Death Valley Scotty - it’s remarkable that in such an expansive landscape, one person has so captured the public’s imagination. Even though he died 68 years ago, Scotty’s presence in the stories of the park endures. The mansion in Grapevine Canyon, built and owned by Albert Johnson, is known as Scotty’s Castle.
However, Scotty wasn’t the only person who knew how to promote. There were big events such as the Great New York to Paris Auto Race of 1908 which ran right through Rhyolite, Stovepipe Wells, and Ballarat. In 1937, the Wedding of the Waters celebrated the opening of the Whitney Portal Road to Badwater Road, connecting the highest waters in the land to the lowest.
The Great New York-to-Paris Auto Race - 1908
Departing Times Square with great fanfare on February 12,1908, the American entry was a team driving a Thomas Flyer automobile. Harold Brinker had the honor of driving the car from Utah through Tonopah, Rhyolite, and Stovepipe Wells, before arriving in San Francisco; Brinker was 900 miles ahead of his closest competitor.
The plan was to drive from San Francisco to Alaska, cross the Bering Strait which they hoped would be frozen, then cross Siberia to Moscow, Berlin and Paris. However, the Bering Strait was impassable so the teams took a ship to Vladivostok, and then a train across parts of Siberia.
The American team, driving the Thomas Flyer, finally arrived in Paris on July 30 to win the race, but were nearly arrested by a gendarme for not having lights on the car.
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Credit: Muralist: Lee Bowerman
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
Grapevine Canyon Before Scotty's Castle - ca. 1919
Insurance magnate Albert Johnson visited Death Valley for the first time in 1906 after having met Scotty the previous year. Albert and his wife Bessie bought the old Staininger Ranch (originally developed in the 1880s), which was a 1,500 acre grape, vegetable, and fig farm in spring-fed Grapevine Canyon. The ranch served as a base camp for the Johnson's explorations of Death Valley, and they continued to develop the property over the years.
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Credit: Death Valley National Park Museum #41477
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
Gallery Porch at Scotty's Castle - ca. 1928
Death Valley Scotty and Bessie and Albert Johnson pose on the castle’s Gallery Porch with a large telescope looking west.
As the Johnsons’ home continued to grow and evolve, Scotty was quick to capitalize on the local publicity. Ever the showman, Scotty announced that he was the one building a castle in Death Valley.
“This is a one-man circus. I’m th’ ringmaster, th’ actors, th’ menagerie an’ th’ rest of th’ show. Death Valley is th’ areno an’ th’ world is th’ audience. I keep ‘em guessin’ an’ that’s the mark of a real showman. I’ve out-barnumed Barnum an’ had a whale of a time doin’ it….I’m the greatest one-man show on earth.”*
*Lingenfelter, Richard E. Death Valley & the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion Univ of Calif Press 1986 Berkeley
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Credit: Photographer: Matt Roy Thompson; Death Valley National Park Museum #40897
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
The Johnsons and Scotty in the Living Room at Scotty's Castle - ca. 1930
Scotty was a flamboyant con artist and showman. In July of 1905, he traveled by train to Chicago with a roll of money, falsely claiming to have struck it rich in a Death Valley mine. His train trip broke the travel time record, and gave him entrée to the wealthy elite. His Chicago visit was the beginning of a great friendship with Albert Johnson.
The modern photo was taken during a lengthy restoration of the castle, begun after flash floods in 2015 severely damaged some of the castle’s out-buildings.
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Credit: Photographer: Burton Frasher; Courtesy HJG Frashers Fotos Collection
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
Scotty speaks to his auto mechanic - 1930
Walter Scott, aka Death Valley Scotty, born in 1872 in Kentucky, ran away as a 14-year-old to join two of his brothers in Nevada. He worked as a laborer at Harmony Borax Works and as a roughrider for Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
Scotty was able to attract investors to Death Valley mining claims including Albert Johnson, a Chicago life insurance magnate. Johnson fell in love with the land when he visited in 1906 and acquired 1500 acres of it with his purchase of the Steininger Ranch in Grapevine Canyon at 3,000 feet above sea level. It was there that Johnson built his castle.
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Credit: Photographer: Cliff Wesselman; Images of America: Scotty's Castle by Robert Palazzo 2017 Arcadia Publishing
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
Lantern Slide of Scotty's Castle - ca. 1935
Albert Johnson built three frame and stucco structures in a style consistent with his religious fundamentalism and engineering background. Bessie Johnson favored the “mission revival” style of her alma matter, Stanford University, and the buildings were modified to fit that theme.
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Credit: Photographer: F.H. Maude; Autry Museum of the American West
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
Wedding of the Waters and 20-Mule Team - 1937
To celebrate the opening of the Mt. Whitney to Death Valley road, a pageant was held in October, 1937 called the “Wedding of the Waters”. On the 29th, a Washoe tribal representative, Jerry Emm, filled a gourd with water from Lake Tulainyo at 12,865 feet, the highest lake in the continental U.S., and ran with it to Whitney Portal. From there, men impersonating Pony Express riders rode into Lone Pine in the Owens Valley where the gourd was deposited for the night in the safe at the Bank of America by TV cowboy Hopalong Cassidy.
In the morning, California Governor Merriam withdrew the gourd, handed it to Sam Ball, a 51-year prospector in the desert who walked his burro to a covered wagon, inside of which was Josephine Breen, a descendant of the Donner Party. She transferred it to the 20-mule team in the photo.
The team then took the gourd to a locomotive which then transfered it to a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, driven by Indianapolis car race winner Louie Meyer. Meyer drove the gourd to an air strip in the Panamint Valley. World War I pilot, Captain Carey flew the gourd to Furnace Creek, where he stopped to pick up the National Monument Superintendent T.R. Goodwin.
Finally, they flew to Badwater Basin, where Goodwin emptied the gourd, joining the waters of America’s highest lake with its lowest. Pillars of flame erupted from beside the pool, atop Telescope Peak, and at Dante’s View in celebration.
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Credit: Photographer: Curtis Phillips; Courtesy of County of Inyo, Eastern California Museum
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Credit: NPS/Ted Barone
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