198008 Desert Magazine 1980 August

8/14/2019 198008 Desert Magazine 1980 August

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N E W M E X IG H O S T REAWA

I

AUGUST, 1980 $1.50

w Clues, MACACORI^ A f U R ElISSlONS OF CENTRAL 0 A ) A


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A new gu n that carries onthe Ruge r tradit ion an engineeringphiloso phy which has prod uce d over the years aline of fine sporting

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VOLUME 43 NUMBER 7 August, 1980CONTENTS"O h, for w ings like a dove, to fly away and rest! I wou ld fly to far off de serts and stay there." Psalms 55:6,7

ISSN 0194-3405

12FeaturesT H E M I S S I O N SO F C E N T R A LB A J A b y J a n e E p p i n g aThe Legacy of the Other MexicoT H E L O S TT R E A S U R E O FT U M A C A C O R I b y C h o r a l P e p p e rNew Twists to an Old Trail

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T H E F I S C H E R S U N C O O K E RDeserts Product of t h e MonthS O R T I N G R A T T L E S N A K E F A C TF R O M R A T T L E S N A K EF I C T I O N b y K a re n S a u s m a nOr Have You Hugged Your Snake Today?W I L L I A M H E N R YJ A C K S O N b y M a r i a n C lo v e rThe Artist and the M an

C O A L , C O M O A N DC H R I S T M A S b y D a n B . M c C a r t h yA Combo That May Revive Madrid,New Mexico

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T H E C A C T U S C I T YC L A R I O N M a ry E . T w y m a n , E d .The Nosiest Newspaper in the WestT H E V E R S A T I L EA L O E b y M a r ia n S e d d o na n d D o r o t h y P a r c e lR x in the Desert

T H E F L I G H T O FW I L L I E B O Y b y T C . W e irA Saga of Desert Survival

46 E N E R G Y F R O M T H ES U N b y D a v e M c N a ryA Status Report on Solar OneDepartmentsLETTERS 5EDITORIAL 6DESERT ROCKHOU ND 36DESERT CALENDAR 37PHOT O CONTEST 45THE LIVING DESERT 48CHUCK WAGON CO OK IN' 50CoverA touch of wh ite on an old shackmakes it a hom e on ce again.Photograph taken in Madrid, NewMexico by David M uench.

DESERT 3


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T h e C A X T O N P R I N T E R S , L t d .P.O. Box 700

C a l d w e l l , Idaho 83605We take pr i de in the product ion of f ine booksfo r the readers of Western American history w ith pa rticula r e mpha sis on the history of thePac i f ic Nor thwes t and the Rocky Mounta inregion.

Write for a Free C a ta l og .

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NOTIFY US SIXWEEKS IN ADVANCE.BE SURE TO INCLUDE OLD

ADDRESS AS WELL AS THE NEWA N D B O T H ZIP C O D E S .

Meta l Dete ctors, Geo logists,Miners & P rospectors SuppliesTopo Maps, B oo ks.SEND FORCATALOG:2400 E. Fo o t h i l l B o u le v a rdPasadena, C a l i fornia 91107

75-188 Highway 111 ,Indian Wells, California 9226 0(714) 346-8113THE DESERT'S

MOST FAMOUSBISTRO(714) 346-2314

First Phase of Our RemodelingProgram Now Completed

EditorDonald MacDonaldArt Director/Photo EditorT h o m a s ThreinenProduction DirectorBarry BergMan aging EditorM ary E. Twym anAss't. Managing EditorPa t I.William sStaff PhotographerG u y M o t ilArt Associatelane DivelContributing EditorsKaren Sa us ma n, Natural SciencesWa yne P. Armstrong, Natural SciencesJerry andLuisa Klink, Baja CaliforniaM erle H. Graffam , CartographerProduction A ssistanceJan GarlandArlene Sm ithSpecial ServicesDoug BuntingLithographed byWorld Color Pre ss

Offered inMicrofilmby Xerox University MicrofilmsPublisherDonald M acDonaldAssociate Publisher/Advertising DirectorDaniel D.WhedonMarketing D irectorGeorge E.SectorSubscription FulfillmentP a t J. W i l li a m sBusiness ManagerMarjorie M olineCounselC hester M . Ro s s

Represented byNational Advertising S ales, Inc.Robert E. Leyburn, Pres.750 Third Ave ., 29th FloorNew York, NY 10017(212)682-7483Robert L. Sarra, II, Reg. Mgr.435 N.Michigan Ave., Suite 1314Chicago, IL 60611(312) 467-6240Richard F. Landy, Reg. Mgr.1680 Vine St., Suite909Los Ange les, CA90028(213)466-7717DistributedbyDell Distribution C o ., Inc.John Gaffney, Acc't. Exec.1 DagHammarskjold PlazaNew York, NY 10017(212) 832-7300

Desert is published monthly by Cactus Paper-works, Inc.Officers: R. C. Packer, President: Ches-ter M. Ross, Vice-President; Donald MacDonald,Vice-President; Marjorie Moline, Secretary. Edito-rial. Circulation, andAdvertising Offices: 74-425Highway 111, P.O. Box 1318, Palm Desert, CA92261. Telephone: (714) 568-2781. Qwip transmis-sion available. Subscription Rates: U.S. and itspossessions, Canada, andMexico: 1-year,$10.00;2-years, $19.00. Allother countries add$4.00 U.S.currency for each year. See subscription orderforms in this issue. Please allow five weeks forchange of address and send both new and oldaddresses with exact zip codes. Application tomail at controlled circulation postage rates ispending at Sparta, Illinois (USPS 154-940). Con-tents copyrighted 1980 by Desert Magazine, andpermission toreproduce any or all contents mustbe secured in writing. Unsolicited manuscriptsand photographs areencouraged, butwill not ber e t u r n e d u n l e s s a c c o m p a n i e d by a self-addressed, stamped envelope or international ex-change coupons. Writers Guide tree with SASE;sample copy, $1.50.


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PEGLEG SMITH'S NUGGETSThere are twointriguing hypothesesoutl ined in the l ively exchang e b etweenChoral Pepper and Don MacDonald(Desert, June 1980) giving newpoints ofview for someone in terested in searchingfor the lost Pegleg nuggets. However, Imust submit that both arehighlyimprobable."Desert varnish" is not formed bycopper dioxide from the nuggetsthemselves. Theprecious metals in thenuggets protect thecopper insolidsolution sothat it does not preferentiallycome to the surface asoxide. Rather, thevarnish ismanganese andiron oxides, plussmall amounts of many trace elements. Themanganese compounds (andsome i ron)are brought to the surface bycapillarymigration and/or migration through fi lmsof moisture on thepebbles dur inginfrequent desert rains. Evaporation,oxidation andprecipitat ion take place tocreate thevarnish, and thus happensdominantly on theexposed upper surfacesand sides of thepebb les. With rareexceptions this happ ens only wh ere des ertconditions aresevere. It does not happenin northern California andthus it isimprobable that thePegleg nuggetsoriginated there.

If thenuggets hadbeen dropped f rom amule train inArizona or SouthernCalifornia, there would nothave been t imefor them tobecom e coated with deser tvarnish and so resemble other pebbles .C. B. Hu nt in1971 established that desertvarnish in thewestern U.S. ismore than2,000 ye ars old. In fact, Eiiot B lackweldercited good eviden ce in 1948 that darkvarnish in theEgyptian desert ismore than5,000yearsold.If they we re picke d up elsewhere in thesouthwest desert anddropped , it is difficultto imagines/ / of them falling with theheavy coating ofdesert varnish up. Sinceall accounts seem toagre:e that the nuggetsca n bedistinguished from the surroundingpebbles only by thedifference inweight, itwould se em clear that they have been intheir present posit ion for2,000 or m o r eyears. Inother w ords, they must be soughtby geologic rather than archeologiccriteria.Earl IngersonAustin, Texas

OTHERS WERE THERE FIRSTI see(Desert, May19800 that thestory ofBoulder Flats has at last been told, and Imust saythat thearticle a.ndpictures wereinteresting andwel l done .Back in 19691 exp lored Boulde r Flat and

I made a 16 mmsound film on the sitewhich I titled "Lost for aHun dred Years."In spite ofpleas offormer editors ofDesert I would notwrite anarticle abo utthe site since it hasbeen myexper iencethat once aplace isknown, vandals quicklydestroy it.

However, since thesite is nowpublicinformation, I wish for the record togiveLee Simmons, Curator of the Mono CountyMuseum inBridgeport , Calif, credit for"re-discovering" the town. It was he inJuly,1969 who led us up thesteep anddangerou s trail toBoulder Flat so we couldmake our movie. Ifreaders contact me, Imay bewilling torent this one-of-a-kindfilm, which is in color, for showing tointerested audiences.Jay ClarkHartford, Calif.Those wishing to show this film maywri teMr. Clark at 1000 E.Myrtle St. in Hanford.

