History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties Brown, John & Boyd, James – 1922
Typical of the troubles of the times is the following article from a local newspaper of February 1867: “For several years past, our citizens have been greatly annoyed by roving bands of Indians who come into the valley and steal all the horses and cattle they find unguarded. Nor do they hesitate to attack stockmen and travelers if an opportunity offers. Already Messrs. Parish, Bemus and Whiteside, and a dozen others have fallen victim to their bloodthirstiness within the past four years. Growing bolder by impunity, on the 29th of January, they attacked the sawmill of Mr. James upon the mountain, a few miles east of this place, having previously robbed the house of Mr. Cain, carrying off five horses and burned down the house. The party at the mill, consisting of Messrs. Armstrong, Richardson, Cain, and Talmadge, sallied out to meet them. A brisk fight followed when the party, finding that most of the Indians had guns and fearful of being overpowered, retreated to the mill. The next morning the party, having been reinforced, went out and was attacked again, the fight lasting for more than an hour. Two of the white men were wounded, two Indians were killed, and three wounded. A party was made up to pursue these Indians, and after following them, found the Indians encamped in the desert at Rabbit Springs. The company made an attack, the men having to climb up the steep mountains and over the rocks on all fours, and the skirmishing lasted until dark. The skirmishing lasted for two days longer when the whites were compelled to withdraw because supplies were exhausted. Four Indians were killed and two of the white party wounded.” The Mojave region came under the protection of Camp Cady, which was established as a regular military post in 1868 on the road between Wilmington and Northern Arizona territory, and about 100 troops under Colonel Ayers remained here until about 1870.
Tonopah was one of Southern Nevada’s most prosperous mining communities, drawing hundreds of prospectors from its founding in 1900. Silver was first discovered on May 19, 1900, by prospector Jim Butler who was traveling through the area. On an overnight stop, Butler discovered silver outcroppings near Tonopah Springs. When Butler’s friend Tasker Oddie (later Nevada Senator and Governor) had Butler’s sample assayed, it was found to be worth $50-$600 per ton. That August, Butler and his wife staked eight claims in Tonopah. Mrs. Butler christened the first three claims Desert Queen, Burro, and Mizpah. The Mizpah became Tonopah’s largest producer over the next forty years. Later that year, Butler leased his claims for one year, collecting 25% of the royalties from the gold and silver ore that was mined.
In 1901 several companies opened, including the West End Consolidated Mining Company and the Tonopah Extension Mining Company. In January, the mining camp had a population of 40, including three women. By springtime, the population rose to 250, and Tonopah’s first stage, the Concord, arrived from Sodaville. In May 1901, Tonopah’s first post office and the largest building in the city, The Mizpah Bar & Grill, opened. That summer, Tonopah’s population reached 650. W.W. Booth advertised the district through his newspaper, the Tonopah Bonanza. As word spread, more prospectors entered the area, and three large mining corporations were formed in early 1902: The Tonopah Belmont Mining Company, the Montana Tonopah Mining Company, and the Tonopah Mining Company.
The camp was still relatively primitive in 1902. Prices, crude sanitary conditions, and Tonopah’s isolation made it difficult to obtain supplies. This changed in early 1903 when construction began on a 60-mile-long narrow gauge railroad connecting Tonopah with the Carson and Colorado Branches of the Southern Pacific Railroad at the Sodaville Junction.
By the end of 1903, Tonopah’s population surged to 3,000. With several profitable silver and gold strikes, production boomed, and mining stocks listed on the San Francisco stock exchange since April soared. A building boom followed the mining boom. There were thirty-two saloons, six faro games, two dancehalls, two weekly newspapers, several mercantile stores, and two churches built before 1904. On July 25, 1904, the town celebrated the completion of the narrow gauge railroad with speeches, sporting events, horse races down Main Street, and several dances.
The population continued to grow as transportation to the district became easier, and by May 1905, the Nye County seat was moved from Belmont to Tonopah, the post office changed its name to Tonopah, and construction began on a new $55,000 Nye County courthouse. On July 7, 1905, Tonopah’s first city government was incorporated. In the fall, the two railroads in Tonopah merged into the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad Company, its track gauge standardized and extended to Goldfield.
Tonopah survived the financial panic of 1907. The city had five banks, modern hotels, cafes, an opera house, a school, electric and water companies, numerous gambling halls, and several four to five-story buildings downtown. In 1908 and 1909, Tonopah was devastated by a series of fires. In May 1908, a fire destroyed an entire block of the commercial district. A year later, the roundhouse and the machine shops at the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad burned to the ground. The infamous Belmont fire occurred on February 23, 1911, when the 1,200-foot mine shaft of the Belmont Mine caught fire. Seventeen men perished from the toxic fumes of the blaze.
