.Surprised in that he is able to relinquishthe sum of $2.50 for a magazine which heso frankly states is "not very interesting orinformative and rather too sentimental."Disgusted in that he who claims to "knowand like the Southwest desert country" can-not appreciate or understand the affection orsentiment of those of us who know and lovethe desert and who write so eloquently of itsbeauties for your magazine.Thanks be that such subscribers are few andfar between—keep up the good work of ex-cellent articles and fine photographic studies.Yours for continued success,R. F. LATTA.San Diego, CaliforniaDear Mr. Henderson:In a recent issue of Desert Magazine, thereappeared a short notice to the effect that aprospector named Jackson Hill had discover-ed the Pegleg Smith gold mine in the Chucka-wallas 14 miles southwest of Desert Center.An article also appeared in a newspaper ofMay 27 in which Mr. Hill is quoted as say-ing that the mine was seven miles west andseven miles south of Desert Center. Thiswould place the mine about 10 miles south-west of Desert Center.In your September issue, Bradley R. Stuart,of Moapa, Nevada, has a very interesting let-ter in which he states that the discovery madeby Jackson Hill was not the Lost Peglegmine, and in which he points out that the findof an old shaft by Hill could not possibly bethe Pegleg.I agree with Mr. Stuart.During the last few years I have made anextensive study of the Pegleg mine story andhave heard dozens of versions of the affairfrom pioneers and prospectors in southernCalifornia, Arizona, New Mexico, and LowerCalifornia. These stories are included in mybook of lost mines which was published inlate September under the title GOLDENMIRACLES.After studying all of these stories I amconvinced that Pegleg did not have a tunnelin the side of a hill, but did have, as Mr.Stuart claims, a place where nuggets of near-ly pure gold could be picked up without theaid of mining tools.Regarding the find of Mr. Hill in theChuckawallas he may have discovered an oldmine that was worked in 1877. The follow-ing article was published in a newspaper ofApril 5, 1877:"Mr. J. C. Brown writes from CanonSprings on the Southern Pacific Railway linein San Diego county:—An important giiningdiscovery has been made with valuable richore on the backbone of the Colorado desert.The first discovery was made four or fivemonths ago DV John Bullock, the discoverer ofthe celebrated Castle Dome mine on the Colo-rado.The name of the new district is theSouthern Pacific railroad district. Nat Small,an old Comstock miner stationed at CanonSprings as keeper of the station, is the lead-ing spirit, together with Hank Brown, a vet-eran stage driver and freighter between South-ern California and Arizona. The district is 19miles northeast of Canon Springs, and 35miles from Dos Palmas station on the railway,at an elevation of 2500 feet. There is a roadfrom Dos Palmas. The formation is slate andgranite."As you know, Canyon Springs is not on therailway line as the article intimates, but isabout 20 miles east of where the railway pass-es the northern end of the Salton sea. Also,Canyon Springs is in Riverside county, whichin 1877 was a part of San Diego county. Can-yon Springs was once a station on the oldBradshaw stage line that ran from San Ber-nardino to La Paz on the Colorado river in1862. I believe that a stage line was operatedby the railway from Dos Palmas to Ehrenberg,Arizona, (six miles south of La Paz), in 1877as a part of their system.It is possible that the discovery made byJackson Hill was the old mine discovered byJohn Bullock, and worked by Nat Small andHank Brown, as Hill's mine is in the generallocality of the Bullock find.It is very doubtful if it is the Pegleg mine,as it does not meet any of the situations underwhich Pegleg was known to have found gold.P. A. BAILEY.• • •Los Angeles, CaliforniaDear Mr. Henderson:I read "Cochise No Steal Cattle" with in-terest. It's a good story. The funny old fanci-ful sketching of "Cochise" is typical of theillustrations in so many books or the periodprepared without any regard to facts. NoApache ever wore that kind of a breechcloth,carried that type of bow, dressed his hair thatway, wore that kind of feathers or wore a ringin his nose. In fact I never saw an Apachewith that kind of nose!If one imagines the white man's clothestaken off "Nachise" on page 5, leaving onlyhis headband, his long white breechcloth andhis deerskin boots, the result, I imagine wouldbe a pretty good picture of his father. Iknew this man in his later years; he called
himself,
Naiche.I'm glad to see DESERT still keeps up itshigh standards. Long may it wave!M. R. HARRINGTON.• • •Ventura, CaliforniaDear Mr. Henderson:Yesterday I visited Red Rock canyon, oneof the most beautiful of California's manyscenic beauties. The public has made a regulargarbage dump of the place, you cannot finda decent place to have a lunch, the wholeplace is littered with beer cans and all kindsof cans, rubbish of all descriptions. The placeis a disgrace to the state and desert communi-ty-You can stand back and admire the beautyand grandeur of the mighty crags, but whenyou try to get a near view, you have to gothrough a garbage dump to get to the baseof them.I am writing you about it thinking youmight call the attention of proper authoritiesto the condition of the place.Expect a subscription soon.J. H. IMHOFF.
DESERT
Gcd&ndan,
NOV. 1 Week-long convention of NewMexico Education association endsin Albuquerque.1-15 Arizona open hunting season onquail.
1-DEC.