BAJA PROAND CONI just finished y our April 1980issue with itsarticles onBaja. About five ye ars ago wealong with agroup offriends from heremade thetrek dow n through Calexico andinto Baja. We spent an u m b e r ofdays in SanFelipe and enjoyed it immensely. Atthatt ime theClam Man had a spot on thebusiest corner in town; chanting "Don'tforget theClam Man," he was thecenter ofattraction. Then wepushed further southto Puertocitos w here we camped for abouta week andenjoyed the hotnatural bathsan d thecooking at Caeser's. Thebeauty ofBaja ca ptivated us andsince then, wehavego ne back five times, always enjoying goo dfood andexcellent hospitality.San Felipe hasgrown andchanged somuch during this short period of time thatit isamazing. Even anairport! In a way it issad. For those like us whohave to travel sofar, Baja is the last frontier. I hope youdon't entice toomany mo re tourists, forBaja isbeautiful the way it is.R. B. HaywardProvo, Utah.We traveled ac ross Baja east from Ensen adato SanFelipe and sawnothing but dirt,rocks and in themiddle of it all, thepoverty ofValle deTrinidad, anagriculturalarea which was theonly beauty spot in 160miles.We stayed in a trai ler camp owned by thechief ofpolice. It was 94degrees in and outof theocean and thehumidity wasunbearable. Whenever weused thebathroom or shower , one of us had tostand guard orsom eone (nat ive) wouldpeek in. We sawnothing beautiful in San

Felipe. Why is it no one ever writes aboutthe seamy side ofvacation spots?Lillian DudiczHayward, Calif.You just did.

LEST WE FOR GETAltho your Ju ne 1980 issue of Desertboggled these weary oldeyes with itsmagnifisense, thehole thang went thunkwhen I cood n't low-cate theBiblequotation. Tsk, Tsk, mydea r Mr. Mac,wemussn 't fergit our ' umble beginnins andfrom whence allgood thangscum.Minnie ContretempsTruth &Consequences, N.M.We ain't fergettin, Minnie. Them quo tesjist got left out onemont h by an errant artdirector.RENO'S STILL BOOMINGALONGThere ' s a bit of misinformation inyourJune (1980) issue about casino closings inReno. Your first line is "TheMoney Treehas dried up .. ." towhich I'msure CharleyMapes would take issue. Only thenewlyrenovated portion onWest 2nd at Sierrahas closed. Secondly youstate that "twoother downtown casinos have closed inrecent weeks .. ." andagain you are a bitoff, to wit:All of our local closings hap pen ed lastyear, and there areonly twodowntown, thesecond being theHorseshoe almostnext-door to theMoneytree. Ourotherclosing was a new kid up theblock, nameof Claimstake, inSparks which isseveralmiles from down town Reno. Believe mewhen I saythat Sparksites donot considerthemselves citizens ofReno. You nowstand corrected. Ifyou should be in ourarea, by all means s top by and sayhowdy,we'll beglad toshow you s o m eboom-town hospitality.Kirt R. Harm onReno, Nev.

APOLITICALDesert Magazine reflects a growingconcern for ecological adve ntures andutilization ofone's appreciation of ournatural resources. Let us save "politicalviews andquotable quotes" for gossipmagazines andcont inue to presentinformative, historical insights to the silentmajority ofDesert adventure rs. Yourmagazine has long been a standardreference source for mystudents.Dr. GuyD. MazzaStanford, Calif.


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L I M E P D U 1 E L LD F F - S E H S D n I S J U S T H SB E H U T I F U l

It's th e greatest fo r summer family fun.Wahweap, Bul l f rog a nd Mite reso rts/marinasare open year around, but you really shouldtry us in the spring, fall an d winter...Not only fo r mod erate temperatures,/ betterfishing a nd ess crowded conditions, but fo r

S a v i n g s to

S e n d c o l o r a n d r a l e b r o c h u r e s o nW a h w e a p , B u l l f ro g a n d Hite r e s o r t s / m a r i n a ;

N a m eA d d r e s s .C ity _ S ta te _

Mai l t o :

L a k e P o w e l l R e s o r t s B m a r i n e s D MB o x 2 9 0 4 D , P h o e n i x , AZ 8 5 0 3 8

N e w c e n t r a l r e s e r v a t i o n s s y s t e m :W e s t o f M i s s i s s i p p i c a l l to l l - fr e e 1 - 8 0 0 - 5 2 8 -6 1 5 4 .

I n A r i z o n a , c a l l ( 6 0 2 ) 2 6 4 - 8 4 6 6 .

6 AUGUST, 1980

BEAUTY IS IN THE EYEOF THE BEHOLDERThe two thoughtful letters from readersHayward and Dudicz you'll see on page 5

of this issue present diametrical reactionsto a few days spen t by each individual inSan Felipe. Both im pressions are equallyvalid and both deserved their airing.However, Hayward and Dudicz judged al lof Baja from visits to a single area.Baja in truth is a land of contrasts andwhat seems seamy to on e may be beautifulto ano ther. It is a land of infinite variety butothe rs see on ly samen ess, a conflict typicalamong visitors to deserts everyw here. Andwhat seemed to have been rude oglingmay derive from no m ore than thecuriosity of a child.For the p eo ple of Baja, in their infinitevariety, share in some childlike qualities.Away from the few major cities, there is notelevision and few telep hone s. What mayseem to a visitor to be abject poverty andtherefore, unhappiness, often obscures awholesomeness unk nown to NorthAm ericans. A dirt floor is dirty to u s; to aMexican, it is clean w hen it is swept as itconstantly is.Look at the ch ildren on the way toschool, squeak)' clean in bod y and clothes.And also in soul as are, for the m ost part,their mothers and fathers. Drop something

of value from your car as you pass. Try this.Some child will run after you for a mile soas to retur n it. As will their paren ts.Meet a "poor" Mexican famiy and acceptthe invitation to visit their ho me . Realize ajar of Nescafe has cost mo re than a day'swages but you will be offered coffee, andgood conversation about simple thingssuch as the quality of the fish in yesterday'scatch or the hea lth of a baby new to aneighbor.The man may look at your car and askyou with directness ho w m uch it cost. Donot be offended; he simply is curious toknow, and it is a curiosity without envy forhe has little use for s uch a car. He hasaccepte d w her e h e is in life. Have you?Mexicans are proud , whatever theirstation. And they are sensitive. This is no t adefensive sensitivity. They accept you. Theywo nde r if you will accept them and shouldyou not, they have no wish to be bruised .Recently one of the vehicles in our partyentered some road construction with toomuch sp eed and the jouncing knocked thebattery from its mount. The battery whilefalling severed its ground cable and thecar died.Before the others ahead could return to

the scene, some M exican teenagers hadstopped, diagnosed the problem, and withswitchblade in hand, were regrounding the

cable. It never oc curr ed to them that theknife might seem om inou s, to us. Andwhen offered payment for their trouble,they refused. When offered money withwhich to buy som e beer, they accepted.Mexicans are not lazy. Those gleamingclothes on the children were whitened ona washboard at hom e. The one-roomhou se was built by its owner. Th e fence ofdried oco tillo was gathered piece by piecefrom miles away. Manana as is comm onlysupposed does not mean " tomorrow" tothem; it means "I will do it but not now."

I have a friend in San Felipe nam edFreddy and he is troub led. H e had spent afew mon ths at a colleg e in California andthen retu rned to his town. There he is theheadwater and sometimes manager of arestaurant whe re the tourists eat and hemarried and has three children.His expo sure to our way of life madehim aware of poverty even thoug h h e is farfrom poor by San Felipe standards. It hasmade him ambitious and discontented andI am su re that somed ay h e will "succeed,"whe ther it be in San Felipe or, perh aps, u phere. But he is unhappy because he hasseen and compared . And the more h eserves the tourists, the further away seemhis dreams. Envy has entere d h isrelation ships with visitors. It is ironic, for Ienvy him the chance to live in San Felipe.So when you go there or anywhere elsein the "other Mexico," pity the Freddieswho have been contaminated with our wayand envy the vast majority who haven't.They are truly happy an d it is contagious!

N O T I C E : Most of our subsc ribersrecently received a letter from ussuggesting they renew at a special $9.00($17.00 for two y ear s) rate. A heart-warming number took advantage of thisoffer, and for that we than k you, bu tthere was som e quest ion about theGoleta, Calif., re turn address on theenvelo pe. You'll see that sometimes andalso, P.O. Box 28816 in San Diego 92128.It 's because we've moved oursubscription service to those locationswhere there are com puters which canhandle the ever-growing volume. Butthere are also peop le, as before, andthey're ready to he lp you with anysubscription problem. Just write toDesert at the San Diego address. You'llget a promp t, person al reply.