Mining activity expanded in 1912 when the Belmont mine and mill began operating in July. The daily wage for a machine operator averaged $4.50-$5.50 per shift. The following year was Tonopah’s most profitable: Annual production in gold, silver, copper, and lead was valued at $10 million. Several mills were constructed to process 1,830 tons of ore daily, including the Tonopah Belmont Development Company’s massive 500-ton mill on the east side of Mount Oddie.
Tonopah reached its peak production between 1910 and 1914. Between the end of World War I and the Great Depression, four companies remained active: the Tonopah Mining Company, Tonopah Belmont, Tonopah Extension, and West End Consolidated Mines. In 1921, four of the twenty-five principal silver mines in the nation were still in Tonopah, and Tonopah was the nation’s second-largest producer of gold. But on October 31, 1939, a fire destroyed the Belmont Mine, and another fire in 1942 closed the Tonopah Extension Mill. World War II brought an Army Air Force Base to the area, but it was shut down upon the close of the war. When the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad ceased operations in 1947, Tonopah’s remaining mines closed, and the population dwindled.
The total production of Tonopah’s mines over its forty years of production is estimated at over $150 million, and during that time, Tonopah produced many millionaires and statesmen, including Tasker Oddie, Jim Butler, Frank Golden, Zeb Kendall, and Key Pittman. In the words of Nevada historian Stanley Paher, “Virginia City had put Nevada on the map; Tonopah kept it there.”
UNLV describes the history of Searchlight in the following;
“Gold ore was first discovered in Searchlight by Paiute Indians in 1870, 55 miles south of Las Vegas, but it was not until 1897, when G.F. Colton, a notable prospector, discovered a rich gold vein and word spread, that Searchlight boomed. The following year, the mining district was fully organized. The Quartette Mill opened in 1898 and soon became one of the city’s finest producers. In 1902 the first newspaper, Searchlight, began publishing, and the Duplex Mining Company constructed a twenty-stamp mill. In 1903 a miners’ strike brought the town’s production to a standstill until the mining companies brought in non-union miners to work the mines. The boom peaked during the spring of 1907 when the first train of the Barnwell & Searchlight Railroad arrived at Searchlight’s station to a warm greeting of a fifty-piece cowboy band. In 1907 Searchlight contained over forty-four working mines and a population of 5,000. However, Searchlight was hard hit by the financial panic of 1907.
The city recovered after a number of years and, by 1910, was noted for its fashionable and modern amenities and its commuter train. The community boasted a luxurious hotel, several saloons, a barbershop, a lumberyard, shops, cafes, union halls, boarding houses, schools, several stables, the newspaper, and its own hospital. The biggest mines were the Quartette, Cyrus Noble, Little Brown Jug, Old Bottle, and Duplex, whose gold production totaled $7 million. In 1934 a flotation mill was built, and a 30-ton custom mill ran briefly in 1935. However, by the late 1940s, little was left of the once modern boomtown of Searchlight.”
Image courtesy of the Franklin M. Murphy Photograph Collection, approximately 1929-1933. PH-00232. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
During this phase of the journey, the wagon train was doing much of its traveling at night, owing to the great daytime heat of the desert and the long distances between water holes. They would stop for a short rest at regular intervals during the night. At one of these rest stops, eleven-year-old Ellen Baley, a daughter of Gillum and Permelia Baley, fell asleep and failed to awaken when the wagon train moved on. Somehow, she was not missed until the train traveled some distance. The poor girl awoke to find herself alone in the middle of a vast hostile desert. Filled with fright, she began running to catch up with the wagon train, but in her confusion, she took off in the opposite direction. When she was discovered missing, her father and older brother, George, immediately returned to where they had stopped. To their horror, she was not there! Captured by the Indians must have been their conclusion!
Nevertheless, they continued their search by calling out the little girl’s name at the top of their voices as they rode back. Their efforts were soon rewarded when a faint cry came far off in the distance, “Papa, Papa.” Her father immediately answered and kept calling her name until he caught up with her. When reunited with her family and the other members of the wagon train, Ellen had a tale that would be told and retold by family members until the present day.
