Mort

1909 · 76832 — Death Valley: N.p. 1909. Twenty-seven noncommercial stereoviews 7 x 3 1/2 inches. The photographs are very sharp and mounted onto plain gray mounts. Overall excellent condition.We can find no other history of a stereoscopic documentation of a gold prospecting expedition in Death Valley nor anywhere else in California for that matter. Almost all of the cards are dated and they bear the same date of January 1909 which leads one to think that they packed it up after a month. The ostensible first view is the exception; it is dated Dec. 1908 and shows a couple of the party standing next to two of Smith's huge borax wagons in Ludlow California. Ludlow was the southern railhead for the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad operated by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and bringing borax and other mining products from Death Valley and Beatty Nevada to long distance Santa Fe Railway lines. The mere fact that one of the exploring party carried a stereoscopic camera is in itself remarkable as a decent such camera is 1909 cost between $50 and $75 dollars or between $2000 and $2500 in today's dollars. Death Valley prospector's were not known for their wealth and a burro was their usual big ticket item.The majority of the cards have annotations on the verso. From those we learn some of the party's names "Emmit" "Dickie"etc. but no last names and the names of the places in the Valley where they prospected. Their main site seems to have been Gold Basin in the Funeral Mountains of the eastern part of Death Valley. There is no record of a Gold Basin in the literature of Death Valley. Place names in Death Valley were still fluid at this point and the name was likely made up at the time. Probably it become what is now called Golden Canyon. We do know that they were solely active in the Funeral Mountains and this was likely due to the fact that the most successful strikes in Death Valley were also in the Funeral Mountains. The famous Keane Wonder Mine was still very active in January of 1909 and some $600000 in gold and silver were mined before it began to fizzle in 1911. Some of the other places named and shown in the stereos are South Mountain. Gold Mountain Rhode's Wash Scott's Canyon and Scott's Cave Death Valley Narrows Saddle Horseshoe Ridge and others. Again none of the names given by this party survived. Member's of the prospecting party are shown in 16 of the views and it seems to have consisted of six members. One interesting view is captioned "Prospector's Camp and Forge Bill Keys of Death Valley." At age 15 Keys left home to work as a ranch hand smelter worker and miner honing skills that would define his later years. His early adventures took him to Arizona where he served as a deputy sheriff in Mohave County and to Death Valley where he befriended the colorful prospector Walter “Death Valley Scotty†Scott. The year after this photo was taken Keys took a job as custodian and assayer at the Desert Queen Mine in what is now Joshua Tree National Park. He soon took ownership of the land and it became the famous Desert Queen Ranch.Why these views were taken remains something of a mystery. It is more than likely especially when keeping in mind the outrageous cost of a stereoscopic camera in 1909 they they were to be used as an advertising ploy to lure investors into investing in mining Death Valley. The two most famous and best producing gold mines in the history of Death Valley Skidoo and the Keane Wonder Mine were both at their height in 1909 and western Nevada with its mining booms in places like Goldfield Tonopah Rhyolite Bullfrog etc. was also in full-swing. We can be thankful that the anonymous photographer was very skilled; the images are very sharp and he often conveyed the desolation and grandeur in a way not seen before. In recent times taking a trip to Death Valley is considered just another fun road trip but in 1909 is was a perilous endeavor not to be undertaken lightly. N.p. unknown