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T h e MISSIONS o fC E N T R A L B A J A


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9/56PHO T OGR APHS : J ANE E PPINGA

Inside th ere is a lovely gilded retablo,some original alabaster fonts andinteresting oil paintings.SAN JUANBAUTISTAdeLONDO

This Jesuit outp ost was found ed in 1699by Padre Salvatierra. By 1745 the re w ere nopeo ple and no missionaries, and so it wasabolished as a mission.The Cochimi Indians of this area wer eperhaps among the most rebellious.Although Salvatierra succeeded inestablishing a church, on at least oneoccasion h e was person ally attacked. Awall, restored by a local priest, and som eruins are all that remain of Londo.

SAN BRUN OAlthough San Bruno is deserted withonly some wea thered foundation rocks, i tonce marked the germination for the seedsof faith in New Spain. Here the greatSonoran m issionary, Padre Eusebio K ino,founded his first mission on October 6,1685. With Father Gogni, Kino madeexcellent progress with the Indians, butcapricious weather d estroyed their cropsand after a year they wer e forced to leave.

SAN FRAN CISCO JAVIERde VIGGE BIAUNDOWeaving through the Arroyo de losParras, a sparsely inhabited region dottedwith goat ranches, you will come upon SanFrancisco Javier de Vigge Biaund o, whichwas founded in 1699 by Padre Piccolo. The

present church was completed in 1759 andits stone architecture is amon g the mostbeautiful in Mexico. The cross of theecclesiastical court marks the entrance tothe town and leads to the church.The cool snowy white interior canno tfail to impre ss. The fonts, on e of alabaster,the o ther of native volcanic rock, reflect theirregular architectural shapes. The primitivecharacter of missions such as San Javier isa result of utilization of solid natural formswhich are distinguished by their charmingsimplicity. Even San Javier's a rch ed roof isof decorated stonework. The gildedretablos which came from Spain areespecially beau tiful.Because of friendly In dians and a landwhich could b e irrigated by a nearbystream, Father Piccolo decided to foundthis mission. Salvatierra dedicated thechu rch t o San Francisco Javier onNovember 1,1699. In 1701 Padre Juan deUgarte took charge and rem ained her e ti lhis death in 1730. Ugarte was the type ofman of whom legends are m ade. He is saidto have been so disgusted with the localworsh ip of the moun tain lion, that he slewand ate one of them to disprove the cat 'somnipotence.Ugarte introduced sheep and goats andplanted cotton and olive trees, which areforbea rers of the plants in the area today.He also built a hospital and home for theaged. From 1741 to 1768, San Javier was

under Padre Miguel del Barco. It is to himthat we ow e a debt for the exten sive floraand fauna do cum entation. Ancientaqueducts which even preceded the padresare still in use.SAN JUAN

BAUTISTAtffe MALIBAT1703 was a hard year for Baja'smissionaries, who were constantlybesieged by hostile Indians but eventually,Spanish soldiers captured the ringleadersand hanged them ov er the protests ofthe padres.Salvatierra took advantage of the ensuingpeace to explor e inland. Accomp anied byPadre Ugarte's bro ther Pedro, he visitedLigui (San Juan Bautista de Malibat).Several children were bro ught for baptism.All that remains of the chapel founded in1704 is a ring of foundation stones arounda large mesqu ite tree. This may have be enthe original chapel.

The MISSION ofCOMANDU 'The Valley of the Stones o r Com andunear Villa Isurgen tes a nd Pancho Villacontains thr ee villages San Jose , SanMiguel and Viejo. About 1920 in San Miguela Mexican general tore do wn the chu rch toobtain material to build himself a finehouse . Legend has it that the hou se becam ehaunted and the gen eral was forced to flee.Today, one can wander through the housewhich has fallen into disrepair and w onde rwhat ghosts still lurk in its corne rs.The original Comandu Mission at SanJos e was built in 1708 by Padre JulianMallorga who also built schools, a hospitaland introdu ced citrus, grapes and sugarcane. Several churches w ere built anddestroyed. In 1737 Padre Wagner built thechurch w hich was probab ly the one razedby the Mexican general. The only originalparts of San Jose's ch urches are a smallchapel, an alabaster pedestal, som epaintings and bells.On the treacherous road to El Horno,you will find an o ld lime kiln w hich isprobably the one used in the constructionof the original mission.Perhaps the people of Comandu havenot been strongly tied to the originalstructural design in the rebuilding of theirchurc h, but at least they were faithful to thespirit of the pio nee r m issionaries. They area peo ple pro ud of their church and itsplace in history.

The RUINS ofla PURISIMAThe d rive thr ou gh La Purisima Valleybrings you to the ruins of La Purisima. Thevillage of La Purisima C once pcion can givea feeling of sadness and d espair. Withfertile land and plenty of water, it shouldbe at least as well off as Com andu but thepeo ple seem to have given up.However, La Purisima Concepcion is not


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=#$


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Loreto (oppositepage) isthe "Mother" ofCalifornia missions.Ruins (below) are LaPurisma, (lower right)Londo, and (right)Rosario Baja.

without historical significance. PadrePiccolo selected this spot for a mission andcalled it La Purisima C once pcion de M ariaCadgomo after a nearby ranch. LocalIndians begged him to stay and herequ ested a missionary for this area. But itwould be 1717 before on e would arrive. Inthe meantime the Indians had to contentthemselves with Piccolo's frequent visits.In March of 1717 young Padre NicolasTamaral arrived in Loreto with a letterrequesting Salvatierra's presenc e inMexico City. The journey proved toostrenuou s for the old priest and he diedwhen he reached Guadalajara. But FatherTamaral did not sit idle. He ope ned trailsfrom Com andu and Mulege to Purisima. InPurisima he planted grain and citrus andbegan b uilding a church . At one point hiscongregation num bere d over 2,000. Allthat remains is a profusion of palm trees,som e adobe walls, an above groun dsarcophagi and a desp ond ent village.

SAN IGNA CIOde KAADEKAMENTired, dusty travellers may sometimesdiscover th ere is no water at the ElPresidente, but the managem ent willassure you that all will be w et as soo n asthe pump s are runn ing. Pretty soon the rewill be a trickle of cold water and the w iser

ones will grab a shower. You'll be toldthere will be hot water in a couple of hou rsbut the pumps may burn out and onceagain, there will be n o water.A dip in the p ool, m argaritas, and a

delicious lunch , however, will revive spiritsand help you find the energy andenthusiasm to attend Father Charlie's Massat one of Baja's most beautiful missions,San Ignacio de Kaadekamen.The O asis of San Ignacio is situated nearthe arro yo Carrizal in the Sierra de SanVicente. Padre Juan Loyando found ed themission in 1728 and the present churchwas built later by Padre Consag. It isremarkably well-preserved and the interiorpossesses three gilded retablosfrom Spain.In the early 1700's Padre Piccoloreceived petitions from the Indians ofKadda-Kaamen for a missionary. He sentPadre Loyando and by 1728, Easter serviceswere celebrated in the new church. Cropswere planted and sh eep and cattle wereintroduced. But four hard years of laborbroke Loyando's health and he was forcedto retire. Padres Sestiaga, Taravel andConsag.

The MISSION ofSANBORJA "Twenty-two miles of tortuous dirt roadwill take you to San Francisco de BorjaAdac, throu gh the Boojum tree forest. Adistant relative of the ocotillo, also know nas cirio, this is the only place in the w orldto which this plant is native.In 1759 an Austrian, Padre WenceslaoLinck, founded the San Borja Mission. Inhis time he converted over 1,500 Indiansand built a mission house and a hospital.Linck named the church after Maria Borja,

Duchess of Gandia, who had bequeathed alarge sum of money to found threemissions on the Baja pen insula. T he figs,olives, grapes, and dates of today wereoriginally introd uced by Padre Linck.After the Jesuit exp ulsion , Fray F erminFrancisco Lasuen took over this wealth)'mission. On June 12,1773 it was conveyedto the Dominicans, Padres Manuel Garciaand Jos e Aibar. Today five families live inthe immed iate mission area and theirnames date back to the Spanish con questof Baja.The exterior of the church is in goodcondition but some of the rooms havebeen burned out from campfires, andcattle are herde d through the church yard.Mass is said from time to time in the ch apelby priests passing throu gh the area.A FINAL STOPThe churches of Rosario Arriba andRosario Abajo we re foun ded in 1774 by theDom inicans. All that rema ins is an ad ob earch and a corner niche. The original bells,dated 1738 and 1706, have been transferredto the new chapel's bell tower.Baja is a step back in time. Customs havenot changed. On still evenings you canhear the tinkle of goat bells in themountains. Mules or burros still turn thewheel which grinds the juice from thesugar cane. The stars shine down on you

with the same intensity as they did uponthe padres. Standing alone in the emptymission, you feel that 300 years haveaccom plished little and that is goo d. It is ElOtro Mexico. You go home refreshed.^]