From the revised Journals of Jedediah Smith edited by Walter Feller
About 18 miles from the first mentioned creek, we crossed another 80 yards wide in appearance like the first, and three miles further came to a farm. In this distance, we had passed many herds of cattle belonging to the residents of the Angel village and some thousands of wild horses. The wild horses sometimes become so abundant to eat the grass relatively clean.
My guide informed me that the village’s inhabitants and vicinity collect whenever they consider the country overstocked. They build a large and sturdy pen with a small entrance, and two wings extending from the access to the right and left. Then mounting their swiftest horses, they scour the country and surrounding large bands; they drive them into the enclosure by hundreds.
The California Method – Edward Vischer, 1874
They may lasso a few of the most handsome and take them out of the pack. A horse selected in this manner is immediately thrown down and altered, blindfolded, saddled, and haltered (for the Californians always commence with the halter). The horse can then get up, and a man is mounted. When he is firmly in his seat and the halter in his hand, an assistant takes off the blind the several men on horseback with handkerchiefs to frighten and some with whips to whip-raise the yell, and away they go. The poor horse, so severely punished and spooked, does not think of flouncing but dashes off at no slow rate for a trial of his speed. After running until he is exhausted and finds he cannot eliminate his enemies, he gives up.
He is tied for 2 or 3 days, saddled, and ridden occasionally. If he proves docile, he is bound by the neck to a tame horse until he becomes attached to the company, then let loose. But if a horse proves immediately refractory, they do not trouble themselves with him long but release him from his bondage by thrusting a knife to his heart.
Cruel as this fate may seem, it is a mercy compared to the hundreds left in the pack, for they die a most lingering and horrible death within a narrow space without the possibility of escape. Without a morsel to eat, they gradually lose their strength and sink to the ground making vain efforts to regain their feet, when at last, all-powerful hunger has left them, the strength to raise their heads from the dust, their eyes becoming dim with the approach of death, may catch a glimpse of green and widespread pastures and winding streams while they are perishing from want.
They die one by one, and at length, the last and strongest sinks down among his companions to the plain. No man of feeling can imagine such a scene without surprise, indignation, and pity. Indignation and wonder that men are so heartless and unfeeling. Pity for the noblest of animals dying from want amid fertile fields. A disgraceful fact to the Californians not credited to a single narrator but has been since corroborated.
Nevada History: XXVII SOME NEVADA TRAGEDIES From James G. Scrugham, Nevada: The Narrative of the Conquest of a Frontier Land (1935), vol. I
The Story of Mouse
One of the wildest frontier lands left in the United States is embraced in the southern tip of the State of Nevada, between the confluence of the Virgin and Colorado rivers and the site of the great Boulder dam project construction.
Bonelli Landing – Lake Mead
Some thirty-five years ago (123 years in 2023), this area was the scene of one of the most remarkable man hunts ever taking place within the state’s confines. This thrilling drama’s chief actors were eight: three Pahute Indians and five white men.
The leading character was an Indian named “Mouse” by his fellow tribesmen, of his habit of hiding out in the brush and his sly and silent movements. Although of a retiring and surly disposition, he was a good worker and possessed a crafty and intelligent mind.
The next character in importance and interest was one “Red Eye,” the most skilled Indian tracker of his tribe. He derived his name from bloodshot flecks which were always visible in the whites of his eyes, and was well-liked by the white men on account of his loyalty and industry as a ranch hand.
The third Indian character was a fierce old Indian woman who proved to be the Nemesis of the story, stirred to heroic action by the theft of a large and much-prized cabbage from her garden.
Daniel Bonelli – Huntington Library
Of the white actors, the most important was Daniel Bonelli, a famous pioneer settler of the early days. He conducted a hay and vegetable ranch near the junction of the Virgin and Colorado Rivers. Also, he operated a ferry over the latter stream connecting with the main trail south through Arizona. He employed a large number of white men and Indians to assist in his livestock, farming, and ferrying enterprises, among whom was a strong, fearless cowpuncher named George Sherwood, who later appears prominently in the story.
Other white men who figured notably in the tragedy were two young prospectors, Davis and Stearns, who were searching for placer gold on the bars of the Colorado River. These men were accompanied by an elderly prospector k, Majorreenowalt, whose chief function was to serve as camp tender.
The story begins at Bonelli’s ranch on the Colorado River. The place was then on the main line of travel between Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and the rich mining camps of Pioche and Delamar on the north to points in Arizona, Mexico, and elsewhere in the south. A continual stream of travelers passed, many of whom were fugitives from justice-seeking oblivion in distant, isolated places.
