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March 31, 2006
NYE COUNTY HISTORY The color, character of mining legend 'Shorty' HarrisBy BOB MCCRACKEN
Many of the mining people of Harris's generation had a wonderful characteristic way of speaking, delightfully blending enthusiasm, exaggeration and an upbeat view. This trait was especially pronounced in Harris. He was highly quotable and his language and thoughts survive in several published interviews where he was apparently quoted verbatim. About 15 years ago, I obtained copies of all the publications I could find where Harris was quoted directly. I assembled the quotes into a one-act play in which Shorty is the only character - Shorty alone in a "one man" show. In February 1993, a cast from UNLV presented the play to a full house at the visitor's center at Furnace Creek, Calif., as part of the 60th anniversary observance of Death Valley National Monument. Copies of the play were on sale at the visitor's center at Death Valley for several years, but eventually went out of print. There is talk that the Pahrump Historical Society might republish it. In what follows, I will give a brief overview of Shorty's life, and then provide a few passages from my play in words actually spoken by one of the West's most successful prospectors. Shorty Harris was born near Providence, R.I., in 1857 and died at Big Pine, Calif., in 1934 when he was 77. He was orphaned at the age of seven and rode the rails west at age 20 to seek his fortune. He gravitated toward mining and spent time at some of the most fabulous boom camps in the world: Leadville, Tombstone, Coeur d'Alene, Ballarat, Tonopah, Goldfield, and Rhyolite. These places had exalted, almost mythical status in the American psyche and drew many like Harris. Harris was shy by nature and diminutive in stature - he was barely 5'4" tall. Known to the local Indians as Short Man, he had a big, bushy mustache, blue eyes, big ears, and a weakness for whiskey - the Oh Be Joyful. Shorty is best remembered in Nye County as the co-discoverer of the gold in the green rock at Rhyolite, more accurately, Bullfrog, because the rock was the color of a bullfrog. What I love about Shorty Harris is his enthusiasm, his verve, and his indomitable spirit. In this quotation, Shorty is speaking to a visitor at his crumbling adobe cabin in the ghost town of Ballarat, Calif., on the east side of the Panamint Ridge. There is no other dwelling for miles. This is the setting for the entire play. "Well, haven't I got a dam' fine home? I wouldn't change places with the president of the United States. I've got something they can never take away. I step out of my cabin every morning and look it over - 100 miles outdoors. All mine! "Those fellows from the newspapers and magazines used to pester the hell out of me after I found the gold at Harrisburg and Rhyolite, and some other places. They wanted interviews. I usually tried to oblige. They don't come around so much anymore since those camps died." Next, Shorty describes the time he proposed marriage to a woman he was - secretly, we must suppose - in love with. "Speaking of wives ... I knew a girl in Ballarat by the name of Bessie Hart. She was a mighty fine woman and a good cook. No one in camp dared to pull any rough stuff around her - she was six feet tall, weighed 210 pounds, and could lick a husky man. I don't know why a little hammered-down fellow like me should fall in love with a woman like that - but I did just the same. "One day I was up at the Stone Corral sharpening picks in the blacksmith shop, and Bessie was blowing the bellows for me. Two of her best friends, Dean Harrison and Tom Walker, had gone to Tonopah, and she was missing them a lot, and I thought this would be a good chance for me. '"Miss Bessie,' I said, 'I guess you're kind of lonesome now since Dean and Tom are gone?' 'Oh, a little,' she said. '"Well now, we've been kind of friendly for several years, and since they aren't likely to come back, what's the matter with me and you getting married?' "She didn't say anything for a minute or two - just looked me over from head to foot - just gave me the top-and-bottom stuff, and I wondered if she was going to speak. '"Shorty,' she said finally, 'I like you. ... You're a good friend and a handy little fellow to play with. But you're too little for hard work.' "That was all I needed to show me that I was out of luck when it came to getting a wife, and I've never tried since! "But even if I've never been lucky at the game of love, I've had some good breaks when I was looking for gold." Next, Shorty describes how he discovered the gold at Rhyolite. (Ed Cross, with whom Shorty was traveling at the time, gave a different version of the discovery). "The best strike I ever made was in 1904, when I discovered the Rhyolite and Bullfrog district. I scorned Al Myer's advice to locate a claim on Goldfield Hill and headed south, prospecting along the way. When I reached Oasis Valley, I camped at Monte Beatty's ranch. Beatty was a squaw man pretty well known in these parts. '"I'm going to look at a rhyolite formation in the hills four miles west. It looks good - that hill,' I told him. '"Forget it,' Beatty said, 'I've combed every inch.' "I took his advice, skipped the trip, and headed out across the Amargosa Desert to Daylight Pass. But I didn't forget that country. I had a hunch Beatty could be wrong about that formation. Later I decided to go back. I went into Boundary Canyon with five burros and plenty of grub, figuring to look over the country northeast of there. When I stopped at Keene Wonder Mine, Ed Cross was there waiting for his partner, Frank Howard, to bring some supplies. For some reason Howard had been delayed, and Cross was low on grub. '"Shorty,' he said, 'I'm up against it, and the Lord knows when Howard will come back. How are chances of going with you?' '"Sure, come right along,' I told him. 'I've got enough to keep us eating for a couple of months.' "So we left the Keene Wonder, went through Boundary Canyon, and made camp at Buck Springs, about five miles from Beatty's ranch on the Amargosa. The next morning when Ed was cooking, I went after the burros. They were feeding on the side of a mountain near our camp, and about half a mile from the spring. I carried my pick, as all prospectors do, even when they are looking for their jacks - a man never knows just when he is going to locate pay-ore. When I reached the burros, they were right on the spot where the Bullfrog Mine was afterwards located. "Two hundred feet away was a ledge of rock with some copper stains on it. I walked over and broke off a piece with my pick - and gosh, I couldn't believe my own eyes. The chunks of gold were so big that I could see them at arm's length - regular jewelry stone! In fact, a lot of that ore was sent to jewelers in this country and England, and they set it in rings, it was that pretty! Specimens of my ore were used by Tiffany for ring settings, lavalieres, bracelets. It went to Paris and London. Ore broken from the ledge sold for $50 a pound. I must have given away thousands of dollars' worth of it for souvenirs. But right then it seemed to me that the whole mountain was gold. "I let out a yell, and Ed knew something had happened, so he came running up as fast as he could. When he got close enough to hear, I yelled again: '"Ed, we've got the world by the tail, or else we're coppered!'" Nowhere is Shorty's and most other prospectors' - indeed, most pioneers' - character and motivation expressed more clearly than in the following passage: "People have asked me, 'What is it about prospecting - you've got nothing to show for it.' It's the game, man - the game. "I've done good for a fellow like me. I've never wanted for anything. Just sittin' here talking to you, I'm losing a million dollars a day. My only regret is I didn't start sooner. When I go out, every time my foot touches the ground, I think, 'Before the sun goes down I'll be worth ten million dollars.' Think of the ledges of gold just setting there in the mountains waiting for me to find them. There's more gold in them hills than Uncle Sam has got in the mint." Shorty suggested the following for when his end came: "I do have one request, though. When I die, bury me beside old Jim Dayton down in Death Valley. Above me, write, 'Here lies Shorty Harris, a single blanket, jackass prospector.' Above the spot where I hole up forever, if you think about it, you might place a little wreath of athol and desert holly." You can visit Shorty's grave in Death Valley. McCracken is the author of A History of Pahrump, Nevada and 11 other books about Nye County published by the Nye County Press. Send questions and comments to rdmassociates@yahoo.com. |
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