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THE LOSTTREASURE OFTUMACACORIby Choral Pepper

One of the more persistent legendsto attract fortune seekers hasbeen the tale of the TumacacoriMission treasure in southeastern Arizona.The most commonly accepted version ofthe story places a vast treasure within thewalls of a Tumacacori mission, the treasurebeing aba ndoned by the Jesuitmissionaries wh en a Spanish king thoughtthey were garnering riches for themselvesand expelled the order from New Spain.To reinforce the legend, ther e were twoTumacacori missions, and possibly a thirdthat truly is lost. One is now a nationalmonument, San Jose de Tumacacori, withpockmarked grounds bearing mutewitness to constant attack by treasureseekers. The other is less well known,Tumacacori de San Cayetano, a structurewhich has deteriorated into a few barelynoticeable hump s of adobe. The third is solost that it bears no special identification.There have been at least as many pe oplesearching for the lost treasure of theTumacacori Mission as there have beenprospectors futilely chasing a rainbow tothe elusive Lost Dutchman Mine inArizona's S uperstition Mountains. Yetrecently discovered evidence indicates thatthe trea sure of the Tumacacori Mission maybe "mission impossible." While the lostmission remains lost, evidence of treasureactually exists. A cache with a repo rtedvalue of mo re than $45 million is hidde n inthe shafts of a series of separate old minesin the Tumacacori Mountains. Even moreexciting, the new evidence indicates thatthe discovery of any one of of the oldmines will set off a chain reaction byproviding a waybill to each of the others,for they are linked together in the words ofan old Spanish do cumen t, called aderrotero.

I m / he evidence first came to light in/ the sprin g of 1889 with the arrival_/ . in Tucson of a pries t from Spain.He rode into town on horseback andimmediately asked for directions to thecourt house.When he was intr oduc ed to Judge BillBarnes there, he explained in English thathis superiors in a monastery in Spain hadsent him to Tucson to retrieve a chest that"contained some old church records."These records had been buriedsome whe re in the Tumacacori M ountainsduring an Indian insurrection that tookplace when the Spanish were settling thispart of the New World.The stranger carried with him adocument titled the Derrotero deTumacacori that described where thechest was buried. Being unfamiliar with the

country, the priest was unable to locate thelandmarks described in the document.Could Judge Barnes recom mend some onewho was familiar with the area and whowould be willing to act as a guide?Judge Barnes smelled treasure. Thelegend of the Tumacacori Mission treasurehad been floating around Arizona for along time. The Judge hastened to assurethe good man of the cloth that he didindeed know of such a person. Himself.The stories of the relationship betweenthe opportunistic judge, his friends, andthe mysterious priest, vary. The one told byJudge Barnes until the day he diedcontends that in spite of their betterjudgement, he and some unidentifiedrancher friends accompanied the priestinto the Tumacacori range. Legend alwayshad placed the Tumacacori treasure in theCoronado range east of the Santa Cruz


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River, near the ruins of the TumacacoriMission. The Arizonians were perplexedwhen the priest insisted upon focusing hissearch west of the river, into the unfriendlyTumacacori mountain range.Consequently, they were not surprisedthat he recovered nothing more valuablethan the old chest of papers that hepurportedly sought. Before disbanding, theranchers concluded that the priest did,indeed, appear to be solely interested inold church records. They'immediately lostinterest.All, that is, except the canny judge. Hehad glanced at the derrotero earlier in hisoffice. Although the language of thedocument was an archaic Spanish that he

Tumacacori mission history as it had beenlegitimately recorded.For example, the translations began bystating that between the years 1548 and1648 a mine called the Virgin of Gu adalu pebelonged to the Tumacacori. Curiously,however, the earliest known Tumacacorimission, Tumacacori de San Cayetano, wasnot established until 1698, while th epresen t San Jose d e Tumacacori, now anational monument, was not completeduntil the early 1800s.Furtherm ore, Padre Eusebio K ino, theJesuit priest credited with founding thefirst mission in Arizona, did not even arrivethere until a half-century after theTumacacori treasure had been concealed,

could not translate, he had a hunch thatthere was m ore to it than directions to asingle chest.Before departing Tucson, the priestshuffled through the records in the chest tosatisfy himself that they fulfilled hisassigned mission. He then presented thederrotero to the judge as a souvenier. Henever was heard of again.Such was not the case of the derrotero.T T 7 "7 " i th in a few days the Judge found\ \ / three educated Mexicans of pureW Spanish ancestry who agreed toattempt translation of the archaic Spanishdocument. Working separately, each cameup with a different vers ion. The only thingsthe translations had in common was thatthey contained instructions for finding aseries of vast treasures, and each onequoted dates incompatible with

according to the dates of the derrotero.It is not strange that Judge Barnes'translators identified the Tumacacoritreasure described in the derrotero withthe Tumacacori mission, however. Byinserting the word "mission" after theword "Tumacacori" they simply werelending credibility to their translations.After all, everyone in Tucson was familiarwith Tumacacori mission ruins rottingaway on the outskirts of the city. Publishedhistorical data that might have alerted themto the incongruity of the dates was notcommonly available in those days.In spite of this obvious inconsistency,treasure hunters today are still conductingexpeditions into the rugged terrain east ofthe Santa Cruz. In 1974, for example, asyndicate led by two major shareholdersfrom Idaho launched a sophisticatedtreasure hunt almost within sight of the

present Tumacacori Mission, accompaniedby a documentary television crew and themanufacturer of a leading electronic metaldetector. More than $10,000 was spent intriple-triangulated aerial surveys, heliumballoons and sophisticated electronicgadgets for detecting metal both from theair and on the ground.This search, as so many be fore it, wasinspired by a copy of one of the derroterosderived from Judge Barnes' translations.Such copies are not hard to come by. Eachof the three original translators madecopies for himself which his heirsre-copied and passed on to their heirs. Anumber of them have been published overthe years, and no two are exactly alike.Members of the 1974 syndicate are stillsilent about the details of their adventure,but it is known that they found no treasure.And no won der. Like so many before them,they searched in the wrong place!"W" t was a California school teacherI named Michael Ford who produced

JL the clue that convinced me that theTumacacori treasure, and the derrotero thatleads to it, is not a fraud.Ford had taken a sabbatical to researchearly Spanish mission records in Arizona.During advance work in California, he hadrun across a copy of a translation of theDerrotero de Tumacacori that someonehad left between the pages of an historicalbook long out of print. Judging from itsprecise script and faded ink, Ford guessedit to be relatively old.Upon studying it, he was disappointed tofind that although its title contained theword "Tumacacori," it had nothing to dowith the old mission. Nevertheless, heshoved the loose pages into his briefcaseand later put them in his file at home.There they remaine d, forgotten, until hehappe ned to read a story in DesertMagazine about the fabled TumacacoriMission treasure. Since his route form LosAngeles to Tucson passed through PalmDesert, he decided to stop by my office toset m e straight. At that time, I was editor ofthe magazine.As a serious historian, h e scoffed at thenotion that Jesuits had left any missiontreasure at Tumacacori. To emphasize his

point, he produced the translated versionof the derrotero that he had found andexplained that the discrepanq' between itsdates and the actual date that the Jesuitsfounded the first mission in Arizona madethe treasure legend impossible.Although his theory made sense, Iargued that the word "Tumacacori"originated with the Indians, rather thanwith the Spanish missionaries. Long beforethe Spanish had arrived in Arizona, it hadbeen the name of both an Indian villageand a mountain range. The Spanish hadadopted it for the mission because Indiansfrom the Tumacacori village attended themission.