Bonelli’s Ferry
Others were nomads seeking the warmth of southern climes in winter and the coolness of the highlands of the north in the summer. In addition to revenues derived from his voyage over the Colorado and sale of hay and supplies to passersby, Bonelli also made extensive trade in meat and produce with the flourishing mining camps at El Dorado Canyon, Chloride, Gold Basin, and a score of other places.
In the operation of his ranch, Bonelli employed several Indian hands, including Mouse and Red Eye.
The Bonelli Home in Rioville (Bonelli Landing)
On a spring evening in 1896, when the story begins, the Indian Mouse somehow secured a quantity of whisky that he drank. Under the alcoholic stimulant, his naturally vicious disposition had no restraint, and Mouse started a promiscuous shooting at the other Indians in the camp. They fled to the main ranch and informed Bonelli that Mouse was on a killing rampage, and their lives had only been saved by the bad aim of the drunken aggressor.
Bonelli and some of his ranch hands then went to the Indian camp and disarmed the crazed Mouse, locking him in an adobe outhouse for the night. The next morning the Indian had become sober and appeared entirely docile. However, Bonelli, knowing the disposition of Mouse, gave him his discharge and ferried him over to the Arizona side; after returning to the man, his gun and ammunition were taken away the previous evening.
From Bonelli’s Ferry, the Indian went to a mining camp called White Hills and worked a few days cutting Joshua trees for fuel. Becoming tired of the labor, he stole a horse and set out for one of his old haunts at Indian Springs, some eighty miles away at the foot of the Charleston Mountains.
Mouse attempted to cross the Colorado River back to Nevada at a point opposite the old trail up the Las Vegas Wash, evidently intending to obtain food supplies at the Las Vegas ranch en route to his destination.
Just before he reached the Nevada shore, his horse became so deeply mired in the quicksands that he could not be extricated. Mouse was compelled to leave the struggling animal, and he made his way up the river toward a prospector’s camp, which he sighted on the Arizona shore. This camp was occupied at the time by the three men mentioned above, Davis, Stearns, and Major Greenowalt, who were prospecting for placer gold in the river bars. They had a small boat which they used for the purpose and accommodatingly crossed the river to meet the Indian when he signaled to them.
After being fed by the prospectors, who were obviously tenderfeet in the country, the crafty Mouse aroused their interest by relating the story of a fictitious ledge of gold-bearing quartz, which he claimed to have discovered in an almost inaccessible canyon, some ten miles back from the camp.
Early the following day, accompanied by Davis and Stearns, the Indian started for the scene of the alleged find, Greenowalt remaining at the river location. Davis and Stearns were never again seen alive.
The next morning the scene of the story shifts back to the Bonelli ranch, some twenty miles further up the river from the prospectors’ camp.
Among the horses on the place were two handsome gray geldings, half-brothers five and six years old, which Bonelli had bought from a band of well-bred horses being driven from northern Nevada to the Arizona market. These animals were the best in the place, but one was a much better saddle horse than the other, owing to a more tractable disposition.
During the time Mouse worked on the ranch, he was familiar with the horses and their characteristics. On the morning in question, when the ranch hands went into the fields to harness the stock, the best gray horse was found to be missing. This caused no particular excitement until it was found that his bridle was also gone.
Speedily circling the fields in search of tracks, the buckaroos discovered where the lost horse had been led out toward the Virgin River by a man wearing leather boots, who mounted at the bank before plunging into the stream. A hasty inspection of the shorelines revealed no place where the rider could have come out from the river. A general alarm was sounded, and all hands set out to find the trail of the thief. After a couple of hours’ delay, the outcoming tracks were finally located on the opposite side, more than a half mile above where the stolen animal had entered the water. The extraordinary effort made to throw pursuers off the track indicated that the horse stealer was a person of some skill and experience who had gained a probable ten or twelve-hour start on possible pursuers. However, Bonelli acted promptly. He armed two of his best riders with Winchester rifles and instructed them to stay with the trail until they recovered the horse or killed the thief.
The pursuing posse followed the tracks up the sandy shores of the Rio Virgin until they reached the Bitter Springs Wash, the drainage channel for a great range of territory to the west of the Virgin.
At the head of this wash are springs of bitter waters that will support life, although hardly palatable enough for human consumption. Here the crafty Mouse, for he was the thief, left the bottom of the wash where trailing was easy and took to the dolomitic limestone banks where vegetation and the soft ground were scanty, and no imprints were made. However, the very hardness of the ground defeated the purpose of the Indian thief. The rough limestone caused the horse’s hoofs to bleed, leaving a plain track for the pursuers to follow.
