Any resemblance that a Death Valley highway bore to a road was a coincidence prior to 1926, and few tourists traveled over them unless two cars were along. “Just follow the wheel tracks and keep your eyes peeled for the cracker box signs along the road,” was the usual advice to the novice who didn’t know that tracks left by Mormons’ wagons nearly a century before may be seen today.
One of these led me to the bank of a mile-wide gash made by cloudbursts. To locate the missing link I climbed the nearest mountain and on a lonely mesa came at last upon a piece of shook nailed to a stake and stuck into the ground. But it had nothing to do with roads. A crude inscription read:
Montana Jim July 1888 A dam good pal
Reverently I stepped aside. Never again would I see a finer tribute to man. A few rocks bleached white in the sun outlined a sunken grave. Crossed upon it were Jim’s pick and shovel. It was not difficult to recreate what had happened there. Jim and his friend looking for gold. Jim’s faltering and the sun beating him down. Jim’s partner knowing that Jim’s moniker would identify him better than a surname to anyone who passed that way interested in Jim. Out in the desert 100 miles from human habitation he couldn’t call an undertaker, so he dug a hole, wrapped Jim in his canvas, rolled him in and hoped that God would reach down for Jim.
At that period it was not an uncommon experience for the early tourist to lose his way by doing the natural thing at a crossroads and take the one which showed the sign of most travel. Often he would find later that he had followed a trail to a mine miles away. Often too, it led to disaster.
The story of roads begins at Shoshone with Brown. In his trips in and around the valley, he erected signs to prevent the traveler from losing his way and his life. “I would like to see Death Valley country,” people would say to him, “but everyone tells me to stay out.”
Inyo county had little revenue and that was used in the more populous Owens Valley 150 miles west. The east side (the Shoshone area) was totally neglected. Letters and petitions protesting the unfair distribution of county funds were tossed into the waste basket. “Roads in that cauldron? Who would use ’em? Nobody ever goes there but a few old prospectors.”
This was true but it was also true that on Owens Valley’s west side the lakes and forests of the High Sierras were attracting a paying crop of vacationists and the supervisors knew it would be political suicide to divert this traffic from its towns and resorts. The county-wide opinion as to chance for relief was expressed in the slang of the day by a loafer on the bench at Shoshone: “About as much as a wax mouse would have against an asbestos cat in a race through hell. They have the votes and elect the supervisors.”
The east side had never had a member on the board. In the Shoshone precinct were less than 40 voters. In Death Valley a few prospectors who would have battered down the gates of hell if they thought gold lay beyond, poked around in its canyons. A few Indians. A few workmen for the Borax Company. In 1924 Brown put his suitcase in his car, filled the tank and said to those about: “Fellows, I’m running for Supervisor.” “You’ll be the mouse,” quipped a friend.
“I’ll let ’em know somebody lives over here anyway....”