I also was aware of the Judge Barnes'account of how the derrotero wa sintroduced to Tucson, and that a number of


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of ii bad been published,These facts, previously unknown toFord, piqued his interest. He promised tolook up the other versions of the derroterowhen he arrived in Tucson, and see howthey compared with his own.Hardly a week had passed before I heardfrom him. The primary difference betweenhis version and the others was that theyreferred to Tumacacori as a mission and hisreferred to it as a mine. This struck him asimportant. Theoretically, it provided anexplanation for the inconsistency in dates.The mines were there before the missions.Treasure hunters of the past had madetheir mistakes by attempting to followdirections stated in the derroteros, usingone of the two known Jesuit Tumacacorimissions as a starting point. This obviouslyhad been the wrong approach. Themissions, named for the TumacacoriIndians lay in the Coronado range. Thetreasure lies in the Tumacacori range.The more Ford labored over theconfusing document, the more convincedhe became that it was a preliminary*word-by-word translation, made before itsamateur translator had begun to embellishthe document with interpretations of hisown. If that were true, it could be moreaccurate than the others.Meanwhile, I started some research ofmy own. This produced evidence thatSpanish conquistadores were in Arizona asearly as 1590, a date that fell well within thederrotero's account of mines workedbetween 1548 and 1648. Moreover, whilethose early Spanish colonizers wereexploiting the wealth of the land withIndian slave labor, they were supporting a

small number of friars of the Franciscanorder to administer to their religiousneeds.The most exciting revelation arose whenI came across a partially translated memoirof a Spanish soldier named RamonMartinez that appeared in an old historicaljournal.Here is the story:Having started north with D. Juan deOrnate's army of 800 men in 1596,Martinez became entranced one night withan old soldier's campfire story. The veteranwarrior claimed to have guarded a supply

train that was taken up the west coast ofMexico some years earlier to a rich mineworked illegally by a company ofSpaniards. A born opportunist , Martinezquickly realized that any plunder he mightcome upon with Ornate's army would haveto be divided some 800 times. It would bemore rewarding, he figured, to persuadeseveral comrades to steal away from thearmy and join him at a rendezvous theyhad passed earlier on their trail. They thencould work their way westward into whatnow is Arizona, overcome the mineowners described by the old soldier, andclaim their riches for themselves.After much hardship at the hands ofIndians, only Martinez lived to reach thegreen valley fringed by foothills that theold soldier had described. By this time,

however, he had shed his dreams ofplunder. All he desired now was to bewelcomed as a friend.In his journal he described attending hisfirst mass at Tumacacori de Cerritas, achurch near the mine. There he wasabsolved of his sins and assured by thepriest that his miraculous survivalindicated that it was God's will that he bespared.This is the earliest mention of a churchlocated at, and named for, the Tumacacorimountain range. Its priest would havebeen a Franciscan, not a Jesuit, and thechurch was a chapel rather than a mission.This convinced me that Ford was right, thatthe Tumacacori in the derrotero was a minelocated in the Tumacacori Mountains andthat the Franciscan chapel adjacent to themine gave birth to the legend of theTumacacori treasure that was passed on byIndian slaves. The Spanish traditionallyinstilled fear in their slaves of everbetraying the storage places of "God'sgold."

W 7 ord's derrotero describes sixr~4 mines, giving the distances inJ. Spanish varas and leagues of onefrom the other. It also gives geologicaldescriptions which are clues. For example,the silver of a mine called the Opeta isdescribed as being in a lime contact whicheventually cuts into pure silver.This could be an area in the TumacacoriMountains about fifteen miles west ofNogales where the caliche is a lime contactthat hosts silver. It is shown on modernmaps as an extension of the PajaritoMountains of the Atasa range. Here, in a

caliche outcrop in a pass between thePajaritos and El Ruido is a likely place tostart looking for the Opeta Mine describedin the derrotero.Once that one is found, or any of theothers for that matter, the derrotero givesdirections from each mine to the others.They will not be found easily, however.There are no roads, only blind trails thatwind through a confused mass of rockycrags, peaks and flat-topped bluffs withvertical sides and steep dykes. Gold andsilver veins are numerous, with placer goldcollected in canyons, but it is hard to find it

under the tangled covering of oak, juniperand manzanita.One league north of the Opeta,according to the derrotero, is theTumacacori mine. In it likes a key to all ofthe others, for this mine, marked by theletters "PSR; and dated the 8th day ofFebruary, 1548, contains a covered box. Inone corner of the box is a screw. You takeout the screw and there is an iron bar. Pullout the bar and open the box. In it are allthe maps of the great treasures ofTumacacori!Each a league-and-a-half in opposite

directions form the Opeta, lie two minescalled the Virgin of Guadalupe and thePure Conception. Guadalupe holds 2,050bars of stamped silver and others of gold,amounting to a value of $45,000,000 at the

time the rferrnrprn WAS> innstated inThe Conception is host to from three tofive cartloads of virgin silver in slabs.More slabs of silver are stored in the SanPedro mine located one league from theGuadalupe mine.The sixth mine, San Isabel, lies oneleague from the San Pedro, but thederrotero neglects to give an inventory asto what is stashed in it.Some of these mines doubtlessly havebeen found, but the great treasures in theGuadalupe and Tumacacori remainunclaimed. That is, unless the churchrecords gathered by the priest from Spainwere the treasure maps of the Tumacacori.

TT" n 1874 an engineer named Hiramm C. Hodge came out to Arizonaj Territory to make a study ofTucson's early mining and mission history.In writing of a mine 75 miles southwest ofTucson, he described another one six milessouth of it that he simply called "OldMine." He believed it to have been workedlong before Jesuit fathers arrived.A few miles south of it were the historicPlachas de Plata mines of Sonora, Mexico,with their solid planks of pure silver. Andonward into the Oro Blanco range thatwinds across the high mesa to thesouthwest of Arivaca on the Arizona side ofthe border, Hodge described the oldAusterlitz mine. It was here in 1870 thatminers found indications of much earlierwork, including drill holes of an archaictype four inches square along withprimitive tools, human skeletons, and tworawhide bags filled with silver ore thatassayed to $4,000 per ton. These are all in

the area of the Tumacacori range.It is believed that even if the priest didretrieve the treasure maps, an expeditionfrom Spain carrying enough equipment toexploit the area would not have passedunnoticed. If not all, at least some of theTumacacori treasure must still await afinder astute enough to disassociate thelegend from the mission. 0

ARIZONAMEXFCO

ATTAINT 1QRn


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NEW PRODUCTS

T H E F I S C H E R S U N C O O K E RAs Am ericans increasingly take a mo reserious look at solar alternatives to pro videour energy needs, the well-designedFischer Sun Cooker wins m ention in thisfirst of what will be a continuing series onmeritorious new products of interest anduse to Desert readers.Solar cooking is both new and old.Undoubtedly more than one cavepersoninadvertently left a dinosaur egg or two outin the sun on a summer day and returnedto find it baked . And Baja buffs com mo nlyfry chicken eggs on the hoods of their

Jeeps. However, these accidents andexpedients never seriously threatenedRonald Reagan's former job withGeneral Electric.What 's new ab out the Fischer SunCook er invented, manufactured,packaged and s hippe d by Guy Fischer fromhis garage in Red woo d City, California isthat it's the first, as far as we k now , tocombine a parabolic concentrator and aself-contained oven.The $77 (at this writing), 17-poundcooke r consists of a four s quare footparabolic collector an d a 440 cubic inch(same disp lacement as Chrysler's biggestengin e) oven with a transpa rent plasticbottom to allow the reflected rays to enter.The whole cooker folds flat with its fourwo ode n legs for storage and carrying.On a 70 degr ee day, the cooker isclaimed to be as efficient as a conven tionalgas range. Tem peratu re of from 100 to 500degree s inside the oven can be regulatedby focusing the s un's rays slightly offcenter. Don't , how ever, expect automaticcontrol. You'll nee d a therm om eter toeither hang in the oven or to stick inthe food.The comm only available absorption or"heat storage" ovens can reach 250degrees easily and up to 400 degreesun der ideal conditions but it usuallytakes about an hou r to reach cookingtemperature and every t ime you open thistype of oven to worry or stir or add orremo ve the food, you lose much of theheat you've stored.Reflective ovens, also available fromother sources, reach cooking temperaturesquite quickly and you can fiddle with thefood as much as you want without losingsignificant heat. The Fischer Cookercombines both the heat storage andreflective prin ciples for peak efficiency.Solar cooking of any kind obviously willchange the nation's eating habits if it

beco mes com mon , as it well couldif the three-martini lunch types at theDepartm ent of Energy in Washington everhear about it and make it mandatory. You'llhave to eat all your hot meals during theday and do without w hen it 's cloudy.But it has its advantages. There's no firehazard even in a dry forest, there's nosmoke from fuel which, incidentally, isfree, and you don't have to cut wood, lugcharcoal o r argu e with your local utility.We think it's neat that Fischer Cook ers

are built by hand, the w ood en p arts by arehab ilitation o rganiza tion at the Palo Alto(Calif.) Veterans Administration hosp ital.Mr. and Mrs. Fischer assemble andpaint the unit which takes them aboutfour hours.Although the Fischers tried som eexperimenting with do-it-yourself kits,assem bled units are all that are available atthe present time. Future plans, however,include selling plans and just those pa rtsthat don't lend themselves to homemanufacture.The Fischer Cooker may be ordereddirectly from Guy Fischer, 302 C enter St.,Red woo d City, CA 94061. Please tell himyou read about it in Desert Magazine. Goo dcooking, but don 't blame us if the roastburns or the potatoes explo de your f irsttime out. It's pot luck!