All through the long afternoon and in the moonlit evening, the Bonelli buckaroos followed the trail. About ten o’clock at night, while going over a steep declivity covered with loose lime shale, one of the horses missed his footing and started both riders and their steeds to slide into the precipitous gulch below. When the descent was stopped, both horsemen were so exhausted from the efforts of the day that they dismounted and unsaddled their animals, leaving their bridles on.
Both men wrapped themselves in their saddle blankets and took turns sleeping through the remainder of the night. On the following morning, they were up at the first peep of dawn, ready to resume the trail. However, it was found that the horse who had missed his footing was so badly bruised and cut that he could hardly walk, and the trailers decided to go back to the Bonelli ranch for reinforcements.
On arriving home early in the afternoon and reporting their adventures, the master of the ranch immediately detailed George Sherwood, his ranch foreman, and Red Eye, the skilled Indian tracker, to follow the thief to the end. From the information available, Sherwood and Red Eye decided that the horse thief was heading for the Las Vegas ranch, seventy-five miles away, as that was the nearest food and water available.
Pushing their horses to the utmost, the trailers arrived at their destination the second evening after leaving the Bonelli ranch. Then it was found that the Indian Mouse had arrived the night before on foot, wearing leather boots, with a story of having killed his crippled horse in the Muddy range at a point near where the first pair of pursuers had lost the bloody trail the day before.
It then became obvious that Mouse was the thief and that the lost horse was dead; otherwise, he would have been brought in for water. As further evidence of the guilt of the Indian, he had silently slipped away in the night soon after the ranchmen fed him, and his tracks indicated that he had made directly for the rugged fastnesses of the Charleston Mountains, some thirty miles away.
A successful pursuit was impossible, so after two days’ rest, Sherwood and Red Eye started on their return to the Bonelli place to inform their employer of the identity of the criminal. Arriving at the foot of the Las Vegas Wash, where Mouse had lost his first stolen horse in the quicksands of the Colorado River a few days before, Sherwood and his companion saw a flock of buzzards circling around and eating the remains of the animal, which projected from the quicksand.
As night was approaching, they rode up the river to a point opposite the prospectors’ camp.
Here Major Greenowalt rowed over and informed them that his partners had left five days before with an Indian named Mouse, who was to show them the location of a rich gold ledge. The Major was greatly disturbed by the protracted absence of his companions, as they had only carried food and water for a one-day trip.
On hearing the Major’s story, both Sherwood and Red Eye became apprehensive that the surly Mouse, with whom they were well acquainted, had added murder to his crime of horse theft.
The next morning they rode back to the home ranch and reported their information and suspicions to Mr. Bonelli.
The aroused ranch owner immediately organized a posse that went down the river to seek the missing men. Again the indomitable Red Eye took up the trail over rough and hard ground.
After two days of tedious tracking, Red Eye finally led the posse to the foot of a steep declivity where the mutilated bodies of Davis and Stearns were discovered. The boots had been removed from the feet of Stearns, accounting for the boot tracks made by Mouse when he had stolen the gray gelding at the Bonelli ranch.
Reconstructing the tragedy, Mouse appeared to have taken the lead until he enticed the two prospectors to the lonely place where the bodies were found. There he suddenly turned and vented his blood lust against the white race by shooting both Davis and Stearns.
The bodies of the unfortunate gold seekers were carried down to the river, then transported 100 miles in skiffs to Needles, California, from whence the remains were shipped back to relatives in the East.
With his dastardly acts fully revealed, Mouse became a hunted outcast, to be killed on sight. Even his tribal compatriots were in terror of him and sought his extermination as a crazed killer.
Mouse Tank – Valley of Fire
For two years, the murderer remained at large, living on seeds, nuts, and rodents and making an occasional raid on a prospectors camp for flour, bacon, and beans. There was found evidence of where Mouse had killed a wild mustang at a water hole and made jerky of the meat.
Finally, there came an end to this bold and much-feared outlaw. In the course of his wanderings, he came to a mountain overlooking a narrow valley where some of his fellow tribesmen had a little truck garden by a water hole. He descended in the night and stole some corn and cabbage to assuage his hunger.
This act led to his undoing. The cabbage belonged to an astute old squaw, who picked up the trail and followed it enough to identify it as belonging to Mouse from certain peculiarities of gait with which she was familiar.