14 California, Nevada and Utahduck hunting season. Began Oc-tober 16.2-DEC. 31 Arizona duck hunting sea-son. Buy federal migratory birdhunting stamps at any postofhce.7 Meeting of Arizona Mineralogicalsociety, Arizona museum, Phoenix.7-9 Arizona Education association
meets,
Tucson. Miss Alice Vail,president.8-10 State chamber of commerce secre-taries meet, Phoenix, Arizona.11 World premiere of "Arizona" film,Tucson, Arizona. ReconstructedOld Pueblo to be open Nov. 11-16.12 Fiesta of San Diego at Jemez andTesuque pueblos, New Mexico.Indian corn dance at Jemez, In-dian buffalo dance at Tesuque.8-14 Ogden, Utah Livestock show. E.Fjeldsted, manager.9-17 Arizona State fair, Phoenix. W.A. Thompson, chairman.10 Second annual air show, sponsoredby Southern Nevada Aero club, tobe held at Western Air Expressfield, Las Vegas. Class one show,featuring professional fliers. Ad-mission free.13 Dr. Frank C. Lockwood: "Loren-zo Hubbell, Trader to the Nava-
jos."
Lecture at Arizona museum,Phoenix.14-16 Arizona Days, in Yuma. Annualfiesta of Elks lodge. Eb Lawler,Exalted Ruler.15 Fiesta of La Mesilla, at Las Cru-
ces,
New Mexico, featuring Span-ish and Anglo folk dances, musicand customs.15-17 Convention of Arizona Hotel as-sociation, Phoenix. Major John F.Murphy, executive secretary.18-19 Central district federation ofBusiness and Professional Womensclubs meets in Globe, Arizona.Pearl Davey, chairman.18-DEC. 10 Elk hunting season in Ari-zona. Special permits, $15 to resi-
dents,
$25 to non-residents.21 Mineralogical society meets atPhoenix, Arizona museum.21-23 Convention of Southwestern sec-tion, American Medical associa-tion, Tucson, Arizona. Dr. Kohl,chairman.22-23 International Relations club con-vention, campus of Arizona StateTeachers college, Tempe. Speakers:Dr. A. S. Raubenheimer, dean ofcollege of liberal arts, Universityof California; Hugh Matier, in-ternationally known geologist,journalist.28-29 Annual Fiesta, Brawley, Califor-nia.
Volume 4NOVEMBER 1340Number 1COVERLETTERSCALENDARPHOTOGRAPHYMININGPERSONALITYQUIZARTISTSMINERALSTRAVELOGHUMORPLACE NAMESHOBBYDIARYBOOKSNEWSMININGHOBBYSHOP TALKLANDMARKWEATHERCOMMENT
DESERT EVENING, photograph by Josef Muench,Santa Barbara, California.Comment from Desert Magazine readers Inside coverNovember events on the desert 1Prize winning pictures in September 2Gold on the Banks of the HassayampaBy CHARLES C. NIEHUIS 3'He is our Friend'By MRS. WHITE MOUNTAIN SMITH ... 7A Test of Your Desert Knowledge 10They Borrowed their Art from the AncientsBy G. CARPENTER BARKER 11'Petrified Bacon'By JOHN W. HILTON 13Palm Oasis in Mortero CanyonBy RANDALL HENDERSON 17Hard Rock Shorty—By LON GARRISON ... 20Origin of names in the Southwest 21Cacti—Edited by LUCILE HARRIS 22October at YaquitepecBy MARSHAL SOUTH 23MARK TWAIN'S WESTERN YEARS,and other reviews 25Here and There on the Desert 26Briefs from the desert region 28Gems and Minerals—Edited by ARTHUR EATON 29Along the Trail with the Desert Magazine ... 33Kit Carson MonumentBy MARGUERTE SANDSTROM McDOWELL 36Desert temperatures in September 36Just Between You and MeBy the Editor Inside back cover
The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Publishing Company, 636State Street, El Centre California. Entered as second class matter October 11, 1937, atthe post office at El Centro. California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered
No.
358865 in U. S. Patent Office, and contents copyrighted 1940 by the Desert PublishingCompany. Permission to reproduce contents must be secured from the editor in writing.EANDALL HENDERSON, Editor.TAZEWELL H. LAMB and LUCILE HARRIS, Associate Editors.Richard B. Older, Advertising Representative, 416 Wall St., Los Angeles,
Calif.
Phone TR 1501Manuscripts and photographs submitted must be accompanied by full return post-
age.
The Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility for damage or loss of manuscriptsor photographs although due care will be exercised for their safety. Subscribers shouldsend notice of change of address to the circulation department by the fifth of the monthpreceding issue.SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 1 year $2.50 — 2 years $4.00 — 3 years $S.OOGIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS: 1 subscription $2.50 — two $4.00 — three $B.OOCanadian subscriptions 25c extra, foreign 50c extraAddress subscription letters and correspondence to Desert Magazine, El Centro, California
NOVEMBER, 1940
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Desert Magazine 1940 November (194011)
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could you make this one downloadable ? thanks
Greg: This is not my upload, get ahold of ( dm1937 ). If you have a problem and need an article, I can copy it and get it to you. Jim
Thank you so much for these wonderful scans!
Nice Work on these dm1937 ! I was thinking of doing this myself. Do you have the entire set scanned? The index? If not, I have a full set. Mssg me
looking for the complete set to download tracar at hotmail.com
any chance you could put up the Desert Magazine 1940 November (194011) that could be downloaded ?
Desert Magazine