Attention M anufacturers a ndM a r k e t er s : Desert Magazine will be gladto evaluate your produ ct for inclusionin this column. Th e only rules are that itbe new, commercially available and ofspecific interest to o ur readers. Fordetails, write New Products Editor,Desert Magazine, P.O. Box 1318,Palm Des ert, CA 92261. No phonecalls, pleas e. fj\

DESERT 15


16/56Red Rattlesnake

16 AUGUST, 1980


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SORTINGRATTLESNAKEFACT FROMRATTLESNAKE

a nc* Photographsby KAR EN SAC ISM ANIt's early m orning and you've b een ou t for ahike. Tem peratures are starting to warm asyou climb thro ugh the rocks to get a closerlook at a crimson flower on a beavertailcactus. Just a few m ore feet and you'll b ethere , ready to photograp h. Suddenly th em orn ing qu iet is fractured by the alarming,unm istakable so und of the vibrating tail of arattlesnake. A second of initial pan ic b ut youco ntrol it, freeze, and look slowly aro undThere are overrying to discover th e location of the angryserpen t. There he lays, coiled, about fourfeet away and just to your right. He looks tobe about three feet long and is brick-redcolor with white diam ond patterns a redrattlesnake, Crotalus ruber. But what to donext? The snak e app ears to be staring atyou, his tongu e quickly flicking in and out,head raised abou t eight inches above thecoils of his body. The rattling, vibrating tailbegins to slow since you are lessthreatening no w that you've stoppedmoving, but what now? Will he attack?What's that men acing tong ue doing? And ifhe attacks, will you survive?The pers on in this story was me. Whatdid I do? I turn ed slowly and movedanother step closer to the snake , an actionwhich set h is tail vibrating again b utenabled me to get a better photograp h, ofhim now an d no t the flower. I did no t feelany particula r co nce rn for my safety and if Itell you why, you may be able to b etterevaluate your encounters with rattlesnakes.

eighteen species and subsp ecies ofrattlesnakes in the southwestern desertsand in addition to them, there are othervenom ous reptiles such as coral snakesand two species of venom ous lizards, gilamo nsters and bead ed lizards. But it is therattlesnake that desert travelers seem tofear the m ost. And with good reason , sincea large rattlesnake can inflict a seriou s an doccasionally, even deadly bite.

Fear, in turn, breeds stories and legends,but just what is fact an d w hat is fiction? Let'sseparate these by looking at some co mm onmyths about rattlesnakes:

One of the mostoften heard comments is that the forked,quick-moving tong ue of a snake will stingyou or somehow poison you. This is nottrue. The snake's to ngu e is a highlysensitive organ and is used to gather

molecules o ut of the air and carry them toa special sensory cell in the roof of thesnake's mouth called the Jacobson's organ.This organ allows the snake to obtain a"taste-smell" of whatever other creaturesmay be near it and so the sna ke, which hasrelatively poor eyesight, can morecompletely identify any animals includingman which may come into hisenvironment. Therefore, the rapid actionof a ton gue flicking in and ou t of the m outhof an upse t snak e is simply the sn ake'sattempt to ascertain just what kind ofcreature it is out there.Commonly wehear peop le who feel you should never getanywhere near a rattlesnake because theyare very fast and can move w ith lightningspeed towards a person, and strike fromgreat distances. First, any species of snakeand p articularly the relatively heavy-bodied, sluggish rattlesnakes moves muchmore slowly even at top speed than aperson can run or even trot. Secondly, asnake can only strike from one-half toone-third of its total body length.Therefore, unless it is striking downhillwhe re the mo men tum of its action m ightcarry it forward, a three-foot snake cannotusually reach out much further than a footand a half away. To be safe you sho uld staya full body-length away, or three feet, froma three-foot long rattlesnake, or to bedoubly safe, stay twice as many feet away asthe snake is long.

Another myth isthat rattlesnakes are aggressive and willattack in an attempt to kill or eat you.Snakes like most wild creatures are not


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. - \ \ :

Western Pacific Rattlesnake Speckled Rattlesnake


19/56

naturally aggressive to man and are willingto retreat if given a chance. If you force asnake into a position from which it cannotwithdraw, it m ay well defend itself.Occasionally snakes have been known tomove towards a person but actually, theyare headed for a rock crevice or burr owwhere they feel they would be secure. Andcertainly, rattlesnakes are no t interested inattacking human beings for food. Snakes(all snakes) swallow their prey w hole andso there is no reason for a rattlesnake towaste its time or energy attacking a humanbeing for food when it could notconceivably consum e som ething as largeas a person . But how do es the snake know?Again, its tongu e is the key. The tong ue,and a heat-receptive pad und erneath eacheye of all members of the rattlesnakefam ily, help the snake discern what theanimal is and how large it is so when theyare hunting for food, they only attempt totake animals which are small enough forthem to consum e. It 's the same pro cess, infact, that kee ps the giant pythons of Africafrom attempting to consu me an elephant.

Frequently onehears of "old-timers" who camp out in thedesert and are not worried aboutrattlesnakes because they surrou ndthemselves with a horsehair lariat or evenoccasionally with some branches of cholla,believing themselves to be safe from thepotential visits of the neighboringrattlesnakes because the snakes would notwant to crawl over the rope or through thecholla. While the cholla may be a milddeterrent to a rattlesnake, the lariat wouldbe no de terre nt at all since the heavy thickscales on all snakes' bodies are imperviousto the rough prickly edges of the rope.

S t i l l anotherfallacy often repeated about rattlesnakes isthat there is one rattle on their tails foreach year of age. This is sim ply n ot a fact. Arattlesnake acquires a new rattle every timehe sh eds h is skin. A young , healthy andgrowing snake may shed two or threetimes a year and thus acquires up to th reerattles within a year. At the same time, th erattles are occasionally knocked or brokenoff as the snak e crawls throug h rocks andbushes. There is no way to correllate theage of the snake with the number of rattleson the end of its tail.M y purpose hasbeen to quell or at least ease some of yourfear of rattlesnakes. Still, they arevenomous , potentially dangerous animalsand must be treated with respect. Thereare many species o f non-poisonous nativesnakes, however, which are highlybeneficial and should be allowed to coexistpeacefully around homes and gardenssince they eat and therefore controlrodents which can quickly beco me pests.But how can you identify the rattlesnake

from the harm less species that live in oursouthwestern deserts?One might think the simplest way wouldbe to look for the rattle. If the snake has arattle, it's a rattlesnake and thereforedangero us. However, it is possible that therattles may have bee n lost and so yo ushould not base your identification solelyo n whether or not the snake has rattles.There are several other physicalcharacteristics that help to identifyrattlesnakes. One is that those native to thesouthwest are generally heavy-bodiedsnakes. They often have a sharp ridgecalled a "k ee l ' running down the center ofeach scale which gives the snak e a veryrough, scaly appearance.

An imm ediate identification is the sizerelationship between the back of the headand th e neck. The head of a rattlesnake is(LEFT) MOSTNON-VENOMOUS $% kSOUTHWESTERN a\ ] \SNAKES W\%(RIGHT) I O T IRATTLESNAKE yXtifrBR OA D H EA D, | PNARROW NECK II ivery broad near the back of the jawsbecause the venom g lands are locatedthere. The broad head is attached directlyto a very thin neck as is show n in theaccompanying illustration. The heads ofnon-poison ous snakes in the southwest areabout the same circumference astheir necks.Differences noted so far betweenrattlesnakes and no n-poisonous speciesare only valid when comparing snakesnative to the southwestern deserts of theUnited States. As one travels into Centraland South America and even Mexico, thereare many sp ecies of snakes with veryslender bodies and with shiny scales.

It is relativelyeasy for the hiker to avoid en coun ters w ithrattlesnakes. First of all, confine yourwalking to open areas wh ere visibility isgood. The best defense against a snake isseeing it before it senses you. Don't climbthrough rocks and boulders w here youcannot see where you will be putting yourhands and feet, especially during the earlymorn ing and late afternoon in the warmmonths of the year when snakes are moreactive. Save your rock climb ing for th ewinter months when all species of snakesand other reptiles are deep undergroundin hibernation. Don't put your hands orfingers under rocks or boards to turn themover or pick them up, as snakes habituallyseek this type of shelter.