Returning to the camp, the old squaw set up a hue and cry, which brought about the speedy organization of a well-armed posse to endeavor to capture the murderer. Red Eye, the tracker, led the hot pursuit. Day and night continued the chase through the flaming red sandstones of the Valley of Fire, then up the Meadow Valley Wash to Cave Springs and back again toward the Muddy River.
Bonelli had relays of men to provide food and water for the pursuers, as he was determined that the miscreant should not again escape.
The track was lost and found, then lost and found again. Mouse used every concealment art, but the tireless Red Eye never gave up the trail.
After nearly two weeks of hide and seek, the posse cornered Mouse early one morning at a lonely water hole on a gypsum flat near the Muddy River. Here the outlaw made his last stand.
Cursing and screaming, Mouse exchanged shot for shot with his pursuers. However, his pistols were no match for the high-powered rifles of the posse. The savage murderer finally fell, with his body literally riddled with bullets. Thus was avenged the deaths of Davis and Stearns, and the whole countryside felt relief from the sinister shadow of the Indian Mouse.
(SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY) INHERITS WIFE’S ESTATE RANCHER WILL LEAVE PRISON TO CLAIM PROPERTY
Hieronymus Hartman Serves Two Years for Bigamy-Legatee of the Woman Who Caused His Arrest
SAN BERNARDINO, July 18 1902.-There is a strange story back of the petition for letters of administration on the estate of Mary Hartman, which was filled this morning. Two years ago, Hieronymus Hartman, a Mojave river rancher, married Mrs. Nancy Brown of Victorville. When Mrs. Mary Hartman of this city saw the notice in a local paper, she caused the man’s arrest on a charge of bigamy. claiming that thirty years ago, she was married to the same man at Fort Cady. on the desert. She had come out from the east with an army officer’s family as a servant girl. Hartman was the blacksmith at the fort and wooed and won Mary. Hartman was convicted and sentenced to two years in San Quentin. Recently Mrs. Hartman #1 died and left an estate with a comfortable balance due on some property she sold. Under the law, Hartman is the next of kin and will inherit the money. His time in the penitentiary will be up this month.
(Read by Judge Rex B. Goodcell at the dedication of Camp Cajon July 4, 1919, and by William M. Bristol at the dedication of Live Oak Park by the Chamber of Commerce of northern San Diego County, July 17, 1920.)
The Flag by Charles L. Frazer
Hats off, ye men! Now lift the flag on high: Break out its folds and let them proudly fly As from its staff on this our natal day There floats the banner none may take away.
Its streaming lines, its starry field of blue Are caught by winds that long have known them true: And rising, falling, with exquisite grace, They kiss each other in a fond embrace.
Flag of our own, we give thee to the breeze: Thrice hail on land, thrice hail on bounding seas: On armored deck, o’er valley, peak and crag. Wave on, and on, our own beloved flag!
Thrice-hallowed flag, one moment thou shalt be Half-masted for those Sons of Liberty Who, over seas or on the swelling flood Have re-baptized thee with a nation’s blood.
Our hero dead! No matter how they fell. In camp, at sea> on crimson fields of hell; They gave their all our pledged faith to keep, Tis ours to pay them homage as they sleep.
Courtesy Austin Daily Herald
Peace to their ashes; let us write each name In fadeless glory on the roll of fame: And unborn freemen shall their valor tell Soldier, and sailor, fare, O fare thee well! * * * *
Flag of the free, beloved on land and main. May treason never thy escutcheon stain; Defeat—the battle lost—were better far Than that dishonor dim one single star.
Aye, better that thy stars forever set; And God, and men» and angles thee forget. Than that thy name should ever used be To bind one shackle on humanity.
But thou, O flag, shalt not thine honor yield! Not by one thread, or star upon thy shield I Through calm and storm undaunted shalt thou ride. And all thy deathless principles abide.
Courtesy Santa Fe New Mexican
O, Thou Who boldest in Thy guilding hand ‘ The veiled future of this mighty land. Keep Thou our flag, and may it ever be Triumphant in the cause of liberty!
Then fly, proud flag, from thine exalted place; Shine on. ye stars, by God’s eternal grace! With faith undimmed we dedicate anew Ourselves to thee—the Red, the White, the Blue.
The following text has been adapted from a history of San Bernardino County by John Brown Jr. first published in 1922 describing the celebration of the opening of Camp Cajon.
The content has not been changed other than scan errors corrected and minor grammar changes to improve readability by modern standards.