Use rakes and long-handled shovels toclean up brush and again, don't pick up thebrush with your hands because it is usuallyin such bru sh that snakes will retreat toescape the heat of the sum me r day. If youdo hear a rattlesnake, stand very still untilvou know the exact location of the snake. If

you are wed out of striking r


20/56

The Artistand the Man

W I L L I A M H E N R YJ ACKSONby Marian Clover

The year was 1866 and all traffic moving west moved in coveredwagons and every ox was a bull."In all the language there is no word that so exactly expresses ame aning," said William Henry Jackson, bullwhacker.The job was sixteen hours, seven days, beginning with a predawnholler when 330 ornery oxen were loosed inside the circle of wagonsand each bullwhacker hun ted dow n his team of twelve. Jackson wr otehome:"Some other steer, having a grudge against the one you are gentlyurging up to the wagon wheel to fasten, gives him a punch in the ribswith his horns and sends him kiting into the herd again. You hang onmanfully and are snaked around right smart, and you have to jump onsome of their backs to escape being squeezed to a jelly."When they started, bullwhacker and bulls were equal. Jackson hadnever held a wooden bow in his hands and his bulls had never beenyoked. It took the greenhorn eight hours to line up his team. After a fewweeks he had it down to 35 minutes.His only ease was a few minutes sketching around the campfire atnight. He could never remember a time he didn't draw. Back in NewYork he'd painted lush green landscapes with gentled hills. Here on thetrail he d rew the w ild-eyed bulls, wagon s with their faded canvas, and theflatland that stretched ahead interminably.W hen the sand stuck in his teeth and t he dust got thick enou gh to ch ewhe looked at the rusty wagon wheels and buffalo shoulder blades withhasty scrawled epitaphs aside the trail. He reminded himself he waslucky to be alive.Though cholera didn't hit Jackson's wagon train, scurvy did. His gums

Photographs of Artwork Courtesy TH E HARO LD WARP PIO NEER VILLAGE ofMinden, Nebraska.20 AUGUST, 1980


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W. H.JA CK SO N AT SALT LAKE - 1866D E S E R T ' * 2 1


22/56

Jackson traveled with the Hayden GeologicalSurvey, each sum mer sketching and photographingland north and south of the Overland Trail.

PON Y RIDER IN BLEAK WINTER STORMsoftened, his ch apped lips bled. The wagontrain carried no medicine, but he got aholdof some horses' oats and boiled the stufffor flapjacks.His mouth cured, he thought he mightlive.There was plenty of time to look aroundon the trail. After a stint in the Civil War asstaff artist for the Union, drawing land-scapes, fortifications and maps, his eye wastrained for western scenes of vast distance.When his fiancee dissolved their en-gagement, the only thing left was to cut allties and go west. Where else? West waswhere the gold and adventure waited. Heanswered an ad:

10 0 TEAMSTERS WANTED. PAY20 DOLLARS A MONTH AND FOUND"Found" was a flop on top of a packingbox in the wagon and gru b of bread, b acon

and coffee. Charged against the pay was apair of blankets, carpetbag, a Colt .44 and awhite rubber coat.The grimy bullwhacker who egged histeam on for fourteen miles every day be-came tough as a bullet. The pale, politeartist in a stovepipe hat with soft hands wasreplaced by a teamster who learned togoad, push and cuss his animals whiledodging the backlash from the other whipsin the train of 25 wagons.In cloudbursts Jackson learned a wetman can get wetter. And when the re was nowater for 28 miles they drove the bulls all

night long, knowing oxen wou ld stam pedea mile for water,dragg ing a wagon behin dthem.In mid-October they closed in on SaltLake City. It was winter, and after two days22 AUGUST, 1980

of freezing rain and snow, the haul throughSilver Creek Canyon became Jackson'sworst ordeal.The mud was frozen u nde r two inches ofsnow, and hoofs and heels and wheelsturned it to mush up to the hubs. When awagon bogged down, they were forced toyoke 24, som etimes 36 bulls.Dr iv ing snow s tung Jackson ' s f ace ,coated his eyelashes, and turned the teamsinto snorting white phantoms. His bootshad been used up and by noon his mocca-sins were cut to shreds on the crusty snow.When they finally made camp it wasn'tthe end of it the m en drov e the bullsthree miles to the bottom of a hill for shel-ter. When Jackson finally legged it back tocamp he had no sensation in his bare feet.No pain.The fire was out. He gulped cold coffee,s w a l l o w e d s o m e g r e a s y b a c o n , a n dcrawled under his blanket.The lack of fire saved his feet. If he hadbeen able to thaw the frostbite, he wouldhave lost them. Next morn ing his feet w ereso swollen he couldn't move.A few days later he h ob ble d into SaltLake City, healed enough to enjoy the freshpeaches and white houses that greetedthem. The journey that toughened him re-duced his one suit of clothes to rags. Histrousers were so thin he wore two pair "toavoid arrest for indecen t e xposu re." The 'heels on his boots were worn off, "and myhat was recognizable as a head coveringonly when I had it on."He found work with some Mormons andpaid for his keep by sketching the family.He wa lked a round "Br igham's Wal l , "w h e r e s e n t r i e s g u a r d e d t h e Mo r mo n

"White House," the Tithing Office, theprinting house which published DeseretNews, and the government offices, schoolsand workshops.Jackson bathed at Hot Sulpher Springsand visited the Tabernacle and Temple,both far from finished.Once he was rested up, the land of per-petual summer beckoned and there wasnothing for it but to head for California.West of the m ountains, wagons w ere em ptyand pulled by compliant mules, animalsthat were quite docile compared to bulls.Jackson got a job with a tra il-gangheaded through the desert. The trail was sovisible he got up early, walked ahead of thewagon-train, sketched till mid-afternoon,and then caught up with the crew. By thetime he arrived in Los Angeles he had asizeable portfolio of the trip through Utah,Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.The train made one stop in central Utahto celebrate New Year's Eve at a "bulldance " without a musical instrument and a few weeks later Jackson crossed anarrow log footbridge into Los Angeles.The town of 5,000 people had orangeand lime trees lining the streets. The vil-lage was Spanish in style but Yankee-sharpin trade.He sold his rifle at a 40 percent loss.Jackson took lodgings at a stage station,where his talent served him again as staffartist. Each visitor from the north broughtdiscouraging reports of mining, and his

gold fever petered out. The orderly greenof the east became more tempting.The way back meant a job driving bron-cos and mustangs descended from fierySpanish stock.


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At age 95Jackson painted forty watercolorsand four oil murals for the Departmentof Interior in Washington, D.C.

"BIG MEDICINE ROAD" THROUGH INDIAN COUNTRY"Half the herd of 200 had never beenbroken and the rest could be counted onto shy, buck o r get into a frenzy."Sullen bulls seem ed placid now. A mancould make a 300 percent profit, if he sur-vived. Jackson only wanted transportationin the right direction, and he convinced thetrailboss he could snag broncs, lasso, and

brand with the best of them.Hired on, he found himself followingthe same route he'd taken west. It was aneventful trip with little time for sketching.Once the boys managed to lose all thestock. Stampedes were frequent. Horseshad to b e thrown and shod, daily. One dayJackson pulled a driver's aching molar witha rusty bullet mold for his forceps.Wagons they met along the trail shiedfrom joining 200 horses, six men and onewoman. Keeping the mounts together washard. They were plagued by clouds ofmosquitoes, sometimes covering the ani-mals so completely their color couldn'tbe seen.When they picked up two new men, thestock ran off and one of the new handsfound them. Jackson suspected they'dtaken on two rustlers, but as he'd learnedgoing out on the trail, unfriendly countrywas no place to be shorthanded.At the Continental Divide they passedtwo stage stations burnt to the ground.Grave mounds increased. All wagon trainswere placed unde r m ilitary protection.But if tempers were short and the ho rseshotheaded, Jackson's outfit was safe fromIndians. He thought it was because theydidn't look like surveyors the dread ofWestern tribes.One day they were stopped by a buffalo

migration and he had time to sketch thehalf million he estimated were thunderingpast. The staple of the Indians was becom-ing imp ortant to the white m an. Buffalo BillCody worked for eighteen months supply-ing railroad construction crews with ten,twelve buffalo a day.All along the route Jackson saw scaven-gers roaming the land, picking up buffalobones to sell for fertilizer and buttons.Trail's end came at Omaha, after anovernight rail trip with men and animalsjammed into boxcars. Jackson was paid off.After weeks of aching muscles, freezing thesweat on his back, getting kicked, jabbed,yanked and driven as hard as the ho rses, hehad earned enough money to buy a newsuit and a shave.Though Jackson spent his summersroaming the west, he was through withbulls. The only horses he would handlewould be the ones he rode. He lined up ajob as a photographic retoucher at $25 perweek exactly what he'd earned back eastbefore his year of hard labor on the trail.He established a portrait business of hisown, leaving his studio to pho tograph andsketch the great Indian chiefs. He traveledwith the Hayden Geological Survey, eachsummer sketching and photographing landnorth and south of the Overland Trail,often recrossing familiar paths.At first his stud io was a horse and buggyoutfitted with a sink, water key, tripod, andenough glass for 400 p lates. Later his dark-room became more portable when heloaded his gear on his pack mu le, Hypo.Jackson's photographs cinched govern-ment support of the surveys and convinceda skeptical Congress to establish Yel-