On the north and east of San Bernardino Valley are the San Bernardino Mountains and beyond them the vast Mojave Desert. Through this high mountain range is a natural gap—a parting of the heights—a winding, tortuous passage, dividing the mountains and uniting the white sands on the north with the green lands of the south.
Looking south from the desert rim toward San Bernardino
This is Cajon Pass. Cajon—pronounced cah-hone with the second syllable strongly accented—is the Spanish word for “box.” Because a portion of the defile is walled by high cliffs, the early Spaniards christened a portion of it “Paso del Cajon”—Box Pass. Through this pass comes the National Old Trails Highway, now paved from San Bernardino to Summit, a distance of 26 miles. It parallels the long abandoned and almost obliterated Santa Fe Trail over which, in 1849, and in the early ’50s, the Pioneers came to lay the foundations for a Southland empire.
Bennett’s Long Camp – Death Valley National Park
At the point in the Pass where the old trail from Salt Lake joined the one from Santa Fe there stands a tall monument, erected in honor of those hardy adventurers. It was built in 1917 by the survivors of the Forty-Niners and their descendants and was dedicated on December 23 of the same year.
Santa Fe & Salt Lake Trail plaque
A short distance northward from the monument, and just 20 miles from San Bernardino is Camp Cajon, a welcome station for the incoming motor traveler, which an eastern writer has termed “California’s Granite Gate.” It, too, is a monument dedicated to the present and the future as the pioneers’ monument is to the past. Camp Cajon is the conception of William M. Bristol, orange grower, poet, and dreamer of Highland, 25 miles southeastward. Mr. Bristol first dreamed of his dream of Camp Cajon at the dedication of the Pioneers’ Monument.
Welcome to Camp Cajon
Thirty years before, Mrs. J. C. Davis, a Wisconsin woman, had spent a winter in California and returned home, wrote, and published a poem entitled “The Overland Trail,” a graphic pen picture of the old trail as seen from the windows of a modern Pullman car. Mr. Bristol was present at the dedication of the monument for the purpose of reading this poem as a part of the formal program. It is an interesting fact that Mrs. Davis had returned to California and was residing at Devore, at the southern portal of the Pass, Without knowing that she was to contribute in any way to the ceremonies of the day, she was taken into the Bristol family car and was present to hear her poem unexpectedly read nearly a third of a century after it was written.
At the close of the ceremonies, the throng adjourned to the willow grove, where Camp Cajon now stands, and, sitting on the sandy ground, at a picnic dinner, It was then and there that the need for permanent conveniences for such an occasion occurred to Mr. Bristol, and on that day he began the formulation of the plans for making his dream come true. In May 1919, he pitched his tent in the willow grove, then a jungle, intending to take a two months’ vacation from his orange grove, and build a dozen concrete dining tables, each with benches of the same massive and indestructible type. That was the extent of his original dream. But so enthusiastically was his innovation received by the world at large, and especially by Southern California, that his vacation was stretched to two years; and when he finally resigned as director and returned to his home, there were fifty-five tables instead of the dozen, besides numerous other structures not contemplated in the original plans. He was not only an architect but an artisan, much of the actual work of construction being done by himself, personally, the ornamental mosaics of dark and white stone and the hundred or more metal tablets on the tables and buildings being his own handiwork. A wealth of beautiful blue granite boulders near at hand inspired and aided in the building of various structures which promise to stand for all time.
Perhaps the most elaborate structure at the camp is the Elks’ outpost clubhouse, erected by all the Elks’ lodges of Southern California at a cost of several thousand dollars and dedicated to loyal Elks of the world. It affords conveniences for serving a meal to half a hundred people, and, standing and facing upon California’s most popular transcontinental highway, it also proclaims that the order stands ready to meet and greet all comers to the Southland. Across its face, in a beautiful mosaic of dark and white stone are the initials, “B. P. O. E.,” and above this in the same artistic stonework, is the Elks’ clock, with its hands pointing to the mystic hour of eleven. Below is a metal tablet carrying the entire text of -Arthur Chapman’s poem, “Out Where the West Begins.” Elsewhere is a double tablet carrying John S. McGroarty’s favorite poem, “Just California.” And on the camp, flag column is four stanzas of Charles L. Frazer’s poem. “The Flag.” Each table and stove, each broiler and barbecue pit carry a tablet with an inscription and the name of the donor.
Perhaps the spirit of Camp Cajon is best and most briefly expressed in two tablets that read. “To the desert-weary traveler,” and “To the stranger within our gates.”