lowstone as a national park.Jackson never stopped sketching. Therewere details no camera could catch,perspectives no film could interpret,shades of color no black and white printscould convey.He was delighted with color film whenhe first tried it in 1939."If I were beginning over I'd do every-thing in color," he said.At age 95 he painted forty watercolorsand four oil murals for the Department ofInterior in Washington, DC. Today hisworks hang in industrial suites andmuseums. He lived to be 99, painting to theend long enough to congratulate theBoy Scout at the end of the line on the 75thAnniversary of the first Pony Express Ride.He had sketched the original riders andtheir mounts!Th e re ' s a s to ry i l lus t r a t ing h i sphilosophy of life and art. He and a friend

decided to climb a mountain, one of thetoughest climbs in North America.They went up to the top and came down."That to my m ind is the way to climb amountain," Jackson said. "Sometimes thereis an awful lot of non sense about it."His no-nonsense attitude served himwell. He left behind hundreds of paintingsand drawings that capture the Old Westwith superb insight, empathy and accuracy just the way it used to be. J\(Ed. Note: Author Cloverexpresses indebt-edness for her quotations to 'Time Expo-sure," theAutobiography of William HenryJackson, Co oper Square Publishers, NewYork, 1970.)

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C O AL, C O M O"""CHRISTMASA C ombo that MayRevive Madridb y D a n B .M cC arthy

When Perry Com o and hissong and dance troupe were intown last year filming asegment of his televisedChristmas Specialfor 1979,Como came throughfamouslywith residents by calling theirrustic, reawa kening ghost town"MAD-rid." Em phasis on theM A D . . .

That's as it should be inMadrid, New Mexico.(Left) The modestwh i te -washed hom es o fMadrid were lived in by coalm in ing fami lies th roug h t hemid-1950s.

M ost visitors w ho travel thos e 27 miles alon gState Route 14, a little southwestish out ofSanta Fe, or w ho drive no rth out ofAlb uqu erqu e, are likely to men tion backho m e their visit in quaint Madrid. And they p ro no un ceit MAH-dnd, just like reference s to Old W orld Spain'scapitol in Ernest Hemingway's novels.Som e say the town bears the nam e of the Franciscode M adrid family, wh ich d ates back in the so uthw est tode Varga's 1692 re-co nqu est. O ther s say, no , it's n am edfor Spain's largest city.O ne early sum m er's m orning B.C. (before Com o), Isat alone in MAD -rid's baseball p ark w hich w as notcollapsing then, but just deteriorating. Trees, trunksthicker than saplings, blocked the view from thegrandstand towards the diamo nd.Tethered in the outfield, a bu rro hee-ha we d to greeta new day or for whatever reason bu rro s like tohee-haw. From across town som ehw ere a dog,sounding like a German sheph erd, barked hisauthoritative contribution to drown out delightfulbirdsong heard betw een the brays of the bu rro .The rest of Madrid seem ed asleep.Alone with my thoughts I w on de red what M adridwas like in its heyday when people bought tickets to sitin the gran dstand. Later, wh en Madrid a wak ened, Inosed arou nd, asked questions, gathered a notebo okfull of answers, and exposed a lot of film.

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Tis former coal produ cingpatch ofNew Mexico caughton as acommunity in1882when the Atlantic and PacificRailroad's gandy dancersstrung a five-mile spur line through theOrtiz Mountains leading toWaldo, whe resome fifty beehive-shaped coke ovens thenoperated.Prior tothe railroad's arrival, pioneerMadrid miners had be en working thebituminous and anthracite coal fields on alimited basis since 1869. Historians reportcoal taken from the area asearly as 1835.Madrid's major thrust onthe nationalscene covered from 1920 tothe late 1940s,after aWorld War IIproduct ion spurt endedwhen hostilities ceased overseas.By 1954 Madrid was off he coal marketand the whole town was on the real estatemarket. For Sale! The w hole thing!A classified ad vertisem ent whichappeared inth e Wall StreetJournal read:

ENTIRE TOWN200 houses, grade and highschool, power house, generalstore, tavern, machine shop, min-eral rights, 9,000 acres, excellentclimate, fine industrial location.

Alas forthe Albuquerque and CerrillosCoal Company's own ers, there were notakers forthe $250,000 asked.Today, says editor Paula Sherma n of TheRustler, abi-weekly published outofnearby Gerrillos,"estima tes place 150 to300 persons living inMadrid."One historian gave Madrid the nicknameof "Pittsburgh of the West" whe n 300 ton sof coal rolled daily tomarket as Americamoved into the 20th Century. Then som e350 families, numbering about 2,000persons , populated the Gaslight Era scene.And there were residents who complainedthat their $3 coal bill each m onth wastoo high!Madrid coal helped stoke stoves as faraway as Royal Canadian Royal MountedPolice posts. And, shipm ents w ere steadytonearby Los Alamos d uring "Fat Albert"atom bom b product ion.From Madrid's unruffled, halcyon past,former residents and visitors rememberbest, perhaps, the 40,000 Christmas lightsthat.showered national acclaim upon thecommunitv.

Feelings about m ining are mixed,but most local residents donotwish the quality oflife inrebornMadrid todecline as aresult ofminingtraffic, blasting and such.Hillside dioram as featured the Nativity

scene, Santa Claus and company, and alsoMother Goose characters. From the early1920s until WWII's energy conservationperiod the exquisite nighttime panoramaannually focused national attentionon Madrid.Fittingly, Walt Disney and several ofhischildren drove the gravel roads during the1937 Yule seas on toview the splendor. Andsome 15,000 other carloads ofpeopleadded tothat year's visitor c ount.Officials ofTrans World Airlinespermitted their pilots tochange courseslightly and fly over Madrid, allowingpassengers glimpses ofthe extravaganza.That was atChristmas! But when Fourthof July was nigh, orEaster, orthe openinggame ofthe town's baseball season,townsfolk gathered tofestoon theircommunity.Dring several visits toMadridwe preferred topark"dow ntown and just walk thetown, soaking inthe past,noting today's life, and tryingto imagine "houses aglow with lights."Here and there among the row houseson the hillside, reconstruction has madecrumbling structures ho me againforoccupants. But the many untouched hom esshow the hard knocks oftime and badweather in aghost town.The big, box)' former dance hall hasadistinct structural sag, but still isstanding.There's asign warning visitors tokeep out.Nearby, aformer ch urch, and thenchildren's workshop classroom whenpeop le began wend ing their way back toMadrid, isno w aprivate resid ence , stillcharming. The present owner, says EditorSherman, "prefers her privacy and doesnot want people requesting entrance to th eformer church."

Rusting auto hu lks, showing linesofmodels current in the ate 1930s, we reonce parked along aweed-strewn lanenear the heavy-timbered tipple but theyalong with the tipple, as ofSpring, 1980have disappeared from Madrid's past.Somebody had need forthe lumber, andthe autos were collectable."It is asham e," laments Paula Sherm an,"but it is too late forpreservation. It ishoped , as Madrid grows and becom esmore organized that aneffort can bemadeto restore some ofthe historic buildings."Growth talk notwithstanding, Madrid,whose post office was opened in1896 anddiscontinued in1966, has earn ed itsnichein ghost town books published by theUniversity- ofOklahoma (1974) and theUniversity ofNew Mexico (1967).These tim es, with national talk about acoal industry resurgenc e toalleviateenergy prob lems , folks aroun d Madriddiscuss their vast untapped coal reserves.Overtures are being made by coal intereststo get the town back into the coal miningbusiness. That stirs controversy, makingsom e Madrid residents hot around theircollars."Feelings about mining are mixed," saysEditor Sherman. "But most local residentsdo not wish the quality of life in rebornMadrid todecline as aresult ofminingtraffic, blasting and such."Community togetherness has evolvedinto aMadrid volunteer fire departm ent, awater cooperative, and a landowner 's(Right) The plains below theCerillos Hills near Madridcome alive with summerbloom.

26 Al GUST, 1980


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A classified advertisement whichappeared inthe WallStreetJournal read:ENTIRE TOWN

200 houses, grade and highschool, power house, generalstore, tavern, machine shop, min-eral rights, 9,000 acres, excellentclimate, fine industrial location.

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198008 Desert Magazine 1980 August

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Transcript of 198008 Desert Magazine 1980 August