The following is the list of tables, stoves, and so on, with donors and the main part of inscriptions:
Twenty miles to San Bernardino, the Gate City, and home of the National Orange Show.
Thirty miles to Redlands and famous Smily Heights.
Twenty-three miles to Colton, the Hub City, where industry reigns.
Twenty-five miles to East Highlands, the Buckle of the Citrus Belt.
Twenty-three miles to Highland, gateway to City Creek, and Rim of the World.
Thirty-five miles to Mirage Valley, where things grow without irrigation.
Twelve miles to Sheepcreek, a watered and fertile valley.
Ten miles to Baldy Mesa, where things grow without irrigation.
Forty-five miles to Chino, where everything grows.
Twenty-three miles north to Adelanto, the transformed desert.
Twenty miles to Apple Valley, where apples keep the doctor away.
Twenty-three miles to Lucerne Valley, a land of abundant shallow water.
Sixty-one miles to Barstow, the metropolis of Mojave Valley.
Seventy miles to Santa Ana, the county seat of Orange County.
At the south portal of Caion Pass, Devore, the home of the muscat grape.
Twenty miles to Del Rosa, beneath the Arrowhead.
Twenty miles to Arrowhead Hot Springs, the hottest springs known.
Twenty miles to Rialto’s orange grove.
Twenty-three miles to Fontana, the largest orange grove in the world.
Twenty-five miles to Bloomington, orange, and lemon empire.
Thirty-five miles to beautiful Etiwanda, home of the grape and the lemon.
Thirty-five miles to Cucamonga with its peaches, grapes, and “welcomes.”
Forty miles to Ontario, the model city. offers opportunity.
Thirty-five miles oceanward to Upland, and Euclid Avenue.
To all nature lovers, by the employees of the State Hospital at Patten.
Dedicated to checker players by the family of John Andreson, Sr., a pioneer of 1850. To the “Stranger within our gates,” by the family of David H. Wixom.
The “West to the East ever calls,” Hiram Clark and family.
Dedicated to the people of Needles by George E. Butler.
Dedicated to the people of Cloverdale, Michigan, by Mrs. Chas. H. Schaffer of Marquette, Mich.
To commemorate the visit of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, dedication tour, April 28, 1920.
In honor of Fred T. Perris, who, in 1884, led the iron horse through Cajon Pass.
To the Pioneers of San Bernardino Valley, by Native Sons who have gone afield. (Judge B. F. Bledsoe, Paul Shoup, and others).
To our Pioneers, by Arrowhead Parlor, Native Sons.
To the Trailmakers, by officers and men of Santa Fe.
To Highway Builders, by officers and men of Santa Fe. Redlands Rotary Club, with Rotary emblem.
Riverside Rotary Club, with Rotary emblem.
San Bernardino Rotary Club, with double table, and international Rotary emblem.
“The groves were God’s first temples,” by W. M. Parker.
“Now good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both,” by A. C. Denman. Jr.
“To the desert-weary traveler,” by W. J. Hanford.
A bake-oven, dedicated to the baking public, by W. j. Hanford.
A family broiler, dedicated to the broiling public, by C. G. Lundholm.
A pump, dedicated to the “drinking public,” by W. D. Anderson. A community broiler, “Max Aron bids you broil your steak.”
A big range. Orange County.
One barbecue pit. dedicated to the “barbecuing public.” by W. J. Curtis, J. W. Curtis, Henry Goodcell, Rex B. Goodcell, Herman Harris, John Andreson, Jr. Joseph E. Rich, W. E. Leonard, E. E. Katz and Mrs. F. I. Towne.
Flag column, erected by the Native Sons of Illinois, as a tribute to the State of their adoption.
“I love you, California.” Column, its mosaics, and tablets, the handiwork of F. M. Bristol, contributed by him.
Flag pole, gift of J. B. Gill, formerly Lieutenant-governor of Illinois.
Large tablet carrying four stanzas, Chas. L. Frazer’s poem, “The Flag.”
Elevation 3,002 feet.
HISTORY OF SAN BERNARDINO AND RIVERSIDE COUNTIES by JOHN BROWN, Jr. Editor for San Bernardino County THE WESTERN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION — 1922
Max Stroebel, who was to become known as the Father of Orange County, acting as agent for a syndicate bought 50,000 acres of land encompassing much of what makes Hesperia today. Purchasing the land was in anticipation of a railroad which was not to be for nearly 15 years, far too long for the investors. The land was sold at a loss and became the property of a German Temperance